Former and current U.S. financial chiefs publicly back Powell: “An unprecedented attack on Fed independence”

Former Federal Reserve (Fed) chairs, Treasury secretaries, and Council of Economic Advisers (CEA) chairs appointed under Republican and Democratic administrations released a joint statement backing Fed Chair Jerome Powell.

According to Walter Bloomberg, an account for breaking economic news, on the 12th (local time), they strongly criticized moves to consider a criminal probe targeting Powell as “an unprecedented attack on the Fed’s independence.”

The statement included all three recent former Fed chairs—Janet Yellen, Ben Bernanke, and Alan Greenspan. The fact that figures from both parties signed on underscores broad bipartisan concern about undermining central-bank independence.

They warned that “the Fed’s political independence is core to the U.S. financial system,” and that “criminal pressure on the Fed chair could damage the credibility of monetary policy and market stability.” They added that “the Fed’s policy decisions must be based not on politics but on data and its legal mandate of price stability.”