US Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro announces charges in connection with an international car theft ring during a press conference at the Department of Justice in Washington, DC, US, on April 22, 2026.
Nathan Howard | reuters
A federal judge in Washington on Thursday rejected a prosecutor’s request to expunge the government’s legal damages records in its effort to investigate former Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell.
Chief Judge James E. Boasberg, in a scathing order for the D.C. Circuit, replete with media quotes and links to YouTube clips, rejected a motion by U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro’s office to vacate his earlier rulings that went against Pirro.
The latest developments involve a months-long legal saga in which Boasberg blocked aspects of Pirro’s investigation into the Feds. In March Boasberg quashed a pair of subpoenas issued by Pirro because, he ruled, Pirro’s effort was at least partly aimed at “harassing and pressuring Powell” on behalf of the president, who wanted lower interest rates.
In April Pirro agreed to drop the investigation of Powell under pressure from Republican Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina. Tillis lifted the Senate’s hold on the confirmation of Kevin Wersh, Trump’s nominee to replace Powell as leader of the Fed. Wersh was confirmed in May and will chair his first meeting of the Fed’s rate-setting committee next week.
Powell resigned as Fed Chairman as required by law but chose to retain his separate seat on the Fed’s board. He wanted to make sure that the legal threat to the Feds was truly over, even though Pirro said he had dropped the investigation.
A in Boasberg sharp order on thursday Powell appeared sympathetic to the view that the legal threat to the Fed would not have actually ended with Pirro’s decision to drop the investigation. Pirro said she could reopen the investigation if she wanted.
“It sounds like you’re going to keep trying to learn more,” CNN host Jake Tapper said. told Piro in an interview. Boasberg wrote, “Pirro essentially confirmed that interpretation.”
Despite efforts by prosecutors to keep the arguments confined to the courtroom, Boasberg drew on evidence from what Pirro and President Donald Trump had said in the press. Boasberg’s orders were merely “using the President’s explicit statements as evidence of what his representatives wanted,” he wrote.
Boasberg wrote that Pirro’s legal reasoning in the wake of his decision was “flaky”, first promising to appeal, and then switching to the “curious” tactic of asking him to vacate his earlier rulings after the investigation was over. Boasberg’s latest order denied that motion to vacate.
Boasberg’s initial decision had found that although a prosecutor should generally be allowed to issue grand jury subpoenas on minimal suspicion, evidence that those subpoenas may be part of a campaign of political harassment may allow the investigation to proceed. Pirro’s motion to vacate would vacate that decision.
Boasberg wrote, “If the government gets its way here, any party that loses a case in court could toss the case, wipe out an adverse judgment, and prevent the accumulation and refinement of precedents on which our legal system depends.”
As a lower court judge, Boasberg’s decisions do not necessarily set precedent, he said. But his “argument still provides a benefit to the public that other parties and judges can take advantage of.”
The Fed declined to comment. A spokesperson for Pirro did not immediately respond to questions about Boasberg’s order and whether she could still try to appeal.
