The Dictatorship
Bringing charges against the Fed: What we do (and don’t) know
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump has dramatically escalated his confrontation with the Federal Reserve, his Justice Department investigating and threatening a criminal indictment of the independent central bank and serving it with subpoenas.
The dispute is ostensibly about Fed Chair Jerome Powell’s testimony to Congress in June over the cost of a massive renovation of Fed buildings. But in a statement Sunday, Powell, abandoning his previous attempt to ignore Trump’s relentless criticism, called the administration’s threat of criminal charges “pretexts’’ in the president’s campaign to seize control of U.S. interest rate policy from the Fed’s technocrats.
Trump has repeatedly criticized Powell and the Fed for not moving faster to cut rates. Economists warn that a politicized Fed that caves in to the president’s demands will damage its credibility as an inflation fighter and likely lead investors to demand higher rates before investing in U.S. Treasurys.
Here’s what to know about the dispute:
The threat of charges arises from a $2.5 billion Fed renovation project
The $2.5 billion renovation of two Fed buildings in Washington dates back to Trump’s first term and attracted little attention for years. But over the summer, the administration began to complain about cost overruns in the project — criticisms that coincided with Trump’s increasing pressure on the Fed to slash interest rates to stimulate the economy.
Taxpayers are not footing the bill for the Fed renovations directly. Unlike other government agencies, which receive taxpayer money appropriated by Congress, the central bank is self-financed, drawing on interest from its massive holdings of Treasury debt.
The Fed says its headquarters, known as the Marriner S. Eccles building, desperately needed an upgrade because its electrical, plumbing and HVAC systems, among others, are nearly obsolete; some date back to the building’s construction in the 1930s.
The Fed is removing asbestos, lead and other hazardous elements from the building and installing modern electrical and communications systems. The H-shaped building, named after a Fed chair from the 1930s and ’40s, is located near some of Washington’s highest-profile monuments. The central bank is also renovating a building next door that it acquired in 2018.
The Fed has said: “The construction project identified key architectural features to preserve the historic integrity of the buildings, such as stonework, including marble, façades, meeting rooms, and other spaces. Historic preservation work in the Eccles Building also includes elevators that are original to the building, and historic conference rooms.″
The costs of the Fed overhaul have ballooned
Originally budgeted at about $1.9 billion, the project’s costs have swelled by $600 million.
The Fed cites many reasons for the greater expense. Construction costs, including for materials and labor, rose sharply during the inflation spike of 2021 and 2022. The project required more asbestos removal than expected. And Washington’s local restrictions on building heights forced it to build underground, which is pricier.
Because of the rising costs, the Fed’s board canceled planned renovations of a third building in 2024.
The Fed says the renovations will reduce costs “over time” because it will be able to pack its 3,000 Washington-based employees into fewer buildings and pay less rent.
At a Senate Banking Committee hearing in June, Chairman Tim Scott, a South Carolina Republican, claimed that renovation included “rooftop terraces, custom elevators that open into VIP dining rooms, white marble finishes, and even a private art collection.” In his testimony, Powell disputed those details, saying “there’s no new marble. … there are no special elevators.”
In July, Trump visited the building site and, while standing next to Powell, overstated the cost of the renovation. Still, Trump downplayed concerns later that day, saying “they have to get it done … Look, there’s always Monday morning quarterbacks. I don’t want to be that. I want to help them get it finished.”
When asked if the overruns amounted to a firing offense, Trump said, “I don’t want to put that in this category.”
But at a December 29 news conference, Trump said his administration would “probably” sue Powell for “gross incompetence” on the cost of renovations, calling it the “highest price of construction per square foot in the history of the world.”
The Supreme Court signaled last year that Trump can’t fire Powell simply over disagreements about interest rates. But he could do so legally “for cause,” such as misconduct or dereliction of duty.
The dispute seemed to have died down before flaring up again
The controversy over the renovations died down after the summer.
But Trump kept up his pressure on the Fed. In August, he said he was firing Fed governor Lisa Cook, an unprecedented step arising from allegations of mortgage fraud, which she has denied. Cook has sued to keep her job and courts have ruled she can remain in her seat while the case plays out. The Supreme Court will hear arguments in the case Jan. 21.
Trump has repeatedly used investigations — which might or might not lead to an actual indictment — to attack other political rivals, including New York Attorney General Letitia James and James Comey, the former FBI director.
Speaking briefly NBC News Sunday, Trump claimed that he knew nothing about the investigation into Powell. When asked if it is intended to pressure the Fed chair on rates, Trump said, “No. I wouldn’t even think of doing it that way.”
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters that Trump did not direct his Justice Department to investigate Powell.
The subpoenas come at an unusual moment when Trump was teasing the likelihood of announcing his nominee this month to succeed Powell as the Fed chair. While Powell’s term as chair ends in May, he has a separate term as a Fed governor until January 2028.
Trump has been criticized for his own renovations
Trump has come under fire for his own decision to tear down the facade of the East Wing of the White House to put in a $250 million ballroom.
The 90,000-square-foot ballroom will dwarf the main White House itself: The Executive Mansion occupies just 55,000 square feet. Trump says the ballroom will accommodate 999 people.
Like the Fed’s project, Trump’s ballroom won’t cost taxpayers anything: It is being privately funded by “many generous Patriots, Great American Companies, and, yours truly,” Trump has said on social media.
The president argues that the White House needs a large entertaining space. He has complained about the capacity of the East Room, which can hold 200 people and is currently the largest space in the White House. He also objects to the practice of past presidents hosting state dinners and other events in tents on the South Lawn.
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AP Economics Writer Christopher Rugaber contributed to this story.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Most Americans still think their taxes are too high, according to recent polls, even after last year’s tax law fulfilled several of President Donald Trump’s tax-related campaign promises.
In fact, a new Fox News poll indicates people are more upset about taxes than they were last year. The findings from the survey, which was conducted in late March, are another sign that Americans are on edge about their personal finances as the U.S. experiences a spike in inflation and sluggish economic growth. Other polling finds that frustration goes beyond personal tax obligations, with many believing that wealthy people and corporations are not paying their fair share, while others worry about government waste.
The surveys come after Trump and Republicans passed a massive tax and spending cut bill last year. The legislation enacted a range of tax breaks, including a boosted child tax credit and new tax deductions for tips and overtime. Tax refunds are up this seasonand many households are expected to see more income from the Republicans’ tax legislation, but the Congressional Budget Office estimated it will ultimately give the largest benefits to the richest Americans.
Republicans have touted the law as evidence that they are making life more affordable for working families. But polling shows that many Americans may not be feeling the benefits, especially as their tax refunds get eaten up by higher prices.
Most say taxes are too high
About 7 in 10 registered voters say the taxes they pay are “too high,” according to the Fox News poll. That’s up from about 6 in 10 last year. The poll shows heightened concern among very liberal voters and Democratic men, but there has also been a sizable increase among groups that Republicans want to court ahead of the midterm elections, such as moderates, rural voters and white voters without a college degree.
Discontent about taxes has been rising for the past few years. Recent polling from Gallupconducted in March, found about 6 in 10 U.S. adults say the amount of federal income tax they have to pay is “too high,” a finding that’s been largely consistent in the annual poll since 2023. That’s approaching the level of unhappiness found in Gallup’s polling from the 1980s through the 1990s, before President George W. Bush’s 2001 and 2003 tax cuts.
Now, about half of Democrats and about 6 in 10 Republicans say their federal income taxes are too high. Republicans tend to view their tax bill more negatively than Democrats, but Gallup’s polling shows that this gap often shrinks when a Republican is president.
Many believe the rich aren’t paying enough in taxes
Most Americans are troubled by the belief that some wealthy people and corporations don’t pay their fair share of taxes, according to a Pew Research Center poll conducted in January. About 6 in 10 Americans said each of those notions bothers them “a lot,” a measure that is largely unchanged in recent years.
By contrast, only about 4 in 10 U.S. adults in that poll said the amount they personally pay in taxes bothers them a lot.
About 8 in 10 Democrats are bothered “a lot” by the feeling that some corporations and rich people aren’t paying their fair share, the Pew survey found, compared to about 4 in 10 Republicans. Government spending is a bigger issue for Republicans, according to the Fox News poll, which found that 75% of registered voters — and a similar share of Republican voters — say “almost all” or “a great deal” of government funding is wasteful and inefficient.
That points to a perception problem for many Americans. Even if their own tax bill is manageable, the idea that the wealthy are underpaying — or that the government is wasting their dollars — bothers many. About half of Americans, 49%, in the Gallup poll say the income tax they will pay this year is “not fair,” which is in line with the record high from 2023.
Broad unhappiness with Trump’s tax approach
Americans’ tax frustration was rising before Trump re-entered the White House, but it’s still a problem for the president’s party — especially if Americans are not feeling the relief that he promised.
The Fox News poll found that about 6 in 10 registered voters, 64%, say they disapprove of how Trump is handling taxes, up from 53% last April. Disapproval has risen most sharply among independents, but also among Democrats and Republicans.
This aligns with a broader feeling that Trump isn’t doing enough to address inflation. Most Americans said Trump had hurt the cost of living “a lot” or “a little” in his second term, according to an AP-NORC poll conducted in January. Roughly 9 in 10 Democrats and about 6 in 10 independents said Trump has had a negative impact on the cost of living.
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This story has been updated to correct that less than half of Republicans, 43%, said Trump has helped the cost of living, while 33% said he hasn’t made a difference and only 23% said he has hurt it.
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The Fox News poll was conducted among 1,001 registered voters from March 20-23. The Gallup poll was conducted among 1,000 U.S. adults from March 2-18. The Pew Research Center poll was conducted among 8,512 U.S. adults from Jan. 20-26. The AP-NORC Poll was conducted among 1,203 U.S. adults from Jan 8-11.
The Dictatorship
Democrats to confront Trump budget director Russ Vought about his ‘stone cold silence’
When White House budget director Russell Vought appears before lawmakers on Wednesday, he will almost certainly face questions about a ballooning Pentagon budgeta special war-funding request and an extended Homeland Security shutdown. But Democrats also plan to press him on an issue closer to the Capitol: why he has spent months dodging their questions altogether.
Vought is set to testify Wednesday before the House Budget Committee and again before the Senate’s budget panel on Thursday. It’s a long-awaited chance for Democrats eager to question him on several fronts — including the cost of the Iran war, cuts to health care spending, a demoralized federal workforce and what the government’s own watchdog has described as the illegal impoundment of federal funds.
Lawmakers also have a growing to-do list that involves Vought, including a war supplemental for President Donald Trump’s military campaign in Iran and a reconciliation bill that would fund immigration enforcement agencies. Congress is also supposed to adopt a budget, though that may slip after the president’s budget was weeks late and omitted any information about projected federal debts and deficits.
But Democrats see Vought as “missing and reclusive,” ignoring their questions for months, the Budget Committee’s top Democrat, Rep. Brendan Boyle of Pennsylvania, told MS NOW. Vought didn’t testify before the committee last year, a break with tradition. And written questions to Vought have been met with “stone cold silence,” Boyle said.
In JanuaryHouse Democrats pressed Vought for answers on the administration’s health care plans, its compliance with congressionally approved funding laws, its attempt to withhold nutrition aid during last year’s government shutdown, and plans for federal layoffs.
“He sent us not one word in response,” Boyle said. “And in doing so, it shows their contempt for the United States Congress, and it shows their contempt for our constitutional system.”
Boyle told MS NOW he plans to introduce legislation to legally require Office of Management and Budget directors to testify before the House Budget Committee, after Vought didn’t do so last year. He also said he aims to require that the OMB director respond to members of the committee.
Democrats didn’t hear back from Vought about testifying to the committee until March, when Boyle displayed a picture of Vought as a missing child on a milk carton. That prompted Vought to respond on X that, “I am coming to testify on April 15. You should get up to speed.”
House Budget Committee Chairman Jodey Arrington, R-Texas, had previously assured reporters that Vought would testify in 2026, but Boyle said Democrats hadn’t gotten confirmation until the milk carton incident.
“That’s what shamed him into it,” Boyle said of Vought.
Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., the top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee and a member of the Budget Committee, also said Vought had not been responsive to questions from Democratic members of the Senate, including on the cost of the Iran war. She said she’d press Vought at Thursday’s hearing on whether he would distribute funds appropriated by Congress.
Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., said he’d ask Vought questions “around this ‘traumatizing the federal workforce’ stuff,” and whether DOGE wasted money by firing employees who needed to be rehired later. And Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., said he’d ask Vought “how he’s not a corrupt stooge of the fossil fuel industry.”
Senate Republicans, meanwhile, say they haven’t been pressing Vought hard for answers. For example, the missing debt and deficit data in the budget proposal — which Maya MacGuineas, president of the fiscally conservative Committee for a Responsible Budget called “an astonishing lack of information — hasn’t prompted pushback from conservative lawmakers.
Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., said he was unbothered by Vought’s decision to leave out the debt data in the president’s budget request.
“Nobody looks at it anyway,” Scott told MS NOW. “It’s just for you guys to write something.”
Sen. Bernie Moreno, R-Ohio, said he’d ask Vought “to give a great update on the progress that we’ve made” in reducing the deficit. When asked about the missing debt and deficit information, Moreno said he didn’t know about it.
“I haven’t had a chance to see the whole thing, to be honest with you, so I’ve got to see what that’s all about,” Moreno told MS NOW.
In prepared remarks obtained by PunchbowlVought reportedly plans to say that, “when President Trump took office, the nation was facing financial catastrophe under the failed leadership of the Biden Administration and decades of status quo spending strangling our nation.”
But federal spending, according to the Treasury Departmenthas increased under Trump. And the federal deficit is going up. (The federal deficit was $1.8 trillion in fiscal 2025 and is projected to be $1.9 trillion in fiscal 2026according to the Congressional Budget Office.)
Republicans have also been patient with the lack of information about the cost of the Iran war.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., told reporters Tuesday he still hasn’t seen a request and doesn’t know how much it will cost.
“The only thing I think I’ve seen is what you guys report,” Thune told reporters.
Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., told reporters he’d want to scour the funding request’s details before he decides if he’ll support it.
But when pressed whether the administration had answered his questions on the topic, Johnson made it clear he hadn’t focused on those details yet.
“Haven’t really asked,” he said.
Jack Fitzpatrick covers Congress for MS NOW. He previously reported for Bloomberg Government, Morning Consult and National Journal. He has bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Arizona State University.
The Dictatorship
Justice Department moves to erase Jan. 6 convictions of Oath Keepers, Proud Boys’ leaders
The Justice Department requested on Tuesday for a federal appeals court to erase the seditious conspiracy convictions of a group of leaders of the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys — two right-wing extremist groups who were involved in the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6.
The request asks the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to vacate the individuals’ convictions, effectively erasing their guilty verdicts, and to dismiss the charges with prejudice. A dismissal with prejudice prevents the government from bringing the cases again.
In January 2025, President Donald Trump had already either pardoned or commuted the prison sentences of most of the roughly 1,500 people charged in connection with the 2021 attack on the Capitol after Trump’s loss to President Joe Biden in 2020. While most of the defendants received pardons, wiping their convictions, Trump only commuted the sentences of 14 high-profile defendants to time served, which upheld their convictions while allowing them to leave prison.
The request by the Justice Department would go a step further and erase all the convictions for the extremist group leaders, including Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodeswho didn’t receive pardons last January.
Only 12 of those defendants were referenced in the Justice Department’s request on Tuesday. Rhodes, who was sentenced to 18 yearsin prison, is among those who would benefit.
“The government’s motion to vacate in this case is consistent with its practice of moving the Supreme Court to vacate convictions in cases where the government has decided in its prosecutorial discretion that dismissal of a criminal case is in the interests of justice — motions that the Supreme Court routinely grants,” prosecutors wrote in a court filing signed by U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro.
Trump himself faces criminal a series of civil lawsuits related to his incitement of the Jan. 6 attack. A federal judge earlier this month rejected his efforts to end the suits ahead of his trial, which has not yet been scheduled.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Erum Salam is a breaking news reporter for MS NOW, with a focus on how global events and foreign policy shape U.S. politics. She previously was a breaking news reporter for The Guardian.
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