Trump says he still wants answers on Fed property costs after DOJ investigation

A day after U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro for the District of Columbia announced that she had ordered her office to close its investigation into the Federal Reserve over the construction project, President Donald Trump said he wants to know what happened.

“Well, I want to know,” the president told reporters before boarding Air Force One at Palm Beach International Airport in Florida on Saturday, after a reporter asked if he agreed with Pirro’s decision.

“You know, it doesn’t fall,” he continued. “They’re looking at everything about the crisis. What I’m looking for, with IG, what I want to look at is how can a building that I could do for $25 million cost $4 billion? That’s a big deal.”

Trump also spoke to Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, saying, “He was in charge.”

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“So we will get to the bottom of it,” he added. “Yes, I think Jeanine is very good. And she worked with other people on that. I’m telling you, I want to find out, I’m responsible for finding that – this was done during the time of Biden, but I’m responsible for finding out how it happened – I would have done that building for $25 million and I had money left over. And it would have been open long ago.”

The Fed had an approved budget of $2.46 billion for renovations, but it went over budget due to things like more asbestos than expected and rising costs during the renovation, the Fed said on its website.

Pirro said on Friday that the inspector general of the Fed, Michael Horowitz, will take over this investigation, take it out of the hands of federal prosecutors and put it in the hands of those who have been watching the government for a long time.

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U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro announced that her office is closing the investigation into the Federal Reserve on Friday. (Nathan Howard/Reuters)

Powell was being investigated for statements he made to Congress related to the administration of stimulus spending.

Powell revealed in a video announcement in January that the Justice Department had opened an investigation into the Fed, calling it an unprecedented attempt to use “intimidation” to force him to lower interest rates.

Prior to the investigation, Trump’s relationship with Powell had grown increasingly rocky, as Trump grew frustrated with interest rates and began targeting Powell, his 2017 nominee. Trump called Powell a “fool” and demanded in March that he lower rates “immediately.”

Sen. Thom Tillis, RN.C., a finance veteran who sits on the Senate Banking Committee, had vowed to block Kevin Warsh’s confirmation because of the DOJ investigation, after Trump nominated Warsh to replace Powell, whose term was set to expire on May 15.

Tillis said the DOJ investigation was politically motivated and would unduly disrupt the markets, and accused Pirro of seeking “brownie points” with Trump for opening it. “It’s not good,” Tillis said during a televised interview in February.

Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell in January said the investigation was political. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

During his confirmation hearing this week, Tillis told Warsh, who once served on the Fed’s Board of Governors, that he had “extraordinary information” but could not vote to advance his Senate nomination until the DOJ concluded its investigation.

Horowitz, who will now investigate the cost of the Fed building renovation, received a mix of praise and criticism from Republicans while serving as DOJ inspector general for more than a decade. He was one of the few high-ranking inspectors spared from Trump’s record-breaking government watchdog era last year and has gained ties to key figures such as House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio.

Closing Pirro’s investigation could pave the way for Warsh’s nomination.

Sen. Thom Tillis, RN.C., says he could not vote to advance the nomination of Kevin Warsh as head of the Federal Reserve in the Senate until the DOJ completed its investigation. (Al Drago/Bloomberg)

Trump said he wants to see this investigation “done for the country”.

“It’s more difficult, more expensive to build a hotel than an office,” said the president, referring to his Trump International Hotel in Washington, DC, which he sold in 2022 and renamed the Waldorf Astoria.

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He continued, “I want to find out what a building of that size would cost or what it would be. Nobody knows, by the way, what it would be. Kevin would be very interesting. Kevin Warsh, he might never get to that building.”

Trump told reporters that his nomination must go well now, “but whether it is or not, someone has to find out why that building that should be worth 25 million dollars is worth billions of dollars. And you know why they should get it? In other buildings, because that is not the only one. I think that’s a very bad example.”

Fox News’ Ashley Oliver and Alex Nitzberg contributed to this report.