Trump's Desperate Attempt to Bully the Fed

"When a respected public servant is being accused of wasting taxpayer dollars and lying to Congress by a president whose extravagant White House renovation has already doubled in cost in just three months, and whose inexhaustible capacity for lies has essentially broken every fact-checking medium, one almost wonders if the criminal allegation was chosen for its absurdity, to demonstrate that Donald Trump can make the law mean whatever he wants it to."

"Trump's gambit is more likely to fail than it is to succeed. Powell's term ends in four months, a timeline so brief that it wouldn't be hastened by even a well-founded criminal charge, which this is not. In theory, harassing Powell with trumped-up charges could intimidate him into backing down, but the Fed chair responded with a defiant statement. Republican Senator Thom Tillis vowed not to support any new nominees to the Federal Reserve board "until this legal matter is fully resolved.""

"And even if Trump were to manage to install sufficiently pliant figureheads at the agency, the Fed's demonstrable lack of independence would be apt to weaken its influence over monetary policy and make the economy worse, not better. What's more, Trump is gambling that his control over the Republican Party is so unshakable that he can extend his banana republicanism to a policy domain that matters deeply to his wealthy partisan allies."

The Trump administration opened a criminal investigation into Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell on flimsy, transparently hypocritical grounds. The allegation accuses Powell of wasting taxpayer dollars and lying to Congress while President Trump's own White House renovation costs have doubled in three months and his repeated falsehoods have overwhelmed fact-checkers. The charge appears intended to intimidate or demonstrate political power. Powell's term ends in four months, making removal unlikely, and the Fed chair responded defiantly. Senator Thom Tillis withheld support for new Fed nominees until the legal matter is resolved. Weakening Fed independence would likely harm monetary policy and the economy. Wealthy Republican elites tolerate authoritarianism because policy gains favor them.

Read at The Atlantic