Courtesy of Pam Martens
Jerome Powell Is Sworn In As Federal Reserve Chairman on February 5, 2018 by Fed Vice Chairman Randal Quarles. (Official White House Photo.)
By Pam Martens and Russ Martens
What good is being the President of the most powerful nation on earth if you can’t humiliate people on Twitter and fire them if they refuse to do your bidding (even if the law mandates their independence from politics.) This appears to be the thinking of Donald Trump, the sitting President of the United States. The Chairman of the Federal Reserve, Jerome Powell, is the latest person to come into the President’s cross-hairs.
Yesterday, Bloomberg News broke the story that “In February, the White House counsel’s office examined the legality of stripping Powell of his chairmanship and leaving him as a Fed governor.” The review of Trump’s legal options occurred “as the president repeatedly expressed public frustration with the Fed’s interest-rate increases,” according to the article.
In an interview with the Washington Post last November, Trump said he was “not even a little bit happy” with Powell, adding that “I’m doing deals and I’m not being accommodated by the Fed…They’re making a mistake because I have a gut and my gut tells me more sometimes than anybody else’s brain can ever tell me.”
Today, Powell will hold a press conference at 2:30 p.m. following the 2:00 p.m. statement from the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) on the Fed’s interest rate action and future outlook. Expect lots of questions from reporters on whether the Fed’s legal department thinks the President has the power to fire the Chairman of the Fed.
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