Trump DOJ Issues Grand Jury Subpoenas to Fed Chair Powell Over Renovation Testimony

U.S. presidents have leaned on the Fed before—Richard Nixon infamously pressed Arthur Burns ahead of the 1972 election—but no administration has deployed criminal subpoenas against a chair since Andrew Jackson weaponised the Treasury in 1833 to dismantle the Second Bank. The episode underscores a global, decades-long drift toward executive encroachment on nominally independent monetary authorities, from Erdogan’s Turkey to Modi’s India, now reaching the world’s reserve-currency issuer. Whether the gambit succeeds matters far beyond today’s market jitters: credibility won by the 1951 Treasury-Fed Accord and 1980s Volcker disinflation underpins the dollar’s hegemonic status. If that firewall erodes, future Congresses—or creditors—could rewrite the last century’s assumption that U.S. debt is backed by apolitical monetary stewardship.