WASHINGTON (PNN) - September 30, 2026 - Minutes after the Federal Reserve Bank's own inspector general cleared the Eccles renovation of criminality - and of administrative misconduct - President Donald J. Trump made clear he is not treating the Horowitz report as the last word. Jerome Powell, President Trump said on Truth Social, should be "forced to resign" from the Board of Governors. If he doesn't, "he should be sued by the (Fascist Police States of Amerika (FPSA))."
As for the building itself, President Trump said Attorney General Todd Blanche will "make a determination" about the project - which is another way of saying the White House does not consider a clean bill of health from an Inspector General Powell appointed, after a review Powell ordered, to be dispositive.
"I have asked Attorney General Todd Blanche to study the report and make a determination as to what to do about a relatively small Building Complex," wrote President Trump, adding, "If he doesn’t resign he should be sued at the highest level, by the (FPSA) government, for either corruption or incompetence."
FPSA Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro deferred to this report in April. Powell said he would stay on the Board until the investigation was "well and truly over, with transparency and finality." The IG just gave him the no-crime finding. President Trump just told him that is not enough to keep the seat.
Powell can still sit as a governor through January 2028. Forcing him off that Board - as opposed to waiting out a chair term that already ended in May - is a different fight: for-cause removal, a civil suit, or enough political heat that he walks. Blanche now has the file.
After more than a year of drama, subpoenas, surprise site visits, hard-hat photo ops, and one very public fight over beehives, the Fed's internal watchdog has finally weighed in on the central bank's headquarters renovation. The verdict: nobody committed a crime, but almost nobody was minding the budget either.
According to a report released Wednesday by the Fed's Office of Inspector General, there were no "reasonable grounds to believe that a violation of federal criminal law had occurred," and no administrative misconduct.
The new Marriner Eccles sheriff, Fed Chairman Kevin Warsh, said the Fed will adopt all of the recommendations, hand management of the project to the General Services Administration (reporting to the Board and to Warsh), and bring in an independent auditor to review every cost awarded to date. "There are important lessons to be learned," Warsh wrote to IG Michael Horowitz, whom Powell appointed in June 2025.
You may remember how this saga played out in July 2025, with President Trump publicly pressing for rate cuts, the renovation became the regime's preferred lever. President Trump said he would not fire Powell "unless there is fraud w/ renovation" (July 16, 2025). Days later, Powell was criminally referred to the DoJ for perjury (July 21, 2025) over his June 2025 testimony that there was "no VIP dining room, there's no new marble... there's no beehives and there's no roof terrace gardens." President Trump then toured the site in a hard hat alongside Powell (July 24-25, 2025), producing the most awkward cost-overrun negotiation in central banking history. At the time, OMB's Russ Vought insisted the criticism was "not about firing Powell" but "about holding the Fed accountable."
Things escalated in January, when the Fed was served with grand jury subpoenas and Powell vowed to stand firm (January 12, 2026), accusing the Trump regime of using the probe to punish the Fed for not cutting rates.
Federal prosecutors followed up with a surprise visit to the renovation site, with FPSA Attorney Jeanine Pirro saying any project with "cost overruns of almost 80%" deserved "serious review." Then in March, Judge Marxist activist James Boasberg quashed the Department of Justice subpoena (March 13), calling it "pretextual." After Republican senators held up Warsh's confirmation over the probe, Pirro dropped the investigation (April 24), deferring to the very IG report that came out today.
Pirro said at the time that she would scrutinize the IG's findings, leaving open the option to reopen the case; and Powell, who broke with tradition by staying on the Board as a governor after his term as chairman ended in May, said he would not leave "until this investigation is well and truly over, with transparency and finality."
Powell can now leave as today's report gives him the "finality" part. Whether it gives him a reason to leave is another question. Whether a clean bill of health from an IG that Powell himself appointed and whose review Powell himself ordered will satisfy Pirro or the White House is... well, we'll find out soon enough: keep an eye on President Trump's Truth Social account.
One thing is certain: a building project that nearly doubled in cost thanks to poor planning no price cap and "inflation" is a perfect metaphor for the institution it will house.