Former Fed chairs, ex Treasury officials urge Supreme Court to block Trump’s move to fire Cook

A federal judge then ruled the move was likely illegal and blocked it before an appeals court upheld the decision. The administration has asked the Supreme Court to overturn those rulings and allow Cook’s immediate removal.

What they said: The group includes former Fed chairs Janet Yellen, Ben Bernanke and Alan Greenspan, along with former Treasury secretaries Hank Paulson, Robert Rubin, Lawrence Summers and Timothy Geithner, as well as other top economic officials from Republican and Democratic administrations.

Their brief argued that allowing Cook’s removal would “erode public confidence in the Fed’s independence and threaten the long-term stability of our economy.” It pointed to the example of Fed chair Arthur Burns in the early 1970s, who, under pressure from President Richard Nixon, enabled a decade of high and volatile inflation.

The former officials argued Trump’s effort to remove Cook, while also pressuring the Fed to cut interest rates, would compromise the central bank’s ability to carry out its mandate.

“The Fed’s ability to fight inflation is directly related not only to its actual insulation from short-term political pressures but also to the public’s perception of its independence,” they wrote.

“Because if the public and financial markets believe that the Federal Reserve is sufficiently insulated, they will act in accordance with that expectation, resulting in lower and more stable inflation, which is consistent with lower long-term interest rates.”

Glenn Hubbard, former chair of the Council of Economic Advisers under George W Bush and one of the signatories, told the Financial Times it was “important for the Court to have context for the meaning of and value of independence for the Fed.”

Former Fed vice chair Alan Blinder, though not a signatory, said the brief demonstrated “gigantic bipartisan support” against actions that would “annihilate the Federal Reserve’s independence.”