President Donald Trump’s efforts to leverage the Justice Department for political purposes and to exact retribution against his perceived foes haven’t suffered from a series of setbacks. The last week has featured two remarkable new fronts in Trump’s ongoing assault on Justice Department independence. The Justice Department probe also comes after many months of Trump deriding Powell and his decisions on monetary policy – specifically, failing to lower interest rates more quickly. In those situations, the target was an old Trump foe who did something he didn’t like – specifically, investigate matters involving Trump. And the higher stakes of the Powell probe were evident in some of the initial reactions from Republicans.

Source: CNN January 13, 2026 10:26 UTC