President Donald Trump’s own social media posts harmed the Department of Justice’s efforts to criminally investigate Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, according to a Washington, D.C. reporter.

On Friday, U.S. District Judge James E. Boasberg “quashed a pair of subpoenas tied to the investigation and ordered the docket in the case to be unsealed,” The Washington Post reported, calling it “a significant setback” for the Trump administration’s inquiry.

“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,” Judge Boasberg wrote. “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.”

Washington correspondent and investigative journalist Scott Macfarlane reported, “Trump’s Truth Social posts appear to have gravely injured his attempt to get a criminal case against Jerome Powell.”

Judge Boasberg’s 27-page memorandum opinion began with a Trump Truth Social post:

“Jerome ‘Too Late’ Powell has done it again!!! He is TOO LATE, and actually, TOO ANGRY, TOO STUPID, & TOO POLITICAL, to have the job of Fed Chair. He is costing our Country TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS… Put another way, ‘Too Late’ is a TOTAL LOSER, and our Country is paying the price!’ ” Trump wrote on July 31, 2025, as Boasberg noted.

“That is one of at least 100 statements that the President or his deputies have made attacking the Chair of the Federal Reserve and pressuring him to lower interest rates,” the judge wrote.

The words “Too Late,” as in Trump’s nickname for the Fed chairman, appear in Boasberg’s opinion eighteen times.

The judge cited numerous Trump posts.

“‘Too Late’ Jerome Powell is costing our Country Hundreds of Billions of Dollars. He is truly one of the dumbest, and most destructive, people in Government…. TOO LATE’s an American Disgrace!” Trump wrote on June 19, 2025.

On August 1, 2025, as Boasberg wrote, Trump posted: “Jerome ‘Too Late’ Powell, a stubborn MORON, must substantially lower interest rates, NOW. IF HE CONTINUES TO REFUSE, THE BOARD SHOULD ASSUME CONTROL, AND DO WHAT EVERYONE KNOWS HAS TO BE DONE!”

Boasberg also noted that as he “considered whom to appoint as the Fed’s next Chair,” Trump vowed, “Anybody that disagrees with me will never be the Fed Chairman!”

In his opinion, as MacFarlane reported, Boasberg wrote that Trump “spent years essentially asking if no one will rid him of this troublesome Fed Chair. He then suggested a specific line of investigation into him, which had been proposed by a political appointee with no role in law enforcement, who hinted that it could be a way to remove Powell. The President’s appointed prosecutor promptly complied.”

Boasberg also suggested that federal prosecutors had issued subpoenas improperly.

“Did prosecutors issue those subpoenas for a proper purpose? The Court finds that they did not. There is abundant evidence that the subpoenas’ dominant (if not sole) purpose is to harass and pressure Powell either to yield to the President or to resign and make way for a Fed Chair who will.”

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A former top Trump Department of Homeland Security official is warning that he fears the president could get the U.S. into a nuclear war for which it is not prepared — because he saw the president’s response in his first term, when fears ran high after North Korea launched a missile that could have reached the U.S.

“Few Americans realize how close the president took us to the brink of nuclear war in his first term before aides talked him down,” writes Miles Taylor, the DHS chief of staff during Trump’s first term. “What the public didn’t know at the time — and until years later — was that the president’s team was worried he might start a nuclear war.”

“Today, there’s no one prepared to stop him,” warns Taylor, who writes that Trump “has an eerie fascination with nukes.”

“My fear about this man has always been about his finger on the nuclear button. That’s usually just symbolism when we talk about the presidency. The ‘nuclear button’ is a stand-in for the concept of presidential power and the risks of instability,” says Taylor. “When we’re talking about Trump, it’s not a metaphor.”

READ MORE: ‘What Was the Plan?’: White House Faces Fury Over Claim Trump Knew Hormuz Closure Risk

During Trump’s first year in office, “the United States came closer to a nuclear conflict than most people realize,” Taylor says. He chastised the president for his “mishandling” of a confrontation with North Korea that “was so serious” that the team at DHS “was forced to do real-life, defensive planning for the possibility of a nuclear strike against the homeland — a situation DHS had never been in since its creation.”

Detailing the events that day, Taylor notes that “North Korea had launched an intercontinental ballistic missile,” its “most powerful weapon yet — the first North Korean missile capable of hitting anywhere in the world, including Washington, D.C.”

As the crisis grew, Trump called acting DHS Secretary Elaine Duke.

“But Trump wasn’t calling to ask about the missile — or even whether his defensive team at DHS was ready to protect the homeland against such a strike had it been the real thing,” Taylor writes. In an “angry” phone call, Trump “wanted to talk about deportations.”

“As Elaine recounted the call to me, her eyes began to well up. A nuclear-capable missile had just ripped through the skies over the Pacific, and the president of the United States was oblivious. All he cared about was getting foreigners off his land.”

DHS had to prepare for the “genuine possibility” that Trump “might stumble us into a nuclear confrontation with North Korea.”

READ MORE: ‘Quiet Part Out Loud’: Hegseth Slammed for Lashing Out at CNN’s War Reporting

Taylor detailed Trump’s “angry tweets,” in which he “threatened North Korea with ‘fire, fury and frankly power the likes of which this world has never seen before.’ National security officials woke up to these messages on their phones. Stunned. The president almost seemed to welcome the prospect of a global conflagration.”

As the months wore on, whenever DHS “got alerts that the North Koreans were preparing a missile launch, those of us working inside the administration worried it could be the real thing,” says Taylor, “or that the president might say something so stupid that he’d manifest it… or that he would be too distracted to care.”

Now, Trump has not changed, but what has is that “everything that kept him in check” is gone.

Taylor recounts how last year, Trump took to Truth Social to declare that, “Because of other countries testing programs, I have instructed the Department of War to start testing our Nuclear Weapons on an equal basis.”

“That process will begin immediately,” Trump wrote.

“As the president barrels forward with the Iran war, I’m getting the same sense of dread that I had then,” Taylor warns.

Summing up his concerns, he says that, “Regardless of what happens with the Iran war, I want you to remember this. I want you to remember what we’ve learned about how Donald Trump sees his gravest responsibilities as commander-in-chief, how he was gamified war, and how he has flirted with nuclear catastrophe.”

“It is, perhaps, the most urgent reason for Americans to demand the other branches of government do more to keep him in check. Our president is unstable, and there are no longer sensible people around him to send up a flare if he’s ready to do something deadly.”

READ MORE: ‘Key Indicator’: Expert Warns US Could Be Planning ‘Potential Ground Operation’

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The Pentagon’s reported decision to send a Marine expeditionary unit and additional warships to the Middle East is being called a “key indicator” of a “possible ground operation,” according to a national security and defense expert.

“The Pentagon is moving a Marine expeditionary unit and more warships to the Middle East, as Iran steps up its attacks in the Strait of Hormuz,” the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday. “Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has approved a request from Centcom for an element of an amphibious ready group and attached Marine expeditionary unit, typically consisting of several warships and 5,000 Marines, according to three U.S. officials.”

The Economist’s defense editor, Shashank Joshi, responded to the Journal’s reporting, calling it a “key indicator of a potential ground operation.”

Joshi, who has given lectures to the UK Defence Academy and NATO, according to his bio, added: “Many potential uses for [a Marine expeditionary unit,] of course. Some related to ground operations … but many not. Things like de-mining capacity, escort capacity, evacuation of civilians.”

READ MORE: ‘What Was the Plan?’: White House Faces Fury Over Claim Trump Knew Hormuz Closure Risk

CBS News national security analyst Aaron MacLean wrote: “If I were considering a special operations mission targeting Iran–perhaps a raid on nuclear sites, or even the seizure of critical energy infrastructure–this is just the sort of capability I would want on hand in the region.”

Retired Washington Post editor Robert McCartney called the move a “sign we could soon see U.S. boots on ground.”

“If modern war history shows us anything it’s once you start sending troops the number keeps going up especially when the war is a debacle,” warned Mike Prysner, Executive Director of the Center on Conscience & War. “And leaders would rather pass off the problem to the next administration rather than be the one to admit defeat.”

Just days ago, U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) warned of a potential deployment of U.S. troops “on the ground in Iran,” after attending a briefing.

READ MORE: ‘Quiet Part Out Loud’: Hegseth Slammed for Lashing Out at CNN’s War Reporting

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