Pirro files to vacate her investigation of Fed’s Powell

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U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro on Sunday appeared to abandon a plan to appeal an adverse ruling in her attempts to criminally investigate Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell.

Pirro has long said she planned to ask a higher court to review recent rulings by Chief Judge James Boasberg of the District of Columbia quashing her subpoenas to the Fed. She has argued that the judge’s decision makes it difficult for her to conduct grand jury investigations in general. Her appeal was due by Monday.

Pirro appeared to change tack in an appearance on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

“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.

The appeal would have sought to reinstate Pirro’s legal demand that the Fed hand over evidence related to cost overruns in its building renovations. By shifting to a different legal strategy, Pirro seems to be dropping that demand.

Pirro’s office didn’t respond to requests for comment.

It wasn’t immediately clear what precisely Pirro would be asking the court to vacate, or on what grounds.

“A motion to vacate is essentially asking the judge to just pretend something never happened,” former Assistant U.S. Attorney Sean P. Murphy said.

Pirro recently filed such a motion to vacate the convictions of members of the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers in cases related to the events of Jan. 6, 2020. That motion would erase the convictions of the people involved.

“The key difference is that I don’t think she has standing to just erase the record of a DOJ loss like that” in the Fed investigation, Murphy said.

The Fed declined to comment.

Boasberg ruled against Pirro because her office presented no specific evidence of wrongdoing, while there were substantial signs that the investigation was intended to harass Powell over his defiance of President Donald Trump’s demands that the Fed chief 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.

Appeals normally require approval from a top Department of Justice official because they can create precedents that work against the DOJ. It wasn’t clear if Pirro ever got that sign-off.

The possibility of an appeal has been a contentious issue for the Fed because it runs counter to Pirro’s assertion that she has dropped her case. Powell on Wednesday said he would remain on the Fed’s board after his term as chair expired until he was convinced the legal threat to the Fed was resolved.

Pirro has said she will reopen the investigation if she believes it is warranted and is awaiting a report by Fed Inspector General Michael Horowitz. She declined to commit to ending the investigation if Horowitz finds no criminal wrongdoing.

Pirro said she wants Horowitz to move forward because Boasberg blocked her investigation. “You have the ability to talk to witnesses,” she said of Horowitz. “I have been foreclosed from doing that, and we continue to litigate the issue.”