Minutes after the Fed's own inspector general cleared the Eccles renovation of criminality - and of administrative misconduct - President Trump made clear he is not treating the Horowitz report as the last word. Powell, Trump said on Truth Social, should be "forced to resign" from the Board of Governors. If he doesn't, "he should be sued by the US."

As for the building itself: Trump said Attorney General Todd Blanche will "make a determination" about the project - which is another way of saying the White House does not consider a clean bill of health from an IG Powell appointed, after a review Powell ordered, to be dispositive.

"I have asked Attorney General Todd Blanche to study the report, and make a determination as to what to do about a relatively small Building Complex," Trump wrote, adding "If he doesn't resign, he should be sued, at the highest level, by the United States Government, for either corruption or incompetence."

Pirro deferred to this report in April. Powell said he would stay on the Board until the investigation was "well and truly over, with transparency and finality." The IG just gave him the no-crime finding. Trump just told him that isn't enough to keep the seat.

Powell can still sit as a governor through January 2028. Forcing him off that Board - as opposed to waiting out a chair term that already ended in May - is a different fight: for-cause removal, a civil suit, or enough political heat that he walks. Blanche now has the file. Watch Truth Social, and watch whether "determination about the building" turns into a new referral or just another hard-hat presser.

After more than a year of drama, subpoenas, surprise site visits, hard-hat photo ops and one very public fight over beehives, the Fed's internal watchdog has finally weighed in on the central bank's headquarters renovation. The verdict: nobody committed a crime, but almost nobody was minding the budget either.

According to a report released Wednesday by the Fed's Office of Inspector General, there were no "reasonable grounds to believe that a violation of federal criminal law had occurred," and no administrative misconduct.

What the OIG did find was a long list of management failures that helped the cost of renovating the Eccles Building and the adjacent 1931 federal building balloon from a budgeted $1.3 billion in 2020 to $2.4 billion:

The Board never acted on the OIG's earlier recommendation, made after the Martin Building renovation overran, to set a stated cost limit. It also never asked for a construction cost estimate.

As recently as July, four years in and with contracts already awarded, the Fed still had not set a guaranteed maximum price.

Some work drew few or no bids, which pushed costs up substantially.

Internal governance "wasn't equipped" to run a project of this size and complexity.

Design changes, site conditions and, of course, inflation. The OIG said "inflation was clearly a factor," which is a notable admission from an institution whose one job is controlling inflation.

As for the marble, water features and rooftop garden that critics fixated on, the OIG said they "did not materially drive" the cost surge (so Powell was vindicated on the beehives, if not on the budget).

The new Marriner Eccles sheriff, Fed Chair Kevin Warsh, said the Fed will adopt all of the recommendations, hand management of the project to the General Services Administration (reporting to the Board and to Warsh), and bring in an independent auditor to review every cost awarded to date. "There are important lessons to be learned," Warsh wrote to IG Michael Horowitz, whom Powell appointed in June 2025.