NO RESERVE: The Justice Department has opened a criminal investigation into whether federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell lied to Congress about the hugely expensive renovations of his agency’s buildings.

  Powell is high on Trump’s enemies list after ignoring the President’s demands to dramatically lower interest rates. The Fed is an independent body and despite repeated complaints, Trump has been unable to fire Powell, whose term as chair ends in May.

  The investigation was opened in November by the US Attorney in Washington, Jeanine Pirro, the former Fox network television judge. The cost of the Federal Reserve renovations has ballooned from an estimated $1.9 billion to $2.5 billion and Powell was questioned about it during a Senate hearing last year.

  Powell said in a statement that, “This unprecedented action should be seen in the broader context of the administration’s threats and ongoing pressure.” He said, “The threat of criminal charges is a consequence of the Federal Reserve setting interest rates based on our best assessment of what will serve the public, rather than following the preferences of the President.”

ICE, ICE, BABY: Thousands of people hit the streets in Minneapolis and cities across the country Saturday in protest of the fatal shooting last week by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer.

  Congressional Democrats and even some Republicans are talking about an assertive response to President Trump’s aggressive deportation campaign, including a full investigation into Good’s death, and policy changes regarding law enforcement actions, defunding of ICE operations, and even the impeachment of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem. Of course, getting any of that done would require big cracks in the Republican political wall.

  Videos of the Minneapolis incident have been interpreted with a partisan tilt. Administration supporters have called it justified and critics have gone so far as to call it an act of murder. ICE agent Jonathan Ross fired three times into the moving car of 37-year-old  Renee Good, killing the mother of three. Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem on CNN yesterday continued to call Good’s actions an act of “domestic terrorism” and that Ross did what he was trained to do.

  Good and her wife were protesting an ICE action that day. Her wife later said, “We had whistles, they had guns.”

TRIGGER WARNING: With an increasing number of people getting killed in nationwide anti-government protests in Iran, President Trump has been briefed on military options for strikes to discourage the regime from using force.

  “Iran is looking at FREEDOM, perhaps like never before,” Trump wrote on social media on Saturday. “The USA stands ready to help!!!”

  Demonstrations began in December over Iran’s near worthless currency and have since expanded throughout the country into demands for the end of the Islamic regime. Crowds of thousands have been chanting “Death to the dictator” but so far it’s been mostly the demonstrators getting killed. Rows of bodies in bags have been laid out at hospitals. 

  Yesterday on Air Force One Trump told reporters that Iran’s leaders may have crossed a red line: “It looks like it. There seems to be some people killed who weren’t supposed to be killed.” He said,  “We’re looking at it very seriously, the military’s looking at it. And there’s a couple options.”

THE REGIME:

— The NY Times is still publishing stories from its two-hour interview with the President last week. They report that Trump said that following the civil rights era of the 1960s, “White people were very badly treated, where they did extremely well and they were not invited to go into a university to college.” Referring to affirmative action in college admissions, he said, “So I would say in that way, I think it was unfair in certain cases.”

— The National Portrait Gallery replaced the picture of Donald Trump and also removed explanatory text on the wall that had mentioned the President’s two impeachments in his first term. 

STATUARY: The Shakespeare movie “Hamnet” won Best Picture last night at the Golden Globes. “One Battle After Another” won four awards.

THE OBIT PAGE:  Bob Weir, the guitarist who was instrumental in creating the psychedelic sound of the 60s rock band “Grateful Dead” died at age 78.

  The band was famous for such hits as “Playing in the Band,” “Truckin’,” and “Touch of Grey” with the lyric, “I will get by.”

  The Grateful Dead was formed in the San Francisco Bay Area in 1965, blending rock, folk, blues, and country. They played at the 1969 Woodstock festival.

  Only one of the originals, drummer Bill Kreutzmann, is still alive. Lead man Jerry Garcia died in 1995 at just 53.  

  Long after the 60s, “The Dead” as they were called had a devoutly loyal following. In live performances they would go off into long, dreamy instrumental improvisations. It helped to be stoned.  

THE SPIN RACK: Authorities in Rockford, Illinois on Saturday arrested a surgeon for the murders of his ex-wife and her husband, a popular dentist. Monique Tepe, 39 and her husband Spencer, 37, were found dead in their home of gunshots on December 30^th after work mates and friends became concerned about being unable to reach them. The couple’s two young children, 4 and 1, had been left at home, unharmed with their dead parents. — Adam Johnson, the man who grabbed then Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s podium during the January 6 Capitol Insurrection, is running for a seat on the Manatee County commission in Florida. Johnson filed on January 6^th and told a local television station, “It’s definitely good for getting the buzz out there.”  — Two back country skiers in a group of four were killed yesterday in an avalanche in the Cascade Mountains east of Seattle.

BELOW THE FOLD: Ole Miss quarterback Trinidad Chambliss is reported to be planning on suing the NCAA in Mississippi in an effort to get a sixth year of eligibility for college ball. To paraphrase John Belushi in “Animal House,” “Christ, five years of college down the drain.”

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