A slew of Federal Reserve officials spoke to the importance of central bank independence on Wednesday in response to questions about the news that the U.S. Department of Justice issued subpoenas to the Fed focused on a costly building renovation and Fed Chair Jerome Powell¡¯s congressional testimony last year about the project.
Among those, Minneapolis Fed President Neel Kashkari became the first policymaker to explicitly back Powell¡¯s counterclaim that the DOJ¡¯s investigation was a pretext for putting more pressure on the central bank on interest rates.
¡°The escalation over the course of the past year is really about monetary policy,¡± Kashkari said in an interview with the New York Times.
With your current subscription plan you can comment on stories. However, before writing your first comment, please create a display name in the Profile section of your subscriber account page.