Trump administration furious with Powell for blowing millions on Fed facelift

During Trump’s first administration, he installed Jerome Powell as the Fed Chair, which was duplicated by Joe Biden.

Now, however, Trump is at war with Powell.

That temperature just got kicked up a few notches, as some recent information has come to light that has administration officials up in arms.

The letter is ready

Late last week, a report surfaced that Trump had drafted a letter to send to Powell to inform him that he was getting fired.

When the report surfaced, Trump played it off, stating, “I talked about the concept of firing him. I said, ‘what do you think?’ Almost every one of them said I should.”

This is typical of what Trump loves to do when it comes to something controversial.

Information is purposely leaked to get a public feel of how everyone would react to his actions, at which point he makes his final decision.

Should I fire him?

Trump ran the idea past Republicans in Congress to see if he would have enough support to fire Powell, but this is a very complicated issue, especially legally.

Powell has made it quite clear that if Trump did decide to fire him, he would sue to keep his position.

Point being, if Trump made that move, it would likely be blocked in the lower courts, as precedent and current laws are more on Powell’s side than Trump’s.

Powell can only be “fired” for cause, which would be a bit tough for Trump to prove since Powell, technically, has done nothing wrong, even though Trump disagrees with him not lowering federal rates over the tariff wars.

Outraged

To my last point, perhaps Powell just provided Trump with the “cause” he needs after a Trump official came forward regarding a massive facelift for the fed.

Housing and Urban Development Secretary Scott Turner stated, "It’s rich that an unelected bureaucrat like Powell is wasting billions of taxpayer dollars on building renovations while Americans struggle to buy homes due to high mortgage rates, which are directly impacted by his refusal to lower interest rates.”

He continued, "HUD’s move isn’t about me – our workforce deserves to be in a building that is safe and that fits our workforce. NSF was never able to fully fill their building to occupancy and will move into a building that best fits their workforce. Instead of spending nearly a half-billion dollars on renovating 10 floors of basement with perpetual leaks, HUD and GSA are saving the taxpayers money – something that Chairman Powell, sitting in his ivory tower, thinks he is above – and putting Americans first.”

Powell cannot spend that money without approval, as the funds were likely congressionally approved. Even so, this, to me, appears to be the groundwork being laid to give Trump more options. Don’t be surprised to see Trump act on it and try to remove Powell if he refuses to drop the rate upon the next review.