Trump vs. Fed hits critical point: If he can fire Cook, many others might follow
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The president and the Fed have been on a collision course for months. At 8:02pm ET Monday night, the crash took place, as President Trump said he was firing Federal Reserve governor Lisa Cook for alleged false claims in her mortgage applications four years ago.
Why it matters: Cook says she will fight what she and her lawyers characterize as an illegal attempt to fire her, setting up a legal battle royale over who is really in charge of the world's most important central bank.
- Is it the governors appointed to lengthy, staggered terms meant to assure a measure of political independence, or is it any president willing to cast aside rules and norms established over more than a century?
- Even though it only concerns an attempt to fire one governor out of seven, for believers in central bank independence, the litigation that results from this is for all the marbles.
Between the lines: If the president can fire Cook for the allegations involving some old mortgage applications that she has thus far had no legal recourse to address, he can fire pretty much anyone.
- It could, wrote Evercore ISI's Krishna Guha and Marco Casiraghi, establish a precedent that the president "has substantial discretion to determine what meets the 'for cause' standard for removal in the future."
- If Trump succeeds, it will smooth the path for him to install a majority of appointees atop the Fed board sooner rather than later.
- A majority on the board could, in turn, seek to replace presidents of Federal Reserve banks and cast aside some of the guardrails meant to keep those appointments insulated from politics.
State of play: As Cook's legal team and the Fed's in-house lawyers grapple with the issues involved, the question of what comes next is messy.
- For example, consider a question we don't know the answer to as this newsletter is sent: Is Cook currently a Fed governor? Does she have access to her office and email account? If there were a Fed policy meeting today, would she be in it?
- We asked a Fed spokesperson about Cook's status both Monday night and Tuesday morning and have not yet received an answer.
- Trump ally James Fishback said Monday night on X that "if [Fed chair] Jerome Powell allows Lisa Cook in the building" after Trump's firing, "he's complicit."
What's next: Cook is likely to seek a stay on Trump's firing from the courts, but how the court may rule on whether she can remain in office while the issue is litigated is unknown.
Of note: The Fed's next policy meeting starts three weeks from Tuesday. It appears likely to cut interest rates — though a mere quarter-point, not to the radically lower borrowing costs Trump seeks.
