A top White House official on Wednesday claimed Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell could lose his job over his allegedly “deceptive” testimony to Congress over the central bank’s lavish $2.5 billion revamp of its DC headquarters.
Federal Housing Finance Agency Director William Pulte, who is also chairman of the two US-backed mortgage lenders Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, demanded that Powell be probed by lawmakers and suggested he could even be fired by President Trump.
“I am asking Congress to investigate Chairman Jerome Powell, his political bias, and his deceptive Senate testimony, which is enough to be removed ‘for cause’, Pulte said in a leaked statement obtained by The Post.
“Jerome Powell’s $2.5B Building Renovation Scandal stinks to high heaven, and he lied when asked about the specifics before Congress. This is nothing short of malfeasance,” the 37-year-old former journalist and private equity titan added.
Powell has already been heavily criticized by President Trump this week, who took the unusual step of sending him a handwritten note urging him to cut interest rates.
Pulte’s call for the Congressional probe comes one week after the Fed chair’s appearance before the Senate Banking Committee in which he denied The Post’s exclusive reporting about the renovations that have been likened by Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) to the “Palace of Versailles.”
“There’s no VIP dining room, there’s no new marble. There are no special elevators,” Powell insisted under questioning from the powerful panel on Wednesday. “There are no new water features, there’s no beehives, and there’s no roof terrace gardens,” Powell said during the grilling by lawmakers.
The 72-year-old’s testimony sparked outrage because they directly contradicted the Fed’s own planning documents that were signed off by US government pen pushers in 2021 and have not been revised since.
“The private dining rooms on Level 4 (of the Fed’s Eccles building) will be restored,” reads one excerpt from the filing with the National Capital Planning Commission. “The Governors’ private elevator will be extended to discharge at the dining suite level.”
The documents also expressly mention “vegetated roof terraces” that will welcome “urban wildlife and pollinators” as well as new marble and water features.
A Post editorial published on Tuesday hit out at Powell over “his privileged arrogance” in the way he spoke to the committee.
He also appeared to dismiss concerns that the revamp was being subsidized by American taxpayers in Wednesday’s hearing, saying simply that “the cost overruns are what they are.”
The eye-watering price tag for the overhaul has already ballooned by 30% from an original estimate of $1.9 billion.
After The Post broke the story in April about the Fed’s reckless spending on the HQ upgrade, former Department of Government Efficiency chief Elon Musk called the news “an eyebrow raiser.”
The Tesla titan, who has since left government, said DOGE should “definitely” investigate how so much money came to be blown on the glorified vanity project.
By comparison, JPMorgan’s new headquarters in Midtown Manhattan — a luxe, 60-story tower at 270 Park Ave. designed by star architect Norman Foster — is set to cost an estimated $3 billion.
The revelations are controversial at a time when the Fed is struggling with mounting losses, which stand at a total of $233 billion from the past three years.
Its interest costs surged and outstripped its earnings on bonds it owns when Powell hiked rates in trying to tame rampant inflation during the Biden administration.
It sank into the red for the first time in its history, posting losses of $114.6 billion in 2023. Officials there insist that losing money in no way impacts their ability to operate and conduct monetary policy.
When the Fed makes a profit, that money is passed on to the US Treasury to become part of the federal government’s budget.
The losses are bundled together in what is known as the Fed’s “deferred asset” that it must pay down before money can be spent on other things, such as defense, education and Medicare.
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