President Donald Trump derailed his own administration's effort to investigate the Federal Reserve by incessantly posting political attacks against Chairman Jerome Powell on social media, Skye Perryman of Democracy Forward argued on MS NOW's "The Weeknight" Friday — effectively handing U.S. District Judge James Boasberg proof that the probe was politically motivated.
The probe, conducted by D.C. U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro, was ostensibly about mismanaging money to renovate the Fed headquarters — but, the MS NOW panel concluded, Trump gave the game away that it was about trying to bully the Fed into lowering interest rates beyond what their governors thought prudent.
"I want folks to look at literally a Truth Social post from the President of the United States just yesterday," said anchor Vaughn Hillyard. "Quote: 'Where is the Federal Reserve Chairman, Jerome 'Too Late' Powell today? He should be dropping interest rates, IMMEDIATELY, not waiting for the next meeting!' This goes to the heart of Judge Boasberg's argument ... as somebody who has been a part of these legal battles against the Trump administration, how will potential other defendants be able to use the ruling from Judge Boasberg?"
"We have a saying around our team at Democracy Forward," said Perryman. "We're in court literally every day where we say, let them keep talking, let them keep tweeting."
"That's what you see in Judge Boasberg's ruling," she continued. "It's a rare ruling, but this is a rare circumstance where you have the President of the United States, who is constantly, constantly trying to seek retribution against against Jerome Powell, against others. And so you have him drawing out — there's, there's pages and pages in the opinion of all of the things that the president has said."
"So this is just the latest rebuke of the administration and this retribution agenda, which is totally it's an improper purpose for the purposes of this subpoena, but it's also totally unconstitutional for a number of reasons," Perryman added. "I also think it's important to just remind everyone, like, if this went to a grand jury, this president has not been able, in this Department of Justice, has not been able to prevail in front of grand juries, even on a number of issues, right? Because because they're really trying to, to, to push a retribution agenda, as opposed to try to push justice in the law."