President Donald Trump is facing blowback from inside his administration over the Justice Department’s investigation into Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent confronted Trump in a tense call late on Sunday, telling him the criminal probe “made a mess,” Axios reported.
“The secretary isn’t happy, and he let the president know,” one source familiar with Bessent’s call to Trump told the outlet.
The former hedge fund manager, 63, reportedly warned the president, 79, that the DOJ’s investigation could rattle financial markets, which depend on the central bank’s independence from political meddling.
Bessent is also frustrated that the investigation appears to have caused Powell, 72, to dig in just months before his term as Fed chair ends in May, Axios reported.
The Treasury secretary “thought that when the president named a new Fed chair, that Powell would go. But now that’s not going to happen,” another source told the outlet. “Now [Powell is] dug in. This really made a mess of things.”
However, a Treasury spokesperson told Axios that “there is zero daylight between Secretary Bessent and President Trump. The sources in the story do not speak for the secretary.”
The Daily Beast has reached out to the White House and the Treasury Department for comment.
Sources told Axios that U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro’s office in D.C. opened the probe without notifying the Treasury, the DOJ, or senior White House officials.
Bessent has long counseled restraint as Trump has attacked Powell for not lowering interest rates as quickly as he wanted. In July, Bessent talked Trump out of trying to fire Powell, citing potential economic fallout as well as political and legal hurdles, The Wall Street Journal reported.
Trump later said during a speech in November that Bessent had pleaded, “Sir, please don’t fire him, he’s got three months to go.”
During the same speech, the president said, “The only thing Scott is blowing it on is the Fed. The rates are too high, Scott. And if you don’t get it fixed fast, I’m going to fire your a--.”
Trump claimed on Sunday that he doesn’t “know anything” about the DOJ’s probe into Powell before taking his usual shots at the Fed chair.
But Powell defiantly declared on Sunday evening that the investigation is “a consequence of the Federal Reserve setting interest rates based on our best assessment of what will serve the public, rather than following the preferences of the president.”
The stock market briefly dipped on Monday before recovering by the afternoon. The “mess” Bessent predicted instead emerged within the Republican Party, as several GOP senators denounced the administration’s move and even called for an investigation into the DOJ.
