A federal judge on Friday said he was blocking subpoenas that the Justice Department served to Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell in a probe purported to be about the management of the central bank's renovation.
"A mountain of evidence suggests that the Government served these subpoenas on the Board to pressure its Chair into voting for lower interest rates or resigning," Judge James Boasberg, the chief judge on the U.S. District Court for Washington, D.C., wrote in a court filing.
Boasberg continued: "On the other side of the scale, the Government has produced essentially zero evidence to suspect Chair Powell of a crime; indeed, its justifications are so thin and unsubstantiated that the Court can only conclude that they are pretextual."
"The Court therefore finds that the subpoenas were issued for an improper purpose and will quash them," the order states.
Powell said the threhttps://www.nbcnews.com/business/economy/powell-subpoenas-blocked-trump-probe-rcna263401atened indictment was related to his testimony before the Senate in June about the renovation of Federal Reserve office buildings.
"No one—certainly not the chair of the Federal Reserve—is above the law," Powell said in an unprecedented Sunday night video statement on Jan. 11. "But this unprecedented action should be seen in the broader context of the administration's threats and ongoing pressure."
Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank are taking advantage of curbs on movement imposed during the war on Iran to attack Palestinians, with military roadblocks preventing ambulances reaching victims quickly, rights groups and medics say.
Saghar recalls the airstrikes that targeted oil facilities in and around Tehran on Saturday with a terrifying clarity. It was exactly one week into the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran and the constant roar of fighter jets overhead punctuated by loud explosions that rattled the windows had already become a familiar sound in the capital.
The only Muslim woman on US President Donald Trump's religious freedom committee is resigning, Middle East Eye can reveal. 
Iran’s new Supreme Leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, issued his first public message Thursday since assuming power after the death of his father, Ali Khamenei. The statement was delivered as a written text read by a presenter on state television. That unusual format immediately fueled questions about both his health and the degree of his control over the country at a moment of acute regional crisis.
A US military refuelling aircraft crashed in western Iraq on Thursday, in an incident US Central Command said involved another aircraft but was not the result of hostile or friendly fire.
Friday will mark two weeks since a retired Air Force major general who previously oversaw a base associated with UFO lore was last seen in Albuquerque, N.M. 
