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A federal judge blocked the Justice Department’s move to subpoena Federal Reserve records, a significant setback in its inquiry into central bank chief Jerome H. Powell and his testimony about the Fed’s renovations of its headquarters.

Chief U.S. District Judge James E. Boasberg in D.C. quashed a pair of subpoenas tied to the investigation and ordered the docket in the case unsealed after attorneys for the Fed and U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro’s office battled over the legality of the probe in a closed-door hearing this month.

The judge’s ruling, dated Wednesday and unsealed Friday, criticized the Justice Department’s efforts to investigate several of President Donald Trump’s perceived political foes since last year and said the Powell inquiry was the latest instance of weaponizing law enforcement for political ends.

“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,” Boasberg wrote in the opinion. “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.”.....

Tillis and several other Republicans on the Banking Committee — including the panel’s Republican chairman — have said they don’t believe Powell committed a crime in his June testimony, which briefly touched on the office renovations.

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.....In a readout of a previously unreported Jan. 29 meeting with Pirro, Powell’s personal attorney said the chair “would not leave the board when his term as chair expires if he was still under investigation.”