White House presses Powell to give up his Fed board seat

National Economic Council director Kevin Hassett called on former Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell to resign from the central bank’s board of governors^2,6. Hassett said Powell should move on, and framed the step as a way to preserve the Fed’s independence⁴. He described Powell’s extended stay on the board as unprecedented⁹. Hassett made the case in a Sunday television interview that also covered inflation⁴. President Donald Trump went further, saying Powell should be forced to resign from the board⁵.

The push followed an internal report on the renovation of the Fed’s headquarters, which reignited the dispute over the project^2,3. The central bank’s inspector general found no crimes in the cost overrun, put at $2.4 billion, but did identify management lapses¹. Attorney General Todd Blanche said on Friday that the Justice Department would not reopen a criminal investigation on the basis of those findings⁷. The department has confirmed that the case against Powell will not be revived⁸.

Why it matters to investors

Powell no longer runs the Fed. Kevin Warsh is the current chair⁹. What is being contested is a seat on the board of governors, and with it the question of whether an administration can talk a serving Fed official out of office^2,5. The stated reason is not misconduct but duration: in Hassett’s account, the length of Powell’s board tenure is itself the problem⁹.

The legal track has narrowed rather than widened. The watchdog recorded management failures and no criminal conduct in the headquarters overrun¹, and the Justice Department has declined to reopen its inquiry⁸. That leaves public pressure as the active instrument, and it is being applied by the president’s chief economic adviser and by the president himself^5,6. A renovation cost dispute has become the stated grounds for a personnel demand³.

What to watch

Three threads are open. The first is Powell’s own position: the resignation calls are on the record, and no response from him appears in this reporting^2,9. The second is the renovation file, now closed as a criminal matter by both the inspector general and the Justice Department^1,8. The third is the escalation in language, which moved from Hassett’s call for Powell to move on to Trump’s claim that he should be forced out, inside a single weekend^4,5.