Judge Rejects Bid to Make Powell’s Interest Rate Meetings Public

The request to make Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meetings open to the public was made via a dubious lawsuit filed by James Fishback’s Azoria Capital.

Fed’s Closed-Door Policy Upheld as Judge Blocks Public Access Request

In a strange turn of events, U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell found himself at the center of a lawsuit seeking to make the central bank’s closed-door interest rate meetings public. The suit was filed on July 24 by exchange-traded fund (ETF) issuer Azoria Capital, the brainchild of staunch Trump supporter and college dropout James Fishback.

(James Fishback (left) is the controversial 30-year-old CEO of Azoria Capital, the firm behind the failed attempt to compel the FOMC to make its secret meetings public) Azoria alleges that Powell and his fellow committee members, are in contravention of the 1976 Sunshine Act, which requires federal agencies to hold their meetings in public as a form of government transparency.

But Judge Beryl Howell who oversaw the case, rejected that notion, explaining that the FOMC is not a federal agency, and is thus not subject to the act. Howell also accused Fishback of using the lawsuit as a publicity stunt to promote the launch of his so-called “meritocracy” ETF, which claims to track the S&P 500, but excludes 38 companies that have official diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs.

“The courts are very, very busy, and using the filing of a lawsuit as a business strategy to build publicity or generate interest in a new investment fund is not a particularly welcome development,” Howell said, according to CNBC.

The Powell suit isn’t Fishback’s first legal rodeo. The 30-year-old “self-taught investment professional” and son of a Colombian immigrant, sued his former employer Geenlight Capital for defamation after the hedge fund firm denied that Fishback had been its “head of macro,” a position it says has never existed at the company. Fishback’s official title was “research analyst,” according to the firm.

(David Einhorn CEO of Greenlight Capital, the firm that claims James Fishback lied about his job title and performance during his two-year stint at the company) Besides conjuring up a fancy title, Fishback also boasted about generating over “$100 million in profits” for Greenlight. It turns out, this too was a lie, at least according to Greenlight’s lawyers.

“He had absolutely no authority or discretion whatsoever over Greenlight’s macro investment portfolio,” Greenlight’s countersuit documents state. “He was not responsible for generating any profits, let alone ‘over $100 million’ of profits.”

Powell and the rest of the FOMC are taking part in their scheduled two-day meeting on Tuesday and Wednesday, where they will decide to cut or maintain interest rates. Almost all experts expect the Fed to hold rates steady, but U.S. President Donald Trump has been vocal about the need to slash rates by three points to save $1 trillion in national debt servicing payments.

Fishback, a vocal proponent of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), supports Trump’s perspective on monetary policy.

“If the Federal Open Market Committee ‘is not a government agency,’ then why are its 12 taxpayer-funded members holed up in a $3.1 billion federal building for two days on our dime,” Fishback wrote in a post on X. “If they’re just private citizens hanging out, shouldn’t we have them arrested for trespassing? And while we’re at it, maybe we just lower the rates ourselves.”