Rep. French Hill

Chairman Powell called and told me that this process was taking place.

Well, we've invited the chairman to testify for his semiannual Humphrey Hawkins testimony, and we're working out the date now.

We'll do that typically in coordination both with the Fed and with the Senate Banking Committee so that we can get the Fed chairman up for his semiannual testimony on the Hill.

Well, you know, my attitude about this is really simple, which is Fed independence doesn't mean the Fed's immune from criticism or governors of the Fed are immune from criticism.

And if people have questions and concerns about the construction project down there, about how expensive it is to build something in Washington, D.C., how expensive it is to build something after a 40-year high in inflation from the Fed and fiscal policy mistakes made at the end of the pandemic,

Those are legitimate questions.

But to try to criminalize it and threaten people with a grand jury over disputes about that construction, I just don't agree with that.

And I think the Congress can do oversight about the construction project.

And I think, as I said in my statement, I think this is a distraction.

from our partnership with President Trump in lowering cost of living for our citizens through increasing access to capital, lowering the cost of building a home in this country, getting the economy growing, along with all the improvements, the tremendous improvements we've had for working families that we passed in the one big beautiful bill last year.

Well, I don't know that it's illegitimate because I'm not at the Justice Department and I'm not the U.S.

attorney for the District of Columbia.

I'd say it is, in my personal opinion, an overreaction to concerns about the construction at the Fed.

And I don't agree with that approach.

Yeah, I think we'll always second guess whenever we make a public statement as a public figure.

I won't second guess the decision that he took about that.

I'll just let it play out the way it is.

But I do believe that trying to criminalize that kind of behavior, I just don't agree with that.

Well, I think it could throw it off track.

I think it's a distraction to Treasury Secretary Besson's very able partnership with the president to identify a new Fed chair, something they've worked on for months.