Updated January 21, 2026 at 3:48 PM PST
The Supreme Court Wednesday seemed likely to block President Trump's attempt to immediately remove Lisa Cook from the Federal Reserve's governing board.
In a spirited argument that lasted more than two hours, all nine justices—liberal and conservative--expressed doubts about the president's claim of absolute power to fire members of the Fed board.
Trump announced on Truth Social last August that he was firing Cook from the Fed Board of Governors. In subsequent comments, he accused her of mortgage fraud prior to her appointment in 2022.
Cook, an economist, and the first Black woman appointed to the board, has vehemently denied the charge through her lawyers, and the Supreme Court, which has allowed Trump to remove other agency heads, balked at the administration's emergency request to allow Trump to fire Cook.
On Wednesday's day of reckoning, things did not go well for the president.
Solicitor General D. John Sauer opened with a strong condemnation of Cook.
"Deceit or gross negligence by a financial regulator in financial transactions is cause for removal," he said.
That prompted an exchange with Chief Justice John Roberts.
"You began by talking about deceit, is what you said after that, [does it] apply in the case of an inadvertent mistake contradicted by other documents in the record?" Roberts asked.
Sauer replied: "The president determined that this is at least gross negligence, even if it was inadvertent or a mistake."
That raised Roberts' eyebrows a bit. "So, it doesn't make a difference whether this was an inadvertent mistake or whether it was a devious way to get a better interest rate?" the Chief Justice inquired. "Doesn't matter for you, right?"
It didn't help that Sauer spoke over the female justices so often that the chief justice at one point had to intervene.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor noted that a Michigan bank had given Cook permission to rent her home there after she moved away, and recalled her own experience when she was appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court.
"I had to move from New York," Sotomayor recalled. "Frankly, I renovated my apartment the year before, thinking I would be in New York for the rest of my life." As she put it, "Things change."
Several justices observed that this is the first time since the Fed was established by Congress 112 years ago that any president has interfered with the statutory independence of the Fed by firing one of its members.
"What is the evidence that has been presented and considered with respect to Ms. Cook's alleged misconduct?" Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson asked.
General Sauer replied that the firing was justified in a letter to Cook, but he maintained that the president's decision on the matter is not subject to review, even by the Supreme Court, and that Cook was not entitled to notice or a hearing before being removed.
Given that, Justice Neil Gorsuch wanted to know what would be required. "Just a meeting across a conference table finished with 'You're fired'?" he asked.
Justice Samuel Alito wondered whether the case should be sent back to the lower courts for fact-finding about the mortgage allegations.
But Justice Brett Kavanaugh was far more doubtful about the Trump administration's position.
"Your position that there's no judicial review, no process required, no remedy available, a very low bar for cause that the president alone determines," he said. "I mean, that would weaken, if not shatter, the independence of the Federal Reserve."
Kavanaugh talked as well about what he called "the real-world downstream effects" if Trump were to prevail.
"Just thinking big picture, what goes around comes around. All the current president's appointees would likely be removed for cause on Jan. 20, 2029, if there's a Democratic president, or Jan. 20, 2033," he posited. "So what are we doing here? If we accept all these no procedure, no judicial review, no remedy?"
What's more, said Kavanaugh, a ruling for the president's me-only position would incentivize presidents to come up with trivial misdeeds or old and inconsequential allegations that are very difficult to disprove, in order to get rid of Federal Reserve board governors who are supposed to be independent and won't do the president's bidding.
Making the counter argument for Cook in court was Paul Clement, who served as solicitor general for President George W. Bush. He argued that the president alone cannot determine what is a legitimate cause to fire a member of the Fed.
"If there's no judicial review, its all kind of a joke," Clement told the Court.
I understand your position, said Justice Alito, who then posed this hypothetical to Clement: "How about if, after a person assumes office, videos are disclosed in which the office-holder is expressing deep admiration for Hitler or for the Klan?"
"That's an official that would be impeached in a heartbeat," Clement responded. "The fact that they would be impeached in a heartbeat is going to cause them to resign in half a heartbeat."
So, asked Alito, "What is the minimum that the executive, in your view, has to provide?"
Three elements, said Clement: a hearing, notice in advance of the firing, and an opportunity to provide evidence to the decision-maker.
As Clement would put it later: "This is a situation where Congress, political animals one and all, knew better than anyone that the short-term temptations to lower interest rates and easy money was a disaster in the long term but was going to be irresistible."
So irresistible, said Clement that Congress "tied their own hands by taking the Fed out of the appropriations process and they tied the president's hand."
Sitting in the Supreme Court chamber and listening to the arguments was Federal Reserve Board Chairman Jerome Powell, who very likely would be Trump's next target for removal should the president prevail. Even though Trump himself appointed Powell to the chairman's job in 2018, he has been infuriated by the Fed's refusal to lower interest rates more quickly.
A decision in the case is expected by summer.
Copyright 2026 NPR
