Prosecutors working for Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. attorney for Washington, D.C., made an unannounced visit to the headquarters of the Federal Reserve on Tuesday.
Three officials from Pirro’s office arrived at the Fed's headquarters construction site in downtown Washington and said they wanted a “tour," Robert Hur, the central bank's outside counsel, told Pirro’s office in an email, which was seen by NBC News.
Pirro’s deputies also said they wanted to “check on progress” in the yearslong renovation of the Fed's historic buildings overlooking the National Mall, Hur said.
Hur indicated in his email Tuesday that investigators were turned away from the site. The attempted visit was first reported by The Wall Street Journal.
The surprise move by Pirro's office came as its investigation into Fed Chairman Jerome Powell’s congressional testimony last year about the Fed's renovation project has been rapidly losing steam.
The probe first broke into public view in January, when Powell announced that subpoenas had been served to the central bank.
“The threat of criminal charges is a consequence of the Federal Reserve setting interest rates based on our best assessment of what will serve the public, rather than following the preferences of the president,” Powell said in a Sunday night video statement in January.
On March 13, Judge James Boasberg, the chief judge of the U.S. District Court for Washington, D.C., agreed with Powell.
In a ruling, Boasberg blocked the subpoenas that Pirro’s office had served on the Fed, saying that “the Government has produced essentially zero evidence to suspect Chair Powell of a crime.”
On Tuesday, Hur pointed to Boasberg's ruling in his email.
"As you know, Chief Judge Boasberg has concluded that your interest in the Federal Reserve’s renovation project was pretextual," he wrote.
"Should you wish to challenge that finding, the courts provide an avenue for you; it is not appropriate for you to try to circumvent it."
Pirro lost a second attempt to revive the quashed subpoenas on April 3. Her office could appeal to a higher court, but it has not yet done so.
Hur concluded, "I ask that you commit not to seek to communicate with my client outside the presence of counsel.”
Pirro suggested in a statement Tuesday night that the investigators were justified in having tried to inspect the renovation project despite the judge's ruling.
“Any construction project that has cost overruns of almost 80% over the original construction budget deserves some serious review,” she said. “And these people are in charge of monetary policy in the United States?”
But the more immediate effect of Tuesday's visit will be to further complicate the Senate confirmation process for Kevin Warsh, President Donald Trump’s nominee to succeed Powell.
Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., says he will not vote to advance Warsh's nomination from the Senate Banking Committee until the Justice Department drops its probe of Powell and the renovations.
But in a coincidence that has already raised some eyebrows in Washington, Pirro's team visited the same day the Banking Committee announced the date of Warsh's confirmation hearing, next Tuesday.
Also Tuesday, the committee's chair, Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., said he was “very confident that the DOJ will wrap this up very soon."
"All evidence I've seen, all fingers point in the direction of having this wrapped up in the next few weeks," Scott said on Fox Business Network.
On Wednesday morning, Trump said on Fox Business Network that he wanted the probe to continue, and also indicated there were other motives at play other than finding criminal wrongdoing.
"It's more than a criminal probe, Trump said. "It's a criminal probe, I guess, but it's also probe into incompetence."
Trump continued, "So it is probably corrupt, but what it really is is incompetent, and we have to show the incompetence of that."
Trump also claimed that Powell "headed" the renovation "job."
However, the project was first approved by the board of the Fed in 2017, one year before Powell assumed the role of chair. The Office of Inspector General of the Federal Reserve has reviewed the project at least twice. Those reports did not find any wrongdoing.
As of Tuesday night, Warsh's confirmation vote was still blocked.
"Kevin's a perfect candidate, and that's why it's so frustrating that somebody in DOJ in February decided that they were going to maybe garner favor from somebody in the White House by trying to invoke a criminal investigation against Jerome Powell," Tillis told NBC News in an interview, also on Tuesday.
"I don't want to reward bad behavior," Tillis added. "Recognize there's not sufficient evidence to continue a criminal investigation, end it, and I will vote for Kevin Warsh."
Late Tuesday, Tillis posted a photo on social media of the Three Stooges with the caption "The U.S. Attorney’s Office for D.C. at the crime scene."
