Why Powell won’t say if he is staying on the Fed board
Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. For the fourth time since summer, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell declined Wednesday to say whether he will remain on the central bank’s board after his chairmanship ends May 15. “Again, I don’t want to get into this," Powell said at a news conference after the Fed’s latest meeting.
The answer never changes. That is the point. Powell has this option because of a quirk of Fed governance.
Chairs are confirmed to two posts: a four-year term as chair and a separate 14-year term as governor. Most leave when their chairmanship ends, but they don’t have to. Powell’s governor seat doesn’t expire until 2028.
Powell’s decision is the last and only card he holds against an administration that has spent months trying to pressure the Fed. The grand jury subpoenas served on the central bank earlier this month have only strengthened his reasons not to show it. The Justice Department investigation nominally concerns Powell’s congressional testimony last summer about the Fed’s $2.5 billion headquarters renovation.
Powell has said it is really about interest rates—part of the administration’s pressure campaign to cut them faster, as Trump has repeatedly demanded. People who know Powell well say that, after nearly 14 years at the Fed and eight years as chair, he is more than ready to return to private life. But the timing of the investigation has trapped him.
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