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Trump Responds To Watchdog Report: Force Powell Off The Fed Board - Or Sue Him

Zero Rss
1 week 1 day ago
Trump Responds To Watchdog Report: Force Powell Off The Fed Board - Or Sue Him

Update (1554ET): So much for "finality."

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.

Frequent ZH readers will remember how this saga played out. In July 2025, with Trump publicly pressing for rate cuts, the renovation became the administration's preferred lever: Trump said he wouldn't fire Powell "unless there is fraud w/ renovation" (July 16, 2025). Days later, Powell was criminally referred to the DOJ for perjury (July 21, 2025) over his June 2025 testimony that there was "no VIP dining room, there's no new marble... there's no beehives and there's no roof terrace gardens." Trump then toured the site in a hard hat alongside Powell (July 24-25, 2025), producing the most awkward cost-overrun negotiation in central banking history. At the time, OMB's Russ Vought insisted the criticism was "not about firing Powell" but "about holding the Fed accountable."

Things escalated in January, when the Fed was served with grand jury subpoenas and Powell vowed to "stand firm" (Jan 12, 2026), accusing the administration of using the probe to punish the Fed for not cutting rates:

"This is about whether the Fed will be able to continue to set interest rates based on evidence and economic conditions — or whether instead monetary policy will be directed by political pressure or intimidation."

Federal prosecutors followed up with a surprise visit to the renovation site, with US Attorney Jeanine Pirro saying any project with "cost overruns of almost 80 percent" deserved "serious review." Then in March, Judge Boasberg quashed the DOJ subpoena (March 13), calling it "pretextual." After Republican senators held up Warsh's confirmation over the probe, Pirro dropped the investigation (April 24), deferring to the very IG report that came out today.

So case closed? Not quite

Pirro said at the time that she would scrutinize the IG's findings, leaving open the option to reopen the case. And Powell, who broke with tradition by staying on the Board as a governor after his term as chair ended in May, said he would not leave "until this investigation is well and truly over, with transparency and finality."

Well, Powell can now leave as today's report gives him the "finality" part. Whether it gives him a reason to leave is another question. And whether a clean bill of health from an IG that Powell himself appointed and whose review Powell himself ordered will satisfy Pirro or the White House is... well, we'll find out soon enough: keep an eye on Trump's Truth Social account (especially if like Jane Street and the HFTers you are paying $100,000 to get them 20 millisecond before everyone else).

One thing is certain: a building project that nearly doubled in cost thanks to poor planning, no price cap and "inflation" is a perfect metaphor for the institution it will house.

Tyler Durden Wed, 09/30/2026 - 15:58
Tyler Durden

Police "Islamophobia" Training Equates Farage's Words With Hate Crime

Zero Rss
1 week 1 day ago
Police "Islamophobia" Training Equates Farage's Words With Hate Crime

Authored by Steve Watson via MODERNITY,

North Yorkshire officers sat through a publicly funded "Islamophobia" talk that treated Reform UK leader Nigel Farage's remarks on British values as if they belonged in the same conversation as a racially aggravated attack.

The trainer then asked the room which man had done "the most harm" - the politician on national television, or a man filmed abusing a Muslim bus driver.

The session was part of Project Unity, delivered by Abbas Najib, a former officer and now chief executive of Better Communities Bradford, at the York and North Yorkshire Hate Crime Conference in 2025.

Police officers were lectured about Nigel Farage in a publicly funded talk about Islamophobia, The Telegraph can reveal.

Officers at a hate crime conference attended training sessions that compared the Reform UK leader's opinions, specifically his doubts about young Muslims'... pic.twitter.com/u2HutKLxs4

- The Telegraph (@Telegraph) September 29, 2026

Police sources later insisted it was on the conference timetable rather than official force training, and that Najib was not a North Yorkshire employee. That distinction will not comfort anyone watching officers being invited to treat lawful political speech as a hate-crime accelerant.

Attendees were shown a 2024 interview in which Farage warned that "growing numbers of people do not subscribe to British values," naming Muslims and those turning out for the pro-Palestine marches in London. He cited a Henry Jackson Society survey finding that 46 per cent of British Muslims supported Hamas.

The room was then shown footage of a 2024 racial assault on a Muslim bus driver and told to "think about the relationship" between Farage's words and the offence. Officers were instructed to "draw your own conclusions" about the Reform leader and to "think about whether this commentary has any influence on something like this."

Najib put the comparison in the open. "Ask yourself, who is going to get into trouble between those two gentlemen? And who did the most harm?" He added: "Sitting in a national news studio and saying 'Jews hate Britain'. He'd be locked up before he left the studio, and too right too."

The same lecture also went after other Reform figures. Najib objected to "mainstream, high-profile politicians" such as Suella Braverman, Robert Jenrick and Michael Gove calling the pro-Palestine demonstrations "hate marches," and recast those protests as "protesting genocide."

Written material claimed women were not oppressed by the stipulations of Islam. The session defended mass immigration and argued that "Muslims, the immigrant, the brown person" were being scapegoated for a flatlining economy, when the real culprit was "the rich."

Footage of Matthew Goodwin on GB News was used as well. Goodwin had presented a YouGov survey finding that more than half of Britons believed Islam was not compatible with British values. The training material answered that poll with a claim that Islamic teachings sit neatly alongside David Cameron's official list of British values: democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty, respect and tolerance.

Goodwin later told GB News he was "shocked and appalled by the context of this talk," and "even more outraged by the fact that it was given to a politically neutral organisation such as the Police." He said the session showed that "there are some people in Britain who will not even allow us to have a debate about the role and compatibility of Islam in modern Britain."

Better Communities Bradford has received £490,000 from the National Lottery Communities Fund since 2019, including a £35,000 grant to roll out Project Unity. The programme covers "media and political narratives" and "myths and misconceptions about Islam." The Telegraph reported that the same material has been presented to students, council staff and civil servants working on Prevent, the state's counter-extremism programme.

Najib defended the work. "Project Unity exists to reduce anti-Muslim hostility and strengthen trust between communities," he said. "Statements made on national platforms reach millions, so the workshop looks closely at the words themselves and how they land." He told GB News that Farage's comments were "a sweeping claim about how British Muslims feel about this country" and that, in his view, "generalisations of that kind about an entire faith community are Islamophobic and fuel anti-Muslim hostility."

Jenrick's response cut through the charity language. "Yorkshire Police officers attended training sessions that compared the views Nigel Farage and I hold towards Islamists to a racially aggravated CRIME," he wrote. "They took issue with my description of the 'hate marches' and the fact research found 46% of British Muslims supported Hamas." He added: "The police have been infiltrated by bad-faith actors seeking to police speech, not actual crime."

Braverman tied it to the record she already put on the table. "This is the root cause of why the police refused to stop the hate marches, why antisemitism and extremism is out of control and why I was forced to blow the whistle on two-tier policing in 2023."

The timing is not accidental. Last week Policy Exchange reported that the National Association of Muslim Police had published papers defending Hamas, calling the IDF a "Zionist terrorist group," branding Zionism a form of anti-Muslim hatred, and treating the word "Islamist" as Islamophobic. NAMP denies defending a proscribed organisation. The paper still existed. The association still sits inside British policing.

The North Yorkshire session fits a pattern we have long documented. Hampshire officers told Braverman that mandatory DEI sessions had "drummed into us about our white privilege and unconscious bias," and that the outsourced trainer "was deeply hateful of white people and our culture."

Those officers stayed quiet because they feared for their careers. That same culture sat in the background of the Henry Nowak case, where an 18-year-old white teenager was handcuffed while bleeding out after his Sikh attacker accused him of racism.

Thames Valley Police has forced officers through "equity training" on white privilege, micro-aggressions and the shift from "non-racist" to "anti-racist," even after a tribunal found the force had positively discriminated against white officers.

Former assistant chief constable Kerrin Wilson recorded that white males "felt disadvantaged" and saw "unfairness was allowed for minority groups but not for majority populations."

Former officer and government adviser Rory Geoghegan put it plainly: officers "deserve far better from their leaders than to be crudely categorised by skin colour and subjected to reductive, divisive ideologies."

West Midlands Police has invited non-Muslim staff to fast during Ramadan as an act of "solidarity." Shadow justice secretary Nick Timothy called that "wholly inappropriate," arguing the police should observe "the same standards regardless of creed."

Major Andrew Fox of the Henry Jackson Society said the police exist "to enforce the law impartially, not to promote or facilitate religious practices."

Meanwhile, retired officer Stephen Gray was fined this year for sharing an online post critical of Islam. The Free Speech Union is backing his appeal and has warned that government Islamophobia definitions, already being used by forces, are functioning as a blasphemy code Parliament abolished in 2008.

A police service that lectures officers on the "harm" done by Farage while failing to hold the line against Islamist intimidation, antisemitic marches and two-tier street enforcement is not protecting the public. It is protecting a narrative.

Lottery money, Prevent briefings and conference slots have been handed to people who treat integration questions as suspect and political speech as a public-order problem. Impartial policing cannot survive that bargain.

 

Tyler Durden Wed, 09/30/2026 - 15:40
Tyler Durden

Stabbed Indian Pilot Foils Crash Plot By Crazed Omani Co-Pilot As Jet Plunged 18,000 Feet

Zero Rss
1 week 1 day ago
Stabbed Indian Pilot Foils Crash Plot By Crazed Omani Co-Pilot As Jet Plunged 18,000 Feet

Summary: 

  • Heroic Captain Fights Off Omani Co-Pilot In Suspected Hijacking Of Israel-Bound Jet
  • CNN Sources Say Co-Pilot Tried To Hijack Plane 
  • Omani Co-Pilot Stabbed Pilot 
  • Midair Horror: FlyDubai Pilot Reportedly Stabbed, Israeli News Says Incident Treated As "Full-Fledged Terror Attack"
New Details 

New details have emerged about what happened on the Israel-bound Flydubai flight earlier this morning, when the co-pilot stabbed the pilot, who fought back to prevent the aircraft from being hijacked and crashed.

The New York Post cites Indian and Israeli outlets identifying the captain as Indian national Smit Machchhar, a veteran pilot with 10,000 flight hours. The Jerusalem Post reported that the suspected attacker was an Omani national who had worked for flydubai for less than a year.

The hijacker (and co-pilot) on board FZ1073 stabbed Cpt Smit Machchhar, an Indian national during the flight, but the Captain heroically managed to open the cockpit door before collapsing.

His quick thinking saved over 170 lives today and enabled the passengers to subdue the… pic.twitter.com/nBoCWgcOOK

— יוסף חדאד - Yoseph Haddad (@YosephHaddad) September 30, 2026

Despite multiple stab wounds, Machchhar fought back, alerted the crew and released the cockpit door.

"The last moments of his energy, he used to click open the release on the door," Doron Spielman, a spokesperson for the Israeli prime minister's office, told Reuters.

Spielman said the attacker was striking the aircraft's control panel violently in an apparent attempt to crash the plane.

"This is thought to be a 9/11 scenario where the co-pilot kills the pilot and crashes the plane inside of Israel with all the passengers, mostly Israelis," one source told The Telegraph.

Flightradar24 data shows the aircraft descended 18,000 feet in 12 minutes during the ordeal.

 

The suspected attacker has not been publicly identified, according to the NYPost.

Notably, the attempted hijacking comes about one week before the third anniversary of the October 7 attacks.

Omani Co-Pilot Stabbed Captain, Tried To Hijack Israel-Bound Jet

Two Israeli sources told CNN that the Omani co-pilot aboard the Israel-bound Flydubai flight earlier this morning attempted to hijack the plane and stabbed the pilot in the process. 

The outlet said:

The sources said it was not yet clear whether the intention would have been to crash the plane or to land it and take hostages.

Both the pilot and co-pilot were injured in the incident on the flight which was traveling to Tel Aviv but forced to make an emergency landing in Saudi Arabia

Added:

One of the main questions being looked into is why the flight crew included a pilot from a country with which Israel does not have diplomatic relations, the official said.

One of the pilots on Flydubai flight FZ1073 was Omani, two Israeli officials told CNN earlier. One of the officials said the Omani national was the co-pilot, allegedly the attacker in the violent incident.

Oman and Israel do not have formal diplomatic relations. It is not yet clear how the Omani pilot would have obtained clearance to fly to Israel.

A separate headline from Bloomberg cited Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who said the pilot tried to crash the plane. 

Images of flight #FZ1073 at Tabuk Airport appear to show that part of the aircraft’s rudder is missing or damaged.

Earlier in the flight, Flightradar24 data recorded an extreme descent rate of approximately -30,000 ft/min. https://t.co/8N8BLkvpiX

— Flightradar24 (@flightradar24) September 30, 2026

Scenes from inside the plane. 

BREAKING: Passenger footage captures panic aboard a Flydubai flight as the aircraft reportedly plunges 17,000 feet during a violent confrontation between the pilots, with passengers seen running toward the cockpit. pic.twitter.com/2quMsMEuXI

— Breaking911 (@Breaking911) September 30, 2026

The incident comes one week before the third anniversary of the October 7 attacks, when Hamas-led militants crossed from Gaza into Israel, killed about 1,200 people and took roughly 250 others hostage.

Midair Horror: FlyDubai Pilot Reportedly Stabbed, Israeli News Says Incident Treated As "Full-Fledged Terror Attack"

Flydubai Flight FZ1073 from Dubai to Tel Aviv abruptly diverted to Saudi Arabia earlier today after a reported fight between the pilots triggered a distress alert, sources told CNN.

Flight-tracking data from Flightradar24 shows Flydubai Flight FZ1073 diverted over Jordanian airspace toward Saudi Arabia and rapidly descended 17,400 feet in just minutes around 0120 ET. Israeli fighter jets were scrambled.

According to Amit Segal of Israel's Channel 12 News:

Following situation assessments and passenger testimonies, Israel is treating the incident as a full-fledged terrorist attack. It appears that the co-pilot repeatedly stabbed the captain. Once the attack began, several crew members and passengers managed to break through the cockpit door and subdue the attacker.

According to one senior official, the co-pilot is currently being questioned, and indications are mounting that he intended to take control of the plane and crash it with the passengers on board.

Following situation assessments and passenger testimonies, Israel is treating the incident as a full-fledged terrorist attack. It appears that the co-pilot repeatedly stabbed the captain. Once the attack began, several crew members and passengers managed to break through the… https://t.co/BXS4kIjGXk

— Amit Segal (@AmitSegal) September 30, 2026

Flydubai confirmed the midair incident and said the Boeing 737 landed safely in Tabuk, with all passengers safe and accounted for. However, the airline did not specify the nature of the incident.

"Our teams are working closely with the relevant authorities," the carrier said. "Further updates will be issued as additional confirmed details become available."

Passengers told Israel's Channel 12 that they heard shouting near the cockpit and an altercation inside. They also said the aircraft plunged before landing in Saudi Arabia.

Tyler Durden Wed, 09/30/2026 - 15:35
Tyler Durden

Top Shia Cleric Says US Should Compensate Iraqis As Last American Forces Leave

Zero Rss
1 week 1 day ago
Top Shia Cleric Says US Should Compensate Iraqis As Last American Forces Leave

Via Middle East Eye

Influential Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr has said the US should compensate Iraqis for the damage inflicted on the country, as the last American troops pull out of Iraq.

In a statement on Wednesday, which is the deadline for American forces to end their 12-year presence (since the start of 'Inherent Resolve' against ISIS) in the country, Sadr hailed the "independence of Iraq" and praised those who fought against the US.

Iraqi Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr 

"We demand compensation from the American army for all the damages that occurred as a result of its occupation of Iraqi lands," he said. "Everyone should file legal complaints regarding this."

The US first occupied Iraq in 2003 following the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, before pulling out its forces in 2011.

They returned at the request of the Iraqi government in 2014 to tackle the spread of the Islamic State group, which had seized around a third of the country.

The US-led invasion in 2003 was widely regarded as illegal, and American forces in Iraq were accused of committing frequent war crimes and human rights abuses.

Different accounts of the death toll from the invasion have been reported, with most ranging from hundreds of thousands of violent deaths to more than a million excess deaths.

Sadr said in his statement that the US, as well as "neighboring countries", now needed to refrain from interfering in Iraqi affairs.

"This may lead to the severing of relations and reciprocal treatment, especially in political and ideological matters, and the dragging of Iraq into regional conflicts," he said. "We hope that the United States will reciprocate diplomatically and not act arrogantly towards Iraq, its government, and its people."

No foreign interference

During the original US-led occupation of Iraq, Sadr led the Mahdi Army (later revived as Saraya al-Salam or Peace Brigades), an armed group that fought against the coalition forces, Iraqi security forces and al-Qaeda in Iraq, among others.

Sadr and his supporters have long framed themselves as an Iraqi nationalist group, opposed to both US influence on the country and interference from its powerful neighbour Iran.

On Wednesday, Sadr said the remnants of the Mahdi Army would be retooled as the Supporters of Imam al-Mahdi Foundation, a reference to Muhammad al-Mahdi, whom Shia Muslims believe is in hiding and will return alongside Jesus to usher in the end times.

He also suggested that all current politicians in Iraq step down from their positions to usher in new blood - to "end corruption and work towards reform" - as well as reiterating a need for all weapons in Iraq to come under the control of the state.

The question of the integration of powerful armed groups in Iraq into the regular security forces has been linked to the US troop withdrawal.

Though the process was originally tied to the September 30 deadline, last week Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi extended the deadline to June 2027.

A number of the most powerful Iran-backed groups - including Kataeb Hezbollah, Harakat al-Nujaba and Kataeb Sayyid al-Shuhada - have already indicated that they will not disarm, and the ongoing US-Israel war against Iran has made it unlikely the Islamic Republic will exert any pressure on them to do so.

"Disarmament needs a political agreement inside Iraq, a credible way of integrating fighters and command structures into the state, and some answer to the political, economic and ideological power these factions have built up over years," said Hayder al-Shakeri, a research fellow with the Middle East and North Africa programme at Chatham House, speaking to Middle East Eye.

Chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell says the US and its coalition partners have formally ended “Operation Inherent Resolve” in Iraq with all forces and military equipment having left the airbase in Erbil.

The US has withdrawn its forces, but retains a more decisive form of leverage: controlling Iraq's access to its own oil revenue, which is held at the Federal ⁠Reserve Bank ​of New York. https://t.co/Ufd1Ya2QZo

— Aaron Maté (@aaronjmate) September 30, 2026

"For the groups closest to Iran, it will also be extremely difficult without Iranian agreement or a broader regional de-escalation. Otherwise, you risk simply moving the weapons into another institution while leaving the same networks and chains of command intact."

Tyler Durden Wed, 09/30/2026 - 15:20
Tyler Durden

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