The Justice Department is calling for the Supreme Court to allow President Trump’s removal of Lisa Cook from the Federal Reserve.
“That the Federal Reserve Board plays a uniquely important role in the American economy only heightens the government’s and the public’s interest in ensuring that an ethically compromised member does not continue wielding its vast powers,” the administration’s filing states. “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.”
Solicitor General John Sauer argues in the filing that the president’s decision to remove Cook is “not subject to judicial review.”
“This Court has left open whether an exception to the removal power, grounded in history and tradition, allows Congress to restrict the President’s power to remove members of the Federal Reserve Board,” Sauer asserts. “But no such historical exception could authorize judicial review of the President’s finding of cause, since courts have traditionally treated such findings as unreviewable.”
Cook sued President Trump last month, claiming her removal was “unprecedented and illegal.”
“President Trump’s conception of ’cause’ has no limiting principle,” the lawsuit says. “It would allow him to remove any Federal Reserve Board member with whom he disagrees about policy based on chalked-up allegations.”
Trump’s effort to remove Cook “would subvert the Federal Reserve Act … which explicitly requires a showing of ’cause’ for a Governor’s removal, which an unsubstantiated allegation about private mortgage applications submitted by Governor Cook prior to her Senate confirmation is not,” the filing adds.
