SCOTUS Rules Lisa Cook Can Keep Her Job – For Now

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) on Monday prevented President Donald Trump from firing the first and only Black woman to serve on the Federal Reserve’s Board of Governors, Lisa Cook, for the time being.
Cook is the first U.S. central banker in history to be targeted for firing by any American president. Trump went after Cook and former Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell and others after the Federal Reserve declined to adjust interest rates at the President’s request, in an effort to artificially pump the economy as it reeled from the President’s tariffs and other stressors.
“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 in a statement following Monday’s 5-4 Supreme Court ruling. “Today’s ruling affirms a principle that has underpinned sound economic stewardship for generations: that the Federal Reserve must make all its policy decisions guided by evidence and independent judgment, free from political interference.”
The Federal Reserve Board is charged with setting interest rates, regulating banks, and ensuring the stability of the nation’s economy. The board is run by seven members who are nominated by the President and confirmed by the U.S. Senate for 14-year terms; the agency “reports to and is directly accountable to Congress,” according the Federal Reserve website. Membership has traditionally been bipartisan, as different presidents have appointed members to overlapping terms.
Members can only be fired for cause, such as “inefficiency, neglect of duty or malfeasance in office.” In August 2025, Trump claimed without evidence that Cook – who had been nominated to serve on the Fed by former President Joe Biden in 2023 – had committed mortgage fraud (a crime for which President Trump has been found guilty in a court of law). Cook denied the allegations, calling them “flimsy,” “unproven” and “conveniently timed following the President’s criticism of the board’s policy decisions.”
A lower court judge ruled that Cook should stay in office while legal proceedings continue; the judge also noted that the “for cause” requirement does not allow a president to remove a board member for conduct before she took office, so even if found guilty of previous crimes the issue could not be used as a reason to fire her from the board.
The Supreme Court agreed that Cook should remain in her job while litigation continues in her battle with the administration. Writing for the majority, Chief Justice John Roberts said that allowing the President to fire Federal Reserve members at will would conflict with “our Nation’s tradition of central banking protected from political interference.”
Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, Brett Kavanaugh, and Ketanji Brown Jackson joined the Roberts decision.
Justice Clarence Thomas issued a dissenting opinion, claiming the Supreme Court was opposing the president’s decision to remove an executive officer “for the first time in the Constitution’s 237-year history.”
While the Supreme Court protected Cook’s job, it granted sweeping powers to the President to fire administrators at other independent federal agencies at will.
Since the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) was created in 1914, Congress has held that commissioners can only be fired for cause. Yet on Monday, the current Supreme Court overturned that 91-year-old precedent, instead asserting that the President has the power to fire virtually any federal employee at will – even at agencies that are tasked with holding the executive branch accountable.
The court ruled 6-3 that Trump’s firing of Federal Trade Commissioner Rebecca Kelly Slaughter without cause last March was lawful. Slaughter was presented with no reason for her removal other than “her continued service on the FTC is inconsistent with [the Trump] administration’s priorities.”
The Supreme Court’s decision, again penned by Chief Justice John Roberts, asserts that the President has the authority to fire nearly any other employee of the federal government, for any reason.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor called the decision “grievously wrong.”
“The Court gives the President a power unknown even to the English Crown against which the Founders revolted, elevating him above his once-coequal branches by transforming a duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed into a license to act in defiance of those very laws,” Sotomayor wrote. “Put simply, today the majority reshapes our Government. Dozens of independent commissions are now likely to become purely executive agencies, shifting tremendous power over broad swaths of American life into the President’s hands.”