It’s been a few days since the public learned that the Justice Department has opened a criminal investigation into Jerome Powell, the Federal Reserve chair. There was no great mystery behind the motivation for the probe: Powell resisted Donald Trump’s demands on interest rates, and so the administration apparently has added him to the White House’s growing revenge list.
The pushback to the investigation was swift, broad and bipartisan, with several congressional Republicans agreeing that it’s a mistake to pursue the Fed chair with trumped-up charges.
But one GOP lawmaker offered a different kind of response to the developments. The Hill reported:
Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.) on Tuesday suggested Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell should resign to avoid indictment.
‘If you’re the attorney for Jay Powell and you want to avoid an indictment, how about you go to Jeanine Pirro and say, ‘I’ll make a deal. I’ll step down today, if you’ll drop the investigation today.’ To me, that would be a win-win for everybody,’ Cramer told Fox Business Network’s Larry Kudlow on his show.
A day later, the North Dakota Republican appeared on CNBC to reiterate his support for the proposed deal and said such an arrangement would be a “elegant” solution.
Cramer didn’t appear to be kidding.
Consider the proposal in the broader context: Trump wants Powell to resign, not because the Fed chair has done something wrong, but because he won’t follow the president’s directions on monetary policy. Powell, however, ignored the White House’s bullying. And so the Trump administration upped the ante and began a baseless criminal investigation into Powell.
The GOP senator is pitching a “deal” in which Powell agreed to give Trump what he wants in exchange for Trump’s Justice Department finding a way to forget about those criminal charges it’s considering.
But what Cramer has described isn’t an example of elegance, it’s an example of extortion.
I’d encourage the North Dakotan to consider an alternative hypothetical scenario: Imagine a future Democratic president really wants Cramer to resign from the Senate. When the lawmaker refuses, the Democratic administration opens an obviously pretextual criminal investigation into him.
Despite widespread condemnation, some Senate Democrat appears on national television and says, “If you’re the attorney for Kevin Cramer and you want to avoid an indictment, how about you go to prosecutors and say, ‘I’ll make a deal. I’ll step down today, if you’ll drop the investigation today.’ To me, that would be a win-win for everybody.”
I have a hunch Cramer wouldn’t consider that sound advice, and yet such is precisely the advice he has twice offered Powell.
