U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro appeared Sunday to abandon plans to appeal a federal judge's ruling that blocked her attempts to criminally investigate Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell.
Pirro had long stated she intended to ask a higher court to review rulings by Chief Judge James Boasberg of the D.C. District Court, who quashed her office's subpoenas to the Fed. Her deadline to file that appeal was Monday. Instead, she announced a different move.
"We're going to make a motion to vacate the order of Judge Boasberg, because we think it's extremely important for us as prosecutors, the precedent that it sets to prevent us from going into a grand jury," Pirro said on CNN's "State of the Union."
The original subpoenas demanded that the Fed hand over evidence related to cost overruns in its building renovations. By pivoting away from an appeal, Pirro appears to be dropping that specific demand. Her office did not respond to requests for comment.
Legal experts questioned whether her new approach would succeed. Former Assistant U.S. Attorney Sean P. Murphy described a motion to vacate as "essentially asking the judge to just pretend something never happened." Murphy added that he did not think Pirro had standing to erase the record of a DOJ loss in the Fed investigation the way she might in a criminal conviction case. He pointed to Pirro's recent use of a similar motion to vacate the convictions of Proud Boys and Oath Keepers members in cases related to January 6, noting that context was legally different.
Boasberg originally ruled against Pirro because her office presented no specific evidence of wrongdoing. In his ruling, the judge found substantial signs that the investigation was designed to pressure Powell over his resistance to President Donald Trump's demands that the Fed rapidly cut interest rates. "A mountain of evidence suggests that the government served these subpoenas on the board to pressure its chair into voting for lower interest rates or resigning," Boasberg wrote.
The legal maneuvering carries broader implications for the Fed's leadership. Powell said Wednesday that he would remain on the Fed's board after his term as chair expires, until he was satisfied the legal threat to the institution had been resolved. The Fed declined to comment on Pirro's latest move.
The shift also raises procedural questions. Appeals from DOJ offices normally require approval from a senior department official because of the precedents they can set. It was not clear whether Pirro had obtained that sign-off before announcing her intent to appeal, or what authority she is relying on for the vacate motion.
Pirro has said she will reopen the investigation if she believes it is warranted, and that she is waiting on a report from Fed Inspector General Michael Horowitz. She declined to commit to ending the investigation permanently even if Horowitz finds no criminal wrongdoing. What precisely she would ask the court to vacate, and on what grounds, also remained unclear as of Sunday.
