Pirro’s loss in the Fed case should stay on the books, the judge rules

A federal judge in Washington on Thursday rejected a prosecutor’s request to unseal the government’s legal record in its effort to investigate former Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell.

Chief Judge James E. Boasberg in a scathing order for the DC Circuit, replete with media quotes and links to YouTube clips, denied a motion by U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro’s office to reverse his earlier rulings that went against Pirro.

The latest development includes a months-long legal saga that has seen Boasberg suspend aspects of Pirro’s investigation into the Fed. Boasberg in March dismissed the subpoenas Pirro had issued because, he ruled, Pirro’s effort was aimed at least in part to “harass and pressure Powell” on behalf of the president, who wanted low interest rates.

Pirro in April agreed to close the Powell investigation under pressure from Sen. Thom Tillis from North Carolina. Tillis eased a Senate block on the confirmation of Kevin Warsh, Trump’s nominee to replace Powell as head of the Fed. Warsh was confirmed in May and will chair his first meeting of the Fed’s rate-setting committee next week.

Powell stepped down from the Fed chair as required by law but chose to keep his separate seat on the Fed board. He wanted to make sure the Fed’s legal threat was indeed over, even after Pirro said he had dropped the investigation.

On Thursday, Boasberg appeared sympathetic to Powell’s view that the Fed’s legal threat may not have really ended with Pirro’s decision to drop the investigation. Pirro said he could reopen the investigation if he chose.

“It sounds like he’s going to keep trying to find more,” CNN host Jake Tapper told Pirro in an interview. “Pirro confirmed that interpretation,” Boasberg wrote.

Despite prosecutors’ efforts to suppress the controversy in court, Boasberg used evidence of what Pirro and President Donald Trump had said to the press. Boasberg’s orders simply “used the President’s clear statements as evidence of what his deputies understood he wanted,” he wrote.

Boasberg wrote that Pirro’s legal reasoning behind his decision “changed,” first promising to appeal the case, then switching to a “curious” tactic of asking him to vacate his previous decisions now that the investigation is complete. Boasberg’s latest order denied that motion to withdraw.

Boasberg’s first ruling found that while the prosecutor should generally be allowed to remove grand jurors on minor charges, evidence that those commissioners may be part of a campaign of political harassment suggested allowing the investigation to continue. Pirro’s motion to withdraw would reverse that decision.

“If the Government gets its way here, then any party that loses a court case can choose to postpone the case, vacate the adverse decision, and stop the collection and maintenance of precedents on which our legal system depends,” Boasberg wrote.

As a lower court judge, Boasberg’s decisions do not set a precedent, he noted. But “his way of thinking still offers a social good that other parties and judges may take.”

The Fed declined to comment. A spokesman for Pirro did not immediately respond to questions about Boasberg’s order and whether he may still try to appeal the case.