Former Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, who also served as chair of the Federal Reserve, ripped the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) investigation into her successor, Jerome Powell, on Thursday as a “disturbing” attack on the Fed’s independence. “I think what President Trump is doing is unprecedented, and the most recent and most disturbing, in a way, is what he’s done to Chair Powell in really weaponizing the Department of Justice against him in order to try to induce him to leave,” Yellen told host Erin Burnett during an interview on CNN. Powell’s term as chair expires May 15, but he told reporters on Wednesday that he plans to remain as a governor at the central bank for an undetermined amount of time due to what he believes are ongoing legal threats against the institution. His term as a Fed board member expires in January 2028. “I worry that these attacks are battering the institution and putting at risk the thing that really matters to the public, which is the ability to conduct monetary policy without taking into consideration political factors,” he said during a press conference on the Fed’s decision to hold interest rates steady.