As the Supreme Court cosigned President Trump and Elon Musk’s massacre of independent executive branch agencies last year, experts prayed that the justices would concoct some way to protect the Federal Reserve. Wednesday’s arguments bolstered those hopes.
The right-wing majority seemed uncomfortable with the Trump administration’s arguments from a variety of angles, though no one was as cut-and-dry as Justice Brett Kavanaugh.
“Your position that there is no judicial review, no process required, no remedy available, a very low bar for cause that the president alone determines — that would weaken if not shatter the independence of the Federal Reserve,” he said to Solicitor General John Sauer, who was arguing on behalf of the Trump administration.
Such a definitive statement from a justice who qualifies as one of the Court’s “swing votes” at this early posture suggests that the Trump administration will struggle to recruit a five justice majority to let it blow up the independence of the central bank.
Justice Amy Coney Barrett, another pseudo-swing, brought up amicus briefs from economists warning that if the Court lets Trump fire Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook, it may spark a recession. Pushing back on Sauer’s disavowals of the forecasting of “doom” from “elites,” Barrett asked whether the “risk” doesn’t counsel “caution on our part.”
Perhaps the predominant theme, from both poles of the bench, centered on a desire to send the case back down the lower courts. Even Justice Samuel Alito, usually a reliable vote for Trump’s agenda, questioned whether the mortgage documents the Trump administration alleges that Cook lied on — the grounds for her attempted firing — are even in the case’s record yet. At least four of the justices had to previously agree to intervene in the case preliminarily in order to hear it Wednesday.
Chief Justice Roberts, though, changed the conversation towards the end of the hearing, arguing that Cook’s defense boils down to her having made an “inadvertent mistake,” suggesting that the case might not need to be remanded after all. That could portend an even earlier win for Cook, if the Court is so convinced on the merits that it doesn’t need to dig into the particulars.
The Court wasn’t uniformly on board with Cook’s arguments: Justices expressed some uncertainty about the type of hearing that would be required for a president to fire a Fed governor for cause, and both Alito and Barrett were squeamish about Cook’s contention that misconduct prior to holding office doesn’t count for legal “for cause” removal.
But the greatest hope for Wednesday’s arguments from those who support the independence of the Fed was inconsistency, a break with the hostility the justices have shown towards other independent agencies. They got that.
“If this were set as a precedent, it seems to me, just thinking big picture, what goes around comes around and all the current president’s appointees would likely be removed for cause on January 20, 2029 if there’s a Democratic president, or January 20, 2033,” Kavanaugh said. “Then we’re really at at will removal — so what are we doing here?”
Apparently, his own personal wealth is an issue that matters to Boofer Kavanaugh.
This confirms the fact that the fascist-enabling radicals on the court are outcome-driven, not guided by any legal or historical precedents. I’m glad they seem to be sparing the Fed, but if they do, it will only show that if it’s not about their money, they don’t care what a president may do.
It seems that Roberts just wants this whole thing to go away rather than revisiting it in the future. That was my sense.
“Swing justices” roflmao
They are just coming right out and saying it now that they want different outcomes for Democrats. And what’s up with the 2033 date? Are they planning to give Trump a third term?