Fed watchdog finds renovation failures, but no grounds for criminal referral

The Federal Reserve's inspector general determined management and oversight failures contributed to major cost overruns in the central bank's headquarters renovation, but found no grounds for a criminal referral, it said in a report released Wednesday."At no point during our evaluation did we find reasonable grounds to believe that a violation of federal criminal law had occurred requiring a referral to the U.S. Attorney General in accordance with the Inspector General Act," the report from the Fed's inspector general states. The independent watchdog's findings could defuse one line of attack against former Fed Chair Jerome Powell, whom President Donald Trump and other critics accused of mismanaging the project and misleading Congress about it.The IG's report cedes little to Powell's critics beyond his responsibility for management of the project as head of the organization. Instead it details a renovation project of the Washington facility that ballooned in cost by roughly a billion dollars from initial estimates as the Fed struggled with design changes and other issues. Some critics have alleged Powell perjured himself in testifying to the Senate about the project in June 2025. T...