By Nick Timiraos and Josh Dawsey
For the fourth time since summer, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell declined Wednesday to say whether he will remain on the central bank's board after his chairmanship ends May 15.
"Again, I don't want to get into this," Powell said at a news conference after the Fed's latest meeting.
The answer never changes. That is the point.
Powell has this option because of a quirk of Fed governance. Chairs are confirmed to two posts: a four-year term as chair and a separate 14-year term as governor. Most leave when their chairmanship ends, but they don't have to. Powell's governor seat doesn't expire until 2028.
Powell's decision is the last and only card he holds against an administration that has spent months trying to pressure the Fed. The grand jury subpoenas served on the central bank earlier this month have only strengthened his reasons not to show it.
The Justice Department investigation nominally concerns Powell's congressional testimony last summer about the Fed's $2.5 billion headquarters renovation. Powell has said it is really about interest rates -- part of the administration's pressure campaign to cut them faster, as Trump has repeatedly demanded.
People who know Powell well say that, after nearly 14 years at the Fed and eight years as chair, he is more than ready to return to private life.
But the timing of the investigation has trapped him. Powell, who turns 73 next week, isn't looking to extend his career in government -- but agreeing to leave in exchange for the investigation going away, even implicitly, would validate the very pressure campaign he has spent the past year avoiding.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent had indicated to colleagues he was optimistic that Powell would depart when his term as chair ended -- until the subpoenas landed, according to a person familiar with the matter. After that, Bessent told Trump the Justice Department investigation could backfire.
Bessent's irritation over the probe stemmed in part from concerns that his delicate dancework to secure Powell's eventual departure had been trampled on by colleagues who didn't understand the steps, this person said.
Trump administration officials have privately said they still hope he will leave the Fed but that their task is harder now. Senior Trump officials were also frustrated when a number of Republicans stepped forward to defend him. Two have said they won't consider advancing Trump's pick to take Powell's job until the probe has been resolved.
The best-case scenario for the Trump administration is a public commitment from Powell to leave when his chairmanship ends. Senate confirmations take time, and without that signal, the administration can't plan a second nomination because they don't know if the seat is opening up. A clear answer from Powell would allow them to move on two nominees at once and lock in their preferred board composition this spring.
The standoff matters because of the unusual arithmetic of the Fed's seven-member board.
Right now, Trump has one scheduled vacancy on the board: the seat occupied by Stephen Miran, whose term expires this Saturday. Miran can stay on as a holdover until a successor is confirmed, but that seat is spoken for -- it is the vehicle for installing the new chair.
If Powell follows tradition and leaves the board on May 15, Trump gets a second seat. With two vacancies, the administration could nominate the new chair to a fresh 14-year term or to Powell's soon-to-be-vacant governor seat and either renominate Miran or fill a new vacancy.
If Powell stays as a governor, Trump has only Miran's seat to work with. The new chair must go there, and Miran is out. There is no other vacancy on the horizon: The Supreme Court sounded skeptical last week of granting the administration's emergency request that would allow Trump to remove Fed governor Lisa Cook, who sued to block her attempted firing last year.
The upshot is that Miran's future hinges on Powell's intentions. If Powell stays, Miran loses his seat the moment a new chair is confirmed.
No former chair has stayed on as a governor since Marriner Eccles, who served from 1934 until 1948 and remained on the board at President Harry Truman's request after the president chose a new chair. Eccles left the Fed three years later after playing a pivotal role in a clash with Truman over how much authority the White House should have in setting rates. The showdown ultimately secured the Fed's independence.
Citing his passion for the intellectual stimulus of the work, Alan Greenspan would "almost certainly" have stayed on the Fed's board if President Bill Clinton hadn't reappointed him to another term as chair in 1996, according to Bob Woodward's 2000 biography. "If he had to move down the table out of the chairman's seat, he felt that there was enough respect for his views that he could still have some influence," Woodward wrote.
Powell's situation is unlike either Eccles's or Greenspan's because he lacks an invitation or a strong desire to keep the job. If he stays, it will only be because leaving looks worse. No previous chair has faced that choice.
Staying would carry unappetizing trade-offs. He could find himself dissenting against policies he considers reckless -- an extraordinary step that could overshadow any rate decision. Or he could vote in favor of decisions he disagrees with, lending his credibility to a chair who could then point to Powell's vote as validation.
"It looks political if he stays, and to what benefit?" said Jon Faust, who served as Powell's senior adviser from 2018 until 2024.
But Faust said Powell would stay -- "very unhappily, with great disappointment" -- if he believed his presence on the board was the difference between the administration taking extreme steps to compromise the Fed's independence, such as purging officers or engineering backdoor rate cuts without the consent of the Fed's rate-setting committee.
Powell wouldn't address his future on Wednesday, but when asked about the principle of Fed independence, he said every advanced democracy separates monetary policy from direct political control. He warned of the loss of credibility if the public came to believe the Fed was making decisions for political reasons, including to help one party or president.
"We haven't lost it," Powell said. "I don't believe we will. I certainly hope we won't."