U.S. Supreme Court rules against Trump bid to fire Lisa Cook, Federal Reserve governor

The U.S. 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.

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.

Chief Justice John 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.”

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.

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

Cook’s term in the job was due to run until 2038. She was appointed by Democratic former president Joe Biden in 2022. A legal filing made public last week indicated that she had spent $1.2 million US on legal services to fight her removal.

“The Supreme Court’s decision ​to leave the lower ⁠court’s order ⁠in place ‌and affirm the need for real process and real cause recognizes that ⁠Federal Reserve independence is essential to fulfilling the congressional ‌mandate of price stability and maximum employment,” Cook said in a statement.

“I ​am grateful for this decision, not ⁠for my own sake, ⁠but for the sake ⁠of ⁠the American ​people, whose economic well-being depends ​on ⁠a central bank that answers to its mission, not political intimidation.”

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.

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.

U.S. 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 U.S. 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.

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.

Roberts and fellow conservative Justice Brett Kavanaugh were in the majority, along with the ‌court’s three liberal justices Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson. Conservative Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett dissented.

The ruling does not prevent the Justice Department from seeking an indictment of Cook on mortgage fraud allegations. Democrats have slammed the Trump administration for what it has said are politically motivated prosecutions and investigations of past and present critics of the president, including former FBI director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James.

Trump can fire agency member, court rules

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.

Even as Cook received a reprieve, the top court on Monday backed Trump’s firing of a Democratic Federal Trade Commission (FTC) member, expanding his powers over the government and overturning its 1935 precedent that had recognized the authority of Congress to protect leaders ‌of certain regulatory agencies from presidential removal at will.

Overruling a landmark 1935 decision in a case called Humphrey’s Executor v. United States, the justices, in a 6-3 decision, invalidated tenure protections for FTC members enacted by Congress more than a century ago. Trump dismissed Rebecca Slaughter over policy differences.

A 1914 ​law passed by Congress permits a president to remove FTC commissioners only for cause — such as inefficiency, neglect of duty or malfeasance ⁠in office — but not for policy differences. ⁠Similar protections cover officials at more than two dozen other independent agencies, including the ‌National Labor Relations Board and Merit Systems Protection Board.

The court in Humphrey’s Executor rebuffed Democratic president Franklin Roosevelt’s attempt to fire an FTC member over policy differences despite tenure protections given by Congress.

The Trump administration argued that the ⁠modern FTC grew to wield substantial executive power in the decades since the Humphrey’s Executor decision, draining that ruling of its force.

Slaughter, appointed to her post by Biden, was one of two Democratic FTC commissioners who Trump moved to fire in March 2025 from the consumer protection and antitrust agency. Slaughter’s term was due to run until 2029.

Democratic senators and anti-monopoly groups voiced concern that Trump with the firings sought to eliminate the agency’s scrutiny of big corporations.