Judge Rejects Public Meeting Request on Powell's Interest Rates

The demand for the public disclosure of the meetings of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) was made through a questionable lawsuit filed by Azoria Capital of James Fishback. Fed's Tightening Policy Maintained as Judge Blocks Public Access Request In a strange turn of events, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell has become the focal point of a lawsuit aimed at making the central bank's closed-door interest rate meetings public. The lawsuit was filed on July 24 by the issuer of the exchange-traded fund (ETF) Azoria Capital, the brainchild of James Fishback, a fervent supporter of Trump and also a dropout.

Azoria accused Powell and other committee members of violating the Sunshine Act of 1976, which requires federal agencies to hold public meetings as a form of government transparency. However, Judge Beryl Howell, who is overseeing the case, dismissed this view, explaining that the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) is not a federal agency and therefore not subject to the regulation of the act. Howell also accused Fishback of using the lawsuit as a publicity stunt to promote the launch of his ETF fund called "meritocracy," which is said to track the S&P 500 index but excludes 38 companies with official diversity, equity, and inclusion programs (DEI). According to CNBC, Howell stated: "The court is very, very busy and using lawsuits as a business strategy to build an image or generate interest in a new investment fund is not a welcome development." The Powell lawsuit is not the first time Fishback has found himself in legal trouble. This 30-year-old "self-taught investment expert", the son of a Colombian immigrant, has sued his former company Geenlight Capital for defamation after the hedge fund denied that Fishback was ever the "head of the macroeconomic department", a position that the company claims never existed. According to the company, Fishback's official title was "research analyst expert". In addition to concocting a flashy name, Fishback also boasted about generating "over 100 million dollars in profit" for Greenlight. It turns out, this was also a lie, at least according to Greenlight's lawyers. "He has no authority or decision-making power over Greenlight's macro investment portfolio," Greenlight's counterclaim states. "He is not responsible for generating any profits, let alone 'over 100 million dollars' in profits." Powell and the other members of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) will participate in a scheduled two-day meeting on Tuesday and Wednesday, where they will decide whether to cut or maintain interest rates. Virtually all experts expect the Fed to keep interest rates unchanged, but U.S. President Donald Trump has spoken out about the need to reduce interest rates by three percentage points to save $1 trillion in national debt payments. Fishback, a strong supporter of the Government Efficiency Act (DOGE), supports Trump's views on monetary policy. "If the Federal Open Market Committee is 'not a government agency', then why do 12 members funded by the taxpayer have to be in a federal building worth $3.1 billion for two days just at our expense," Fishback wrote in a post on X. "If they are just ordinary citizens gathering, shouldn't we arrest them for trespassing? And by the way, maybe we should lower the fees ourselves."