By Lefteris Papadimas and Howard Schneider
ATHENS/WASHINGTON, Jan 14 (Reuters) - Federal Reserve Governor Stephen Miran said on Wednesday comments from foreign central banks in defense of U.S. central bank chief Jerome Powell were inappropriate, a remark that stood in contrast to an outpouring of public support for Powell, including from other Fed policymakers, after a sharp escalation of Trump administration pressure.
"I don't think it is appropriate for central bankers to get involved in non-monetary
policy issues in their own country, and I think it is even less appropriate in other countries," Miran told an economic forum in Athens when asked for his response to a letter European and other central bank policymakers wrote in support of Powell after a threatened criminal indictment raised concerns about central bank independence.
The heads of the European Central Bank, the Bank of England, the Bank of Canada and eight other institutions on Tuesday said Powell had acted with integrity and that central bank independence was crucial for keeping prices and financial markets stable.
"The institutions in the United States are very, very strong, and what matters at the end of the day is whether policy is good or bad," Miran said in the Greek capital. "That's not something that worries me at all ... It's a story of people writing things for clicks."
Miran, whom Trump appointed to the Fed in September and who plans to return to his job as a White House economic advisor after his term ends this month, has been an outlier among U.S. central bank policymakers for his entire short tenure, repeatedly dissenting on policy decisions to voice his support for bigger rate cuts, as the U.S. president has long called for.
Several other Fed policymakers spoke on Wednesday in support of Powell and of central bank independence, several days after the central bank chief called out the Trump administration's decision to subpoena him as a way of intimidating the Fed into delivering easier monetary policy.
TRUMP'S ESCALATING PRESSURE FOR LOWER RATES
Powell's term as Fed chief ends in May and Trump has said he plans to pick a successor within weeks who agrees with the president on the need to reduce rates.
Atlanta Fed President Raphael Bostic on Wednesday said the video statement issued by Powell on Sunday "said all it needed to say." In the video, Powell said the criminal subpoenas related to his congressional testimony on Fed building renovations were "pretexts" to get the central bank to act in line with the president's preferences, jeopardizing its independence.
Bostic, who is retiring from the Fed in the coming weeks, said it has been an honor to serve alongside so many officials who take central bank independence seriously.
Other Fed officials chimed in along similar lines.
"I consider Chair Powell to be a first-ballot hall-of-fame Fed chair," Chicago Fed President Austan Goolsbee told National Public Radio. "And if we're going to get into a circumstance where the independence - or even the integrity - of Chair Powell is in question, we're in a bad spot."
Minneapolis Fed President Neel Kashkari said Trump's escalating pressure on Powell and the central bank was about monetary policy and that Powell had explained the issue "accurately."
Whoever Trump picks to lead the Fed, Kashkari said, "will have to make their best arguments to the rest of the (policy-setting) committee on what monetary policy is appropriate to achieve the dual mandate that we are all charged by Congress to try to achieve. That person gets one vote, and, you know, the best argument wins."
(Reporting by Howard Schneider, Michael S. Derby, Dan Burns, and Ann Saphir; Editing by Paul Simao)
