US Supreme Court rejects Trump's unprecedented bid to fire Fed's Cook

Highlights:

• Until Trump, no president had tried to fire a Fed official
• Trump tests the limits of presidential authority
• Longstanding Fed independence put to the test in Cook case
• Roberts and Kavanaugh join liberals in 5-4 ruling
• Court backs Trump in ruling on firing FTC's Slaughter

The US Supreme Court refused on Monday to let Donald Trump fire Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook as it stood firm to preserve the central bank's cherished independence against an unprecedented challenge by the Republican president.

The court, in a 5-4 ruling, blocked Trump's bid to become the first president to remove a Fed official since Congress created the central bank in 1913. In his second term as president, Trump has tested the limits of presidential power in numerous other ways as well.

Conservative Chief Justice John Roberts and fellow conservative Justice Brett Kavanaugh were in the majority, along with the court's three liberal justices. Conservative Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett dissented.

Roberts, who authored the ruling, said Trump "failed to afford Cook the procedural protections to which she was entitled by statute. Without such protections, she could not properly dispute the charges the president laid against her."

Canvassing the history of the Federal Reserve System and its predecessor central banks since the founding, including the Bank of North America and the First and Second Banks of the United States, Roberts emphasised that all have featured independence from the president.

"Like the directors of its three predecessors, however, the Federal Reserve's Governors do not serve at the president's pleasure - they instead serve staggered 14 year terms, and may be removed only 'for cause,'" Roberts added.

Trump last August had cited unproven mortgage fraud allegations in trying to oust Cook, the first Black woman to serve as a Fed governor, while she called that a pretext to remove her for monetary policy differences.

'I refused to bow'

In a statement on Monday, Cook welcomed the court's decision, saying it affirms the Fed's obligation to make policy decisions independently, free from political interference.

"This was never about mortgage documents signed years before I became a Federal Reserve governor. It was an attempt to remove me on a manufactured pretext because I refused to bow to political pressure and continued to set interest rates based only on what would best serve the American people," Cook said.

The justices denied a request from Trump's Justice Department to lift a judge's order barring him from immediately firing Cook while her legal challenge to the termination continues to play out in a lower court. Cook denied Trump's allegations.

The court said its ruling was not deciding the validity of the factual dispute in the case, which can now return to lower courts where action has been stalled while the Supreme Court weighed in.

"It at least remains an open question what precisely happened here, and indeed whether Cook committed 'gross negligence,' let alone 'deceitful and potentially criminal conduct,' as the president's letter alleges," Roberts wrote, adding that Cook must be able to respond to the charges made against her.

'Appropriate action'

Trump reacted to the decision in a social media post.

"The Cook Lawsuit, having to do with her suitability in sitting on the Board of the Federal Reserve, was sent back by the Supreme Court on a strictly procedural basis, we will take appropriate action immediately to make sure that someone who has committed wrongdoing will not be making vital decisions concerning the Welfare of the United States of America!" Trump wrote.

In another ruling on Monday, the Supreme Court backed Trump's firing of Rebecca Slaughter, a Democratic Federal Trade Commission member, expanding his powers over the government and overturning its 1935 precedent that had recognised the authority of Congress to protect leaders of certain regulatory agencies from presidential removal at will.

Trump in separate comments on social media called the Slaughter ruling "one of the most important ever given with respect to Presidential Powers."

Monday's Cook ruling follows the February 20 decision by the justices in another case with major economic ramifications to strike down most of Trump's sweeping global tariffs, a ruling that elicited a vitriolic condemnation of the court by the president.

The Fed is the world's most important central bank, an institution that determines the cost of credit for the United States and beyond and which has been in Trump's crosshairs since his return to the presidency in January 2025.

Cook's term in the job was due to run until 2038. She was appointed by Democratic former President Joe Biden in 2022.

Trump's targeting of Cook and a separate criminal investigation his administration launched in January, but later dropped, against then-Fed Chair Jerome Powell together represented the biggest challenge to the central bank's independence since its founding.

May 15 was the final day of Powell's eight years as Fed chair, though he remains a member of its Board of Governors. The US Senate on May 13 voted to confirm Trump's nominee Kevin Warsh as Powell's successor, and he was sworn in on May 22.

When the justices in October, opens new tab agreed to hear the case involving Cook, they left her in the post for the time being. The Supreme Court heard arguments in the case in January, with Cook and Powell in attendance.

The Federal Reserve Act

In creating the Fed in 1913, Congress passed a law called the Federal Reserve Act that included provisions to shield the central bank from political interference, requiring governors to be removed by a president only "for cause," though the law does not define the term nor establish procedures for removal.

While Monday's ruling did not define exactly what could constitute "cause" under which a president could fire Cook or other board members, Roberts said that the central bank's history and independence suggested it should be a "substantial threshold."

"Without such constraints in place, any perceived or alleged misstep (past or present) could provide a ready pretext for a governor's removal — a fact that he would surely know, and that would surely weigh on him as he decided what to say and how to vote," Roberts wrote. "Nothing could be more corrosive of the independence that Congress sought to preserve."

Roberts said that while, short of impeachment, only the president can decide whether to remove a member of the Federal Reserve Board, "that does not mean that he may make that decision for any reason, or no reason."

"Congress could of course afford the president the power to remove Federal Reserve Governors at will," Roberts wrote. "Or Congress could exempt the president's removal of governors for cause from judicial review. But Congress has done neither."

Trump sought to fire Cook on August 25, 2025, by posting a termination letter on social media citing the allegations disclosed by Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Bill Pulte, a Trump appointee, involving homes owned by her in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and Atlanta.

Pulte wrote on social media on Monday, "As I have repeatedly said, I believe Lisa Cook will be indicted for mortgage fraud."

US District Judge Jia Cobb in September ruled that Trump's attempt to remove Cook without notice or a hearing likely violated her right to due process under the US Constitution's Fifth Amendment. The judge also said the allegations made against Cook likely were not a legally sufficient cause to remove her under the Federal Reserve Act as they relate to conduct that occurred before she served in the post.

The US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit declined Trump's request to put Cobb's order on hold.

Conservative Justice Clarence Thomas, in a dissenting opinion, said Monday's ruling had wrongly allowed Cook to remain in her position and exercise "executive power" after being removed by Trump.

Thomas criticised the ruling for expressing concern that a board member was being removed for the first time in the Federal Reserve's 111-year history, saying "it expresses no such concern that it today upholds an injunction against the president's removal of an executive officer for the first time in the Constitution's 237-year history."

"The court makes many policy arguments for an 'independent' banking agency that exercises executive power free from accountability," Thomas wrote, "but those are ultimately arguments against the Constitution."

The wishes of politicians

Trump has heaped pressure on the central bank to cut interest rates more rapidly and more deeply than it has been willing to do as it combats persistent inflation, and lashed out repeatedly at Powell for not complying with his wishes.

The Cook case has ramifications for the Fed's ability to set interest rates without regard to the wishes of politicians, widely seen as critical to any central bank's ability to carry out tasks such as keeping inflation under control.

As a Fed governor, Cook helps set US monetary policy with the rest of the central bank's seven-member board and the heads of the 12 regional Fed banks.

In prior cases, the Supreme Court chipped away at the independence of various federal agencies from presidential control, and could soon overrule a key precedent that has shielded the heads of independent agencies from removal since 1935.

But the court last year signalled it may view the central bank as an exception, noting in a May 2025 ruling that let Trump remove two Democratic members of federal labour boards that the Fed possesses a unique structure and historical tradition.

Presidential power

Both Cook's case and the fight over tariffs involved the legal fallout from Trump aggressively pushing the limits of presidential power since returning to office in January 2025.

Trump has also used executive authority to quickly transform policies on immigration, military service, federal employment and beyond. To date, the Supreme Court has allowed most of those policies to go ahead despite legal challenges, on a preliminary basis, though the tariffs decision was a major exception.

In the tariffs ruling, the court repudiated a signature piece of Trump's economic agenda by invalidating his tariffs imposed on nearly every US trading partner under a 1977 law meant for use in national emergencies - also something no other president had done.

Trump reacted furiously to that ruling, saying he was "absolutely ashamed" of some of the justices and called the court's Republican appointees - including two of his own - who ruled against him "fools" and "lapdogs" for Democrats.

As in other legal disputes, the administration argued for an expansive view of Trump's power in Cook's case, saying that so long as the president identifies a cause for removal, that is within his "unreviewable discretion."

Cook's lawyers argued that granting him that power would eviscerate the Fed's independence, disrupt markets and create a roadmap for future presidents to direct monetary policy.

The Powell investigation

Like Cook, Powell called the administration's action against him - an investigation involving cost overruns in a project to renovate two historical buildings at the Fed's Washington headquarters - a pretext aimed at gaining influence over monetary policy. A judge on March 13 blocked subpoenas issued in the Powell investigation by a prosecutor appointed by Trump, agreeing with Powell that the probe was an improper attempt to intimidate the central bank into cutting interest rates. The prosecutor dropped the investigation on April 24.

Trump has publicly called Powell a "numbskull," a "major loser" and "very incompetent."

Trump in January nominated Warsh, who previously served on the Fed's Board of Governors and whose father-in-law is wealthy Trump booster Ron Lauder. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas administered the oath of office for Warsh during his swearing-in ceremony, and fellow conservative Justice Brett Kavanaugh was in attendance.

The Justice Department dropped the Powell investigation after Republican Senator Thom Tillis called the inquiry a frivolous assault on the Fed's independence and vowed to block Warsh's confirmation until it was ended.

In what is called a criminal referral, Pulte asked the Justice Department last year to open a criminal investigation into Cook and others over alleged mortgage fraud. There has been no indication of any such criminal investigation moving forward.

As Pulte pushed the accusations, Reuters found that his father and stepmother declared the same status as Cook on two homes in two different states. These "homestead exemptions" for residences are meant to give a discount to homeowners on taxes for properties they use as their primary residence. The property tax authority in Ann Arbor told Reuters that Cook had not broken rules for tax breaks on her home despite Pulte's allegations.