The Trump administration on Thursday asked the Supreme Court to allow the president to fire Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook, even as litigation over the issue is still making its way through the courts.
In a court filing, Solicitor General John Sauer repeated allegations first aired by Federal Housing Finance Agency Director William Pulte that Cook committed mortgage fraud in loan applications for properties in Georgia and Michigan. Cook has denied the allegations, and documents have surfaced that challenge the validity of the accusation.
Trump relied on the allegations when he attempted to fire Cook on August 25, saying they gave him sufficient cause to remove her, but Cook sued to halt the effort and a federal judge ruled in her favor to allow time for the courts to sort things out. A federal appeals court backed the judge earlier this week, leaving an appeal to the Supreme Court as Trump’s last remaining option to push ahead with the firing.
In his filing, Sauer noted that Trump has the power to remove a Fed governor “for cause” while arguing that the president has “unreviewable discretion” in determining what satisfies that condition.
“Put simply, the President may reasonably determine that interest rates paid by the American people should not be set by a Governor who appears to have lied about facts material to the interest rates she secured for herself — and refuses to explain the apparent misrepresentations,” he wrote.
Despite Trump’s bid to remove her, Cook participated in a meeting of the rate-setting Federal Open Market Committee this week, where she voted to cut the central bank’s benchmark interest rate by a quarter point. Trump has aggressively pushed for larger rate cuts, waging a months-long campaign pressuring bank officials, who are shielded by law and tradition from political influence. If his appeal to the Supreme Court is successful, he would be able to name a replacement for Cook, fulfilling his wish for greater influence as soon as the next Fed meeting scheduled for October 28-29.