Republican lawmakers close ranks around Powell, who spent years building ties in Congress. ‘He gets in there, pets the dog, shoots the breeze’

President Donald Trump has spent his second term bulldozing elected and appointed officials who resist him or refuse to bend to his demands. But he may have met his match in Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell.

As the Trump administration ramps up its pressure campaign against the central bank — now including Justice Department subpoenas and the threat of criminal charges — Senate Republicans have closed ranks around Powell, defending an independent Fed chair under attack from a president of their own party.

“I know Chairman Powell very well. I will be stunned — I will be shocked — if he has done anything wrong,” said GOP Sen. John Kennedy of Louisiana, one of Trump’s most reliable allies in the Senate.

Soon after the Justice Department served subpoenas on the Fed, Powell went on the offensive, releasing a video statement accusing the administration of using “pretexts” to pressure the central bank into sharply cutting interest rates, as Trump has d...