US Supreme Court blocks Trump from firing Fed governor Lisa Cook

In the second case, the court voted 6-3 to uphold Trump’s firing of Democratic Federal Trade Commission member Rebecca Slaughter, overturning the 1935 Humphrey’s Executor precedent and ending nearly 90 years of removal protections across more than two dozen agencies.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor, dissenting, wrote the majority “reshapes our Government”.

The context: Cook was appointed by former president Joe Biden in 2022 as the first Black woman to serve as a Fed governor.

The ruling lands amid Trump’s sustained campaign to bend the Fed to his will. He has repeatedly demanded the central bank slash rates to boost growth, mused publicly about firing former chair Jerome Powell, who remains on the board after his term as chair expired, and saw the Justice Department drop a criminal probe into Powell in April.

The Fed, now under new chair Kevin Warsh, has held rates steady despite the pressure, with a recent pickup in inflation raising the prospect it may need to lift borrowing costs rather than cut them.

In a statement, Cook said the court’s decision affirms the Fed’s obligation to make policy decisions independently, free from political interference.

“This was never about mortgage documents signed years before I became a Federal Reserve governor,” she wrote, referring to Trump’s stated reason for attempting to fire her.

“It was 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 a social media post Trump said he would “take appropriate action immediately". Referring to the FTC case, Trump said it was a “BIG WIN”