Powell did not break the law with expensive Fed renovations that incensed Trump, report finds

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An inspector general review of the Federal Reserve’s headquarters renovation found no sign that then-Chair Jerome Powell broke the law or committed misconduct in his management of the costly project, even as it sharply criticized him and the central bank’s board for allowing the price tag to balloon beyond $2 billion.

The conclusions released Wednesday undercut President Donald Trump and his allies’ accusations that Powell had been criminally negligent in his oversight of the renovations — a charge that Trump seized on as part of a monthslong bid to pressure Powell to resign.

“We did not find reasonable grounds to believe that a violation of federal criminal law had occurred and did not identify violations of Board policy warranting an administrative misconduct finding,” the Fed’s inspector general wrote in the 120-page report on the renovations.

The report follows a yearlong investigation into a renovation project that has seen its total cost nearly double from initial estimates in 2020, the inspector general found, with the Fed now budgeting roughly $2.4 billion for the project.

Fed Chair Kevin Warsh , who took over the top post in May, concurred with the review’s findings in a separate letter to the inspector general. He also committed to conducting an independent audit of the project’s contractor. A Federal Reserve spokespesron declined to comment beyond the contents of Warsh’s letter.

Trump, who had soured on Powell over his refusal to lower interest rates despite nominating him to the position in 2017, had highlighted the cost overruns in a series of attacks on the then-chair last spring. At one point, he personally visited the Fed headquarters to inspect the renovations, putting the tensions between the two men on full display. During that visit, Powell even fact-checked Trump’s cost estimates in real time before the cameras.

The criticism prompted congressional scrutiny and spurred the Justice Department to briefly open a criminal probe into Powell, before suspending it amid intense backlash from some Republican lawmakers.

Yet while the inspector general report dismissed the most serious accusations levied against Powell, it faulted the Fed’s board for mismanaging the renovations project at several points, concluding that it “could have better controlled costs and mitigated some of the significant construction cost increases.”

The project was troubled from the beginning, the review found, with the board failing to set price caps or ensure that firms bidding on the construction submitted estimates for how much it would cost them to complete the total renovation.

The Fed board also did not monitor the project’s day-to-day developments closely enough, the inspector general wrote, and at one point decided against seeking more competitive bids for elements of the project in order to “keep the project moving.”

“We also found it concerning that a project of this magnitude had no formally established success measures to monitor the project’s progress,” the report said, later concluding that “the Board did not take numerous actions available to it that could have better controlled costs and mitigated some of the significant construction cost increases.”

However, one heavily scrutinized aspect of the renovations did not drive the cost overruns, the report found: The water fountains, marble restoration and other flourishes that Trump and congressional Republicans had highlighted as evidence of the Fed’s largess.

“These initial design plans included certain design features that have been highlighted and questioned by members of Congress and other external stakeholders,” the report said. “We did not find that these design features materially contributed to the substantial construction cost increases.”

The report did not blame Powell or any individual Fed board governors for the shortcomings, describing a process that was instead managed largely by a web of committees inside the central bank.

But the inspector general recommended that the Fed’s board take seven corrective actions, including launching an audit of the project and a search within its existing contracts for costs that might be recouped.

Warsh in his letter agreed to implement all of those recommendations, pointing to the necessity “of completing the work in the most efficient and transparent way possible.”

He also disclosed that he had already asked the Government Services Administration to examine the project and help oversee the completion of the renovations — a notable step that effectively involves a federal agency in the activities of the independent central bank.

The president has faced ongoing scrutiny over the price tags of his own set of renovation projects at the White House and across Washington. Most notably, he’s overseeing the construction of a White House ballroom that has already far exceeded its initial $200 million estimate, with the administration offering little clarity on how it’s covering those additional costs.

The report appears to close perhaps the most striking chapter in Trump’s long-running efforts to influence the Federal Reserve and its decision-making, which included targeting Powell and separate attempts to remove Fed board member Lisa Cook.

Trump has also frequently pressed the Fed in public to slash interest rates, breaking with previous presidents’ reluctance to meddle with the central bank’s independence. That has continued since Warsh took over in May, even as the Fed has since moved to raise interest rates. While Trump expressed frustration with the decision, he has so far declined to personally target Warsh.

Powell stepped down as Fed chair in May when his term expired but took the rare step of remaining on the central bank’s powerful board of governors . Powell explained his decision by citing “the series of legal attacks on the Fed which threaten our ability to conduct monetary policy without considering political factors.”

“I had long planned to be retiring,” Powell told reporters in late April. “The things that have happened really in the last three months have, I think, left me no choice but to stay until I see them through.” Powell added that he would not leave the Fed board until the investigation was “well and truly over with transparency and finality.”

Jeanine Pirro, the US attorney for the District of Columbia, dropped an extraordinary criminal investigation into Powell in April. However, Pirro said her office would review the inspector general report and indicated the criminal probe could be restarted, if warranted.

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监察长对美联储总部翻新工程的审查发现，没有迹象表明时任主席杰罗姆·鲍威尔在管理这项耗资巨大的项目时违反了法律或存在不当行为，尽管审查严厉批评了他和央行董事会允许项目成本飙升至 20 亿美元以上。

周三公布的调查结果削弱了唐纳德·特朗普总统及其盟友对鲍威尔的指控，即鲍威尔在监督翻修工程时存在刑事过失——特朗普抓住这一指控，进行了长达数月的施压，试图迫使鲍威尔辞职。

“我们没有发现合理的理由相信发生了违反联邦刑法的行为，也没有发现违反董事会政策的行为，因此没有构成行政不当行为，”美联储监察长在关于此次翻新工程的 120 页报告中写道。

这份报告是在对一项翻新工程进行长达一年的调查后发布的。监察长发现，该工程的总成本比 2020 年的最初估计值几乎翻了一番，美联储目前为该项目拨款约 24 亿美元。

美联储主席凯文·沃什于今年5月上任，他在致监察长的另一封信中表示同意审查结果。他还承诺对该项目承包商进行独立审计。美联储发言人拒绝就沃什信函内容之外的内容发表评论。

特朗普对鲍威尔心生不满，因为鲍威尔拒绝降息，尽管他在2017年提名鲍威尔担任美联储主席。去年春天，特朗普在一系列攻击鲍威尔的言论中，着重强调了美联储的成本超支问题。他甚至亲自前往美联储总部视察翻修工程，将两人之间的紧张关系暴露无遗。在那次视察期间，鲍威尔甚至当着镜头当场核实了特朗普的成本估算。

这些批评引发了国会的审查，并促使司法部短暂地对鲍威尔展开刑事调查，但在一些共和党议员的强烈反对下，司法部暂停了调查。

虽然监察长报告驳回了针对鲍威尔的最严重指控，但它批评美联储理事会在多个方面对翻新工程管理不善，并得出结论，认为美联储“本可以更好地控制成本，并减轻一些重大的建设成本增长”。

审查发现，该项目从一开始就问题重重，董事会未能设定价格上限，也未能确保参与施工投标的公司提交完成整个翻新工程所需的费用估算。

监察长写道，美联储理事会也没有足够密切地监控该项目的日常进展，并且一度决定不就该项目的某些部分寻求更具竞争力的投标，以便“保持项目进展”。

报告称：“我们还发现，如此规模的项目竟然没有正式制定的成功衡量标准来监测项目进展，这令人担忧。”报告随后得出结论：“董事会没有采取许多可行的措施来更好地控制成本，并减轻一些重大的建设成本增长。”

然而，报告发现，翻新工程中一个备受关注的方面并没有导致成本超支：那就是特朗普和国会共和党人强调的，美联储慷慨解囊的证据——喷泉、大理石修复和其他装饰。

报告指出：“这些初步设计方案中包含一些设计特点，这些特点受到了国会议员和其他外部利益相关者的关注和质疑。我们并未发现这些设计特点是造成建设成本大幅增加的实质性原因。”

该报告没有指责鲍威尔或美联储任何一位理事，而是描述了一个主要由央行内部多个委员会管理的流程。

但监察长建议美联储理事会采取七项纠正措施，包括对该项目进行审计，并在其现有合同中查找可能收回的成本。

沃什在信中同意实施所有这些建议，并指出“必须以最有效、最透明的方式完成这项工作”。

他还透露，他已经要求政府服务管理局审查该项目并协助监督翻新工程的完成——这是一个值得注意的举措，实际上让一个联邦机构参与到独立中央银行的活动中。

总统因其在白宫和华盛顿各地推行的一系列翻修工程的巨额费用而持续受到关注。其中最引人注目的是，他正在监督建造一座白宫宴会厅，该项目目前的造价已远远超出最初2亿美元的预算，而政府方面对于如何支付这些额外费用却鲜有说明。

这份报告似乎为特朗普长期以来试图影响美联储及其决策的努力中最引人注目的一章画上了句号，这些努力包括针对鲍威尔以及试图罢免美联储理事丽莎·库克。

特朗普还多次公开敦促美联储大幅降息，这打破了以往总统不愿干预央行独立性的惯例。自沃什5月接任美联储主席以来，特朗普的施压仍在继续，尽管美联储此后已开始加息。虽然特朗普对美联储的决定表示不满，但他迄今为止尚未对沃什本人进行直接批评。

鲍威尔在5月份任期届满后卸任美联储主席，但他罕见地选择继续留在美联储权力巨大的理事会中。鲍威尔解释说，他做出这一决定是因为“一系列针对美联储的法律攻击威胁到我们在不考虑政治因素的情况下实施货币政策的能力”。

“我早就计划退休了，”鲍威尔在四月下旬告诉记者。“但过去三个月发生的事情，我认为让我别无选择，只能留下来直到事情解决。”鲍威尔补充说，在调查“彻底结束，并且透明、最终定论”之前，他不会离开美联储理事会。

美国哥伦比亚特区检察官珍妮·皮罗于四月终止了对鲍威尔的非同寻常的刑事调查。不过，皮罗表示，她的办公室将审查监察长报告，并暗示如有必要，可能会重启刑事调查。