The Supreme Court has ruled that Trump cannot fire Fed Governor Lisa Cook just yet

The Supreme Court ruled Monday that President Donald Trump does not have the authority to fire Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook from the central bank just yet. But the idea leaves open the possibility of firing him in the future.

The court did not rule on whether Trump would ultimately have the power to fire Cook or any other Fed member.

Instead, the 5-4 decision denied Trump’s request to temporarily suspend a federal court ruling that blocked him from being terminated as part of his impeachment case. Trump has said he wants to fire Cook over allegations of mortgage fraud, which he has denied.

Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the opinion for the majority, including fellow justice Brett Kavanaugh, as well as three liberal court members, Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson. The other four dissenting justices dissented.

“It is not only the fact of independence but also the appearance of independence that is essential to the design of the Federal Reserve,” Roberts wrote.

In a footnote, Roberts said the decision did not prevent Trump from trying again to remove Cook over the mortgage fraud allegations if he chose to do so.

But the ruling said Trump’s first attempt failed because Cook was not given the due process he was owed under federal law. Any new motion against him will require additional steps, including a description of the evidence against him, a method for him to respond and a deadline for that response.

“Only then can the courts examine whether such allegations are true,” Roberts wrote.

Trump, in a post on Truth Social after the ruling, said the court had sent the case back with a “rigorous process” and vowed to take further action against Cook.

“We will immediately take appropriate action to ensure that the wrongdoer will not make important decisions about the welfare of the United States of America,” Trump wrote.

Roberts wrote in the majority opinion that the court saw “no reason to leave the public confused, or to sow doubt about the status of one of our Nation’s (and country’s) most important financial institutions.”

Roberts said Congress designed the Federal Reserve to operate independently of the president and that any changes to that framework would have to come from lawmakers.

“Any change to this system must come from Congress, not the courts,” Roberts wrote. “That is why we cannot accept the Government’s arguments in this case. Doing so would allow the President to remove a member of the Federal Reserve at any time, for any reason, without prior notice, and without judicial review thereafter.”

Justice Samuel Alito, joined by Justice Neil Gorsuch, dissented, saying the court should not have issued such a strong opinion at this stage of the Cook case.

“The seriousness of this case and the novelty of the issues presented preclude holding an oral argument and issuing a comprehensive opinion at this time.”

Justice Clarence Thomas, in a separate dissent, accused the majority of making “policy arguments” for a private bank that he said were “ultimately unconstitutional arguments.”

“Today’s decision is unprecedented in the Supreme Court,” Thomas wrote.

The decision came nearly nine months after Trump said he was firing Cook because he was accused by a Trump appointee of mortgage fraud before he became Fed governor. The court ruled in Cook’s case on the same day it expanded the president’s powers with a ruling in a separate case, upholding Trump’s firing of Federal Trade Commission Commissioner Rebecca Slaughter.

But he has remained on the Fed’s board of governors since then, after a district court judge and the Supreme Court blocked his removal pending the outcome of his lawsuit challenging Trump’s actions.

Despite Trump’s claim that he wants to remove Cook over the mortgage fraud allegations, Cook and others believe he was motivated by his refusal to vote for the interest rate cuts the president wanted from the Fed in the first nine months of his second term in the White House.

Under the Federal Reserve Act, the president can remove the governor of the Fed only “for cause.”

“This was never about mortgage documents that were signed years before I became Federal Reserve governor,” Cook said in a statement Monday.

“It was an attempt to remove me with a made-up reason because I refused to submit to political pressure and continued to impose interest rates based on what will best serve the American people,” he said.

“That is the most important responsibility of the governor of the Federal Reserve. Today’s decision reaffirms a principle that has underpinned sound economic management for generations: that the Federal Reserve must make all of its policy decisions guided by evidence and independent judgment, without political interference. This basic principle has guided the Federal Reserve since its inception.”

The Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the Cook case on Jan. 21. During the hearing that day, several judges expressed doubt about the Justice Department’s lawyers’ arguments that Trump had legal grounds to fire him.

Kavanaugh said the argument of the lawyer, Solicitor General D. John Sauer, that the president can fire any governor of the Fed for cause without being subject to review of this decision by a judge “will weaken, if not destroy, the independence of the Federal Reserve.”

Cook is the first black woman to serve as Fed governor. Former President-elect Joe Biden has denied allegations of housing fraud, made last summer by FHFA Director Bill Pulte, who filed a criminal indictment against him at the Department of Justice.

Pulte, who has also become the director of national intelligence, in a statement issued after Monday’s decision, stood by what he was accused of.

“As I have said many times, I believe that Lisa Cook will be charged with fraud,” Pulte wrote in X.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., who has long criticized Trump’s efforts to tighten the Fed, took the decision as a rebuke of the president and Pulte.

“Even the Supreme Court assembled by Donald Trump admits that his attempt to fire Lisa Cook was illegal,” Warren said on the X channel. “Donald Trump and his team Bill Pulte have now failed to fire former Chairman Jerome Powell and Governor Cook.”

Warren called for Pulte’s removal, and warned that “Trump’s attempt to take over America’s central bank is far from over.”