The Supreme Court ruled Wednesday to keep fired Governor Lisa Cook on the Federal Reserve Board for now, at least temporarily defying President Trump’s wishes.
In a brief, unsigned order, the Court deferred the government’s application for a stay until after oral arguments in January 2026.
It’s an early indication that the Court’s right-wing majority may be less sanguine about Trump’s indiscriminate firing of Federal Reserve Board members than it has been about his bloodletting at other federal agencies.
The majority has rubberstamped Trump’s firings at independent agencies in particular, long thought to have special protections from at-will firing. The Court will likely formalize the overturning of those protections in a case it’ll hear this December, centered on the unlawful firing of a member of the Federal Trade Commission.
Still, while it’s nodded along with Trump’s firings at the FTC, the National Labor Relations Board, the Merit Systems Protection Board and many more, the Court has expressed lingering hesitancy about similarly allowing Trump to enact a partisan takeover of the Fed. Experts, including from conservative circles, have long warned of the economic calamity that would ensue, should the United States’ central bank lose its independence.
As it greenlit one of those illegal firings in May, the Court’s majority was quick to acknowledge those concerns.
“The Federal Reserve is a uniquely structured, quasi-private entity that follows in the distinct historical tradition of the First and Second Banks of the United States,” it wrote, distinguishing the Fed from other (seemingly very similarly structured) independent agencies.
Wednesday’s brief order is the latest indication that even this anti-agency Court may jerryrig some exception that maintains the Fed’s relative immunity to Trump’s power grab.
An appeals court ruled in September that Cook couldn’t be removed by Trump while her challenge to her firing moved through the courts, upholding a lower court’s decision which found that a criminal investigation by Trump’s Justice Department likely was not sufficient grounds for removal under the 1913 law that created the Fed.
Trump’s attacks on the agency started during his first term, when he reportedly attempted to both fire and demote Fed Chair Jerome Powell, Trump’s own nominee, for raising interest rates.
During Trump 2.0, the president has publicly urged Powell to dramatically lower rates by as much as a full percent. (For contrast, Fed governors recently voted to lower the interest rate by one-quarter of a percent.) The president tried to bully Powell during a rare presidential visit to the Federal Reserve during which he publicly challenged the cost of over-budget improvements to the agency building.
At the same time, Trump’s administration dipped into the now-familiar playbook of accusing the president’s political opponents of mortgage fraud, and claiming those uncharged and unlitigated allegations are grounds for removal. In a now-deleted post on X, Trump’s director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency Bill Pulte accused Cook as claiming properties in two different cities as her primary residences. Even before the Justice Department could begin investigating the claims, Trump fired Cook. Subsequent reporting by Reuters suggested Pulte’s claims were bogus.
Other officials who’ve faced similar allegations include New York Attorney General Letitia James (D) and Sen. Adam Schiff (D-CA).
Cook initially refused to give up her seat and quickly sued the administration.
In addition to evidence of his attack on Black women in power — Trump also removed National Labor Relations Board Member Gwynne Wilcox in January — Trump’s attack on Cook specifically and the Fed in general is of a piece with his destruction of federal data at large. Actions taken by the administration have threatened to erode statistical agency independence and, therefore, trustworthiness.
That was part of the argument 18 bipartisan former federal officials made in an amicus brief urging the Supreme Court to allow Cook to remain at the Fed.
“Granting the government’s request to remove Governor Cook from the Board immediately would … expose the Federal Reserve to political influences, thereby eroding public confidence in the Fed’s independence and jeopardizing the credibility and efficacy of U.S. monetary policy,” the 26-page brief, filed last Thursday, states.
Trump nominated his Council of Economic Advisers chair Stephen Miran to fill the vacancy left by a different Fed governor, and GOP senators rushed Miran’s confirmation through on with 48-47 vote split largely along party lines. Despite Miran’s intent to stay on as a White House adviser, he was able to participate in the September Fed meeting, where he suggested a much more aggressive interest rate cut than other members.
Trump is the first president in the Fed’s 111-year history to try and remove a federal governor.
This is a breaking news story and will be updated.
I’m sorry, what the what? Maybe they realized if they allowed this, there’s no way to stop him from firing Jerome Powell.
I guess the conservative justices still need some more time to exchange their USD holdings for cryptocurrency and foreign real estate.
Every little bit, no matter how (seemingly) small or temporary, chips away at the carefully-curated aura of invincibility – every tiny tug by Toto, revealing even a brief glimpse of the pathetic little man behind the curtain helps ultimately and inevitably break this Oz wannabe’s fever-hold over the press, public, and even office holders.
Of course, “the economy” is vital, but it appears that to the radicals on the Supreme Court, it’s money that matters. Not the law, not the norms of government, not our civil rights, not our traditions of democracy, but pretty much just money.
Of course Lisa Cook should remain, as should all the Democrat appointees to the NLRB and other boards. The fact the court possibly allows Cook to remain while allowing the felon-in-chief to fire democrats from other boards speaks to the court’s illegitimacy and corruption.