Global Central Bank Leaders Defend Jerome Powell After Trump Attack

Financial leaders from Switzerland, Brazil, Korea, the United Kingdom, and more are rallying around U.S. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell after the Department of Justice served him with a grand jury subpoena.

“We stand in full solidarity with the Federal Reserve System and its Chair Jerome H. Powell. The independence of central banks is a cornerstone of price, financial and economic stability in the interest of the citizens that we serve. It is therefore critical to preserve that independence, with full respect for the rule of law and democratic accountability,” the letter read. It was signed by presidents and governors of central banks in the U.K., Sweden, Switzerland, Norway, Australia, Canada, Korea, and Brazil.

President Trump has long attempted to pressure Powell’s decisions on interest rates, and the DOJ over the weekend announced a criminal investigation into the Federal Reserve chair. It’s a thinly veiled attack on Powell, so that Trump can have minimal resistance to whatever Federal Reserve nominations he wants to make and whatever economic numbers he wants (or doesn’t want) to put out.

“JUST OUT: Great (LOW!) Inflation numbers for the USA. That means that Jerome ‘Too Late’ Powell should cut interest rates, MEANINGFULLY!!!” Trump claimed Tuesday morning on Truth Social. “If he doesn’t he will just continue to be, ‘TOO LATE!’ ALSO OUT, GREAT GROWTH NUMBERS. Thank you MISTER TARIFF! President DJT.”

The international alarm this has caused only underscores the real dangers of a completely partisan Federal Reserve, and is perhaps the most dramatic development in Trump’s long mission to destroy any regulatory independence the Fed still has.

“Chair Powell has served with integrity, focused on his mandate and an unwavering commitment to the public interest,” the letter from the international central bankers concluded. “To us, he is a respected colleague who is held in the highest regard by all who have worked with him.”

Former special counsel Jack Smith is going to get the chance to testify to Congress in the full view of the public.

On January 22, Smith will testify before the House Judiciary Committee as part of its investigation into Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election, said its chair, Representative Jim Jordan, on Monday. In December, Smith testified for eight hours in a closed-door hearing before the committee.

Smith, who was appointed to oversee Trump’s alleged mishandling of classified documents and efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election, has long sought to testify in a public hearing, but was rebuffed by Republicans in favor of one behind closed doors. In that hearing, Smith said that he stood by his prosecution of Trump.

“If asked whether to prosecute a former president based on the same facts today, I would do so regardless of whether the president was a Republican or Democrat,” Smith said in his opening statement.

In next week’s public hearing, Republicans will likely try to attack Smith’s credibility and accuse him of a political witch hunt against the president, while Democrats will hope to highlight the evidence that Smith collected against Trump and his inner circle. Smith has said that he wants to share the results of his election investigation but was prohibited by the Department of Justice, which is keeping parts of the case sealed.

The hearing will be a good chance for Smith to share information that he hasn’t before directly to the American people, which would not be received well by Republicans or by Trump. They won’t be able to control what the seasoned prosecutor says to the live TV cameras, reporters, and the public, and it could very well be damaging to the White House.

President Donald Trump says he won’t meet with Iranian government officials until they stop murdering their own people.

In a post on Truth Social Tuesday, Trump urged the millions of protesters who have taken to the streets to oppose the Islamic Republic to “KEEP PROTESTING—TAKE OVER YOUR INSTITUTIONS.”

“Save the names of the killers and abusers. They will pay a big price,” Trump wrote. “I have cancelled all meetings with Iranian Officials until the senseless killing of protesters STOPS. HELP IS ON ITS WAY!”

Trump was scheduled to discuss options to support protesters and weaken the regime in Iran Tuesday morning, and had previously indicated a preference toward conducting a military strike, a White House official with direct knowledge told Axios Monday. 

Trump had sent some dangerously mixed messages on how exactly he planned to intervene in Iran’s crackdown on antigovernment protesters. The president previously claimed he was willing to use military force against Iran if the government continued to kill protesters, but also said that he was open to negotiation. 

It seems that Trump hopes to signal that the time to negotiate has come and gone, as his latest message seems to indicate that a military strike could be imminent. The president’s instruction for protesters to start taking names suggests he anticipates a sudden regime change.  

The U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency, which has spent years documenting protests in Iran, estimates that more than 10,000 people have been arrested in the last two weeks, and at least 500 have been killed. The Narges Foundation, dedicated to currently imprisoned Nobel Peace laureate Narges Mohammadi, estimates more than 2,000 people have been killed.

President Donald Trump issued a chilling threat of reckoning and retribution to the people of Minnesota Tuesday after state and city leaders sued the administration over its deadly “federal invasion.”

Following the news that Minnesota and the Twin Cities were suing to stop the Trump administration’s “Operation Metro Surge,” the president took to Truth Social to air his frustration with his besieged constituents.

“Do the people of Minnesota really want to live in a community in which there are thousands of already convicted murderers, drug dealers and addicts, rapists, violent released and escaped prisoners, dangerous people from foreign mental institutions and insane asylums, and other deadly criminals too dangerous to even mention,” Trump wrote.

He claimed that all the “patriots of ICE” wanted was to “remove” these individuals. But last week, the residents of Minneapolis saw something entirely different: an ICE agent senselessly killed a U.S. citizen, Renee Good, and was then defended by every level of government.

Good’s death sparked civil unrest in Minneapolis (and nationwide), as well as requests for federal immigration forces to take their leave. But the Trump administration has doubled down on its occupation, deploying roughly 1,000 more U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers.

“Minnesota Democrats love the unrest that anarchists and professional agitators are causing because it gets the spotlight off of the 19 Billion Dollars that was stolen by really bad and deranged people,” Trump wrote, referring to the federal fraud investigations into the state’s childcare system.

“FEAR NOT, GREAT PEOPLE OF MINNESOTA, THE DAY OF RECKONING & RETRIBUTION IS COMING!” Trump warned.

Already, Minnesota residents are seeing what this looks like: ICE agents have been emboldened toward violence against protesters and civilians—with Good as their rallying cry.

Federal agents in Minnesota aren’t happy with the backlash they are receiving after ICE agent Jonathan Ross shot and killed Renee Good last week.

Ken Klippenstein reports that the Department of Homeland Security is having trouble finding agents to send to Minneapolis for its “Operation Metro Surge.” The department is asking for volunteers and telling agents to maintain a low profile.

“We do have personnel but some just don’t want to go,” one Border Patrol agent told Klippenstein. The same agent told Klippenstein that they disagreed with Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s claim that Good carried out “an act of domestic terrorism” by attempting “to run a law enforcement officer over.”

“There is a video and she just lied,” the agent said, and added that there were others in the Border Patrol who agreed with him but were afraid to speak up. The agent was not optimistic about the volunteers who would sign up to go to Minnesota.

“Key word is it’s on a ‘voluntary’ basis,” the agent said. “If no experienced senior agents step up, they send the new guys straight out of the academy. Not a good idea.

“In a nutshell, it’s ‘Us versus them’ on steroids and I think some Border Patrol agents are more willing to use force and not feel restrained when you got DHS leadership lying to cover for them. For example, Kristi Noem lying her ass off on what happened is like saying to the federal agents on the ground: ‘Go ahead and do whatever you have to do. We got your back. We will find a way to justify it,’” added the agent.

A senior DHS official told Klippenstein, “There might be some immature knuckleheads who think they are out there trying to capture Nicolás Maduro, but most field officers see a clear need for deescalation.

“There is genuine fear that indeed ICE’s heavy handedness and the rhetoric from Washington is more creating a condition where the officers’ lives are in danger rather than the other way around,” the official added.

The same official said that several DHS employees were worried about the growing backlash to immigration enforcement.

“The claim is that recruiting is up, but there is also dread that the gung-ho types that ICE and the Border Patrol are bringing in have a propensity towards confrontation and even violence,” the official said.