Supreme Court keeps Fed’s Lisa Cook in role for now, agrees to review case

The Supreme Court on Wednesday agreed to review President Donald Trump‘s effort to fire Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook, and will allow her to remain in her spot on the board until oral arguments can be heard in January, the court said — delivering a long-awaited update on a high-profile case, and one expected to have significant political and economic implications for the nation’s central bank.

The update comes roughly two weeks after Trump officials appealed the case to the high court for emergency review. 

Oral arguments are expected to be closely watched, given the unprecedented nature of the case, and the seismic shift that any ruling could have on U.S. economic decisions. 

In appealing the case to the Supreme Court, lawyers for the Trump administration argued that the Fed’s “uniquely important role” in the U.S. economy only heightens the government’s and public’s interest in reviewing the case.

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“Put simply, the president may reasonably determine that interest rates paid by the American people should not be set by a governor who appears to have lied about facts material to the interest rates she secured for herself — and refuses to explain the apparent misrepresentations,” Solicitor General D. John Sauer said Thursday in the appeal.

The review of Cook’s case is significant. Trump’s attempt to fire Cook marked the first time in the bank’s 111-year history that a president has ever attempted to remove a sitting governor from Fed — a stridently independent body whose members are shielded by law against political pressures.

The court’s decision to take up the case comes weeks after U.S. District Judge Jia Cobb issued a preliminary injunction earlier this month blocking Trump from firing Cook from the Fed while the case continued to play out in court.

She ruled that Trump had failed to satisfy the stringent requirements needed to remove a sitting Fed governor “for cause,” and that Cook could not be removed for conduct that occurred prior to her appointment to the Fed. 

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit voted 2-1 in September to to deny Trump’s request for intervention, prompting the administration to kick the case to the Supreme Court for emergency review.

The Supreme Court update comes as Trump has for months pressured the Federal Reserve to slash interest rates, in a bid to help spur the nation’s economic growth. 

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But his attempt to fire Cook for alleged mortgage fraud violations, which she has denied, has teed up a first-of-its-kind court clash that could have profound impacts on the Fed. 

Cook’s lawyers have argued that Trump’s attempt to fire her well before the end of her 14-year term is an attempt to install a nominee of his choosing and secure a majority on the Fed board. 

Cook sued Trump in late August for his attempt to fire her, arguing that his removal violated her due process rights under the Fifth Amendment, as well as her statutory right to notice and a hearing under the Federal Reserve Act, or FRA — a law designed to shield members from the political whims of the commander in chief or members of Congress. 

The Supreme Court has sided with Trump on similar cases in the past.

The Supreme Court in May allowed Trump to proceed with the provisional firings of two independent board members — National Labor Relations Board member Gwynne Wilcox and Merit Systems Protection Board member Cathy Harris — two Democrat appointees who were abruptly terminated by the Trump administration.

But even that decision sought to differentiate these boards from the Fed, which they stressed was a “uniquely structured, quasi-private entity that follows in the distinct historical tradition of the First and Second Banks of the United States.”