The Supreme Court on Monday ruled in favor of Lisa Cook, a member of the Federal Reserve’s Board of Governors whom President Donald Trump had attempted to fire. By a vote of 5-4, the court held that Cook can continue to remain in her job while her challenge to Trump’s efforts to fire her moves forward.
Writing for the majority, Chief Justice John Roberts contended that, if the Trump administration were correct, it “would in effect transform the Federal Reserve’s for-cause protection into at-will employment—an interpretive leap out of step with the statute Congress enacted and our Nation’s tradition of central banking protected from political interference.”
In his dissenting opinion, Justice Clarence Thomas called the ruling “incorrect.” “Although the Court expresses concern that the President removed a Board member for ‘the first time in the Federal Reserve’s 111-year history,’” he wrote, “it expresses no such concern that it today upholds an injunction against the President’s removal of an executive officer for the first time in the Constitution’s 237-year history.”
The decision was a major ruling on the president’s power over the seven-member board of the Federal Reserve, the country’s central bank. The Fed is an independent government agency that is not funded by Congress through the normal appropriations process, operating instead using interest on securities that it owns.
Congress has also sought to insulate the Fed from outside political influence by requiring members of the board, who are appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate, to serve staggered 14-year terms, a design intended to prevent any one president from “stacking the deck” with his own nominees. Additionally, federal law only permits the president to remove members of the board “for cause.”
Since taking office in January 2025, Trump has attempted to assert control over several multi-member independent agencies, whose officials could also only be removed for cause. In orders issued last year, the Supreme Court allowed Trump to fire members of the Federal Trade Commission, National Labor Relations Board, Merit Systems Protection Board, and Consumer Product Safety Commission while their appeals moved forward.
Cook, however, was different. In August, Trump posted screenshots on social media of a letter to Cook in which he fired her. Trump alleged that Cook, who was nominated to serve on the Fed by then-President Joe Biden in 2023, had committed mortgage fraud in 2021. (Cook has denied the allegations, calling them “flimsy,” “unproven,” and “conveniently timed following the President’s criticism of the board’s policy decisions”; several media outlets have reported that financial documents may undermine Trump’s contentions.)
Cook went to federal court in Washington, D.C., and in September 2025, U.S. District Judge Jia Cobb issued an order requiring the Fed to allow Cook to remain in office while litigation continued. Cobb concluded that Cook was “substantially likely” to show that Trump had violated federal law when he fired her because the “for cause” requirement does not allow the president to remove a board member for her conduct before she took office. The firing also violated Cook’s constitutional right to fair treatment, Cobb added, because she did not have notice and an opportunity to contest her firing before it occurred.
A divided panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit left Cobb’s order in place while Cook’s challenge continues. The majority agreed that Cook was likely to succeed on her claim that she did not receive all of the procedural protections to which she was entitled under the due process clause of the Constitution before she was fired.
Because Cook remained in her job, she participated in the Federal Reserve’s two-day policy meeting on Sept. 16 and 17, during which the Fed lowered interest rates by a quarter of a point – the first rate reduction in nine months.
The Trump administration then came to the Supreme Court on Sept. 18, asking the justices to step in. In a brief, unsigned order on Oct. 1, the justices opted to hear oral arguments in January instead, leaving Cook in office for several more months.