Tip Sheets
Fed investigation a ‘misuse of office by Trump’, says Cornell Law expert
January 12, 2026
Media Contact
In a video statement Sunday night, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell described the DOJ’s investigation into his testimony last summer about the central bank’s building-renovation project as another attempt by President Trump to pressure the Fed to lower interest rates and end the independence of the central bank.
Robert Hockett, professor of law and public finance at Cornell Law School, says this investigation is a criminal misuse of office by the president.
Robert Hockett
Professor of Law
“This 'investigation' of course will go nowhere. Trump's aim isn't to prosecute crimes or do justice; it is to terrify the next Fed Chair out of ever defying Trump on monetary policy as Powell has successfully done multiple times now in keeping with his present Congressionally prescribed mandate.
“This is yet another lawless - indeed criminal - misuse of office by Trump. The only fitting response to it right now is to follow Republican Senator Tom Tillis's lead and announce in advance that no future Trump nomination to the Fed will even be so much as considered, let alone voted on and confirmed.
“One can certainly disagree with the present contours of Fed authority - as many of those now denouncing Trump do. But the branch charged with changing Fed functions is the branch that assigned them in the first place - Congress, not the White House - and even then, only through constitutionally prescribed legislative means, not the lawless deployment of criminal law.”
