U.S. Supreme Court Blocks Trump From Firing Fed Governor Lisa Cook, Upholds Other Firings

The U.S. Supreme Court upheld President Donald Trump’s firings of the heads of independent federal agencies while carving out one exception for Federal Reserve governor Lisa Cook, whom the justices allowed to stay in her job while she fights the effort to remove her.

In the Cook case, the court voted 5-4 to reject the Trump administration’s attempt to have Cook removed now, with Chief Justice John Roberts writing that allowing her ouster immediately would turn for-cause protection into little more than at-will employment.

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The same day, the court also allowed Trump to remove a member of the Federal Trade Commission, Rebecca Slaughter, overturning a key 1935 Supreme Court ruling called Humphrey’s Executor v. United States.

NBC News reported that both decisions were issued at the same time and both authored by Chief Justice John Roberts, while the NBC account said the Cook case vote was 5-4 and the Slaughter case was 6-3 on ideological lines.

The BBC described the Cook ruling as affirming Federal Reserve independence, saying the administration had not provided Cook sufficient "due process" for her to contest her removal.

Chief Justice John Roberts wrote that protecting agency members from removal was "contrary to the separation of powers enshrined in the Constitution," while the Al Jazeera account said the court jettisoned its unanimous decision in Humphrey’s Executor.

In a dissent summarized aloud in the courtroom, Justice Sonia Sotomayor said the ruling could lead to "submission, instability, and even oppression," and she added that the president emerges with more power than ever before.

ABC News

NBC News reported that in the Cook case Roberts rejected the Trump administration’s contention that the president’s firing of Cook for cause could not be reviewed in court and that she could not stay in office while contesting the decision.

NBC also quoted Cook’s statement welcoming the decision, saying Trump’s actions were "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."

In the BBC’s account of arguments, Cook’s lawyer Paul Clement said the administration’s handling of the firing would make Congress' intended protection for the Fed "kind of a joke."

The BBC said the Cook decision sends the matter back to lower courts, where the administration will have to prove its allegations that Cook has committed mortgage fraud if it wishes to proceed with the firing, and where Cook would have a chance to challenge the accusation.

“The Supreme Court has dramatically expanded presidential power, upholding US President Donald Trump’s firings of the heads of independent federal agencies with one important exception: the Federal Reserve”

Al Jazeera

In the Guardian’s account, the court’s protection for the Fed was a departure from how it had handled Trump in his second term, while the Guardian also said the court ruled that Trump had the authority to fire Rebecca Slaughter and left the powerful union board without a quorum needed to decide on labor disputes.

The Guardian added that the court also stripped lower district courts of their power to issue nationwide injunctions, and stayed a lower court’s ruling that restricted Immigration and Custom Enforcement’s (ICE) from using race and ethnicity as the basis for reasonable suspicion in immigration enforcement.

The Washington Post described the ruling as preserving the independence of the powerful central bank, which guides the U.S. economy, while the USA Today account said the decision means lower courts will continue to debate whether Trump can remove Cook and that Trump may also try again using the minimum procedural requirements the court outlined.

In the SCOTUSblog account, the Supreme Court held by a vote of 5-4 that Cook can continue to remain in her job while her challenge to Trump’s efforts to fire her moves forward, and it said Chief Justice John Roberts emphasized that the government had not shown it was likely to prevail on the merits of its appeal.