“DoJ declines to reopen investigation into former Fed chair Jay Powell”

What actually happened

The US justice department confirmed it will not reopen its criminal probe into Jerome Powell over the Fed's headquarters renovation, after the Fed's inspector general found no grounds for a criminal referral. Attorney General Todd Blanche told Bloomberg News, which broke the story, that mismanagement is not automatically criminal, while explicitly leaving room to investigate later if a new independent audit turns up evidence of wrongdoing.

Key facts

• "We closed that criminal investigation, as you know, and we're not reopening a criminal investigation into him," Blanche said, confirming the DoJ's closed stance.
• The Fed's Office of Inspector General found significant oversight failures and project management deficiencies but concluded this did not rise to the level of criminal misconduct, stating it found no reasonable grounds to believe a violation of federal criminal law had occurred requiring referral to the Attorney General.
• The inspector general did fault the Fed's management of the project, which saw costs more than double from initial estimates, prompting Fed chair Kevin Warsh to commission a separate, independent audit.
• The renovation cost ballooned from $1.9 billion to roughly $2.5 billion.
• Trump had asked Blanche to review the Fed watchdog's findings and decide "what to do" about Powell, and separately called for Powell to be forced to resign after the IG report landed.

What to watch for

The real test now is Warsh's independent audit: Blanche told Bloomberg that if the new review finds any evidence of criminal wrongdoing, the Justice Department could investigate. Watch whether coverage of that audit's eventual findings gets similarly even-handed treatment, or whether a politically charged result gets framed harder in either direction.