Fed Governor Lisa Cook says she's not going anywhere and Trump's bid to fire her is baseless.

[bigtree]

Kyle Cheney @kyledcheney
UPDATE: Lisa Cook says she's not going anywhere and Trump's bid to fire her is baseless. https://politico.com/news/2025/08/25/trump-says-hes-firing-federal-reserve-governor-lisa-cook-00523841




...what do folks here think of the narrative most of the major media sources pushed that, 'Cook was fired' or 'Trump fired Cook' without headlining the clear illegality of the WH action? That's what most Americans are waking up to.

In my opinion, that reporting is a major part of what Trump counted on when he made his tweet, and is just enabling rather than supporting and reporting facts instead of just his declarations. I made sure a few of these reporters are aware that we're watching them do this.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

1. MaddowBlog-Why Trump's offensive against the Fed's Lisa Cook is a 'five-alarm fire'

At issue is an attempted White House power grab that ignores the rule of law and puts global economic stability at risk.

Why should people care about Trump’s offensive against the Fed’s Lisa Cook?

At issue is an attempted White House power grab, launched by an authoritarian president, that ignores the rule of law and puts global economic stability at risk. www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddo...

— Steve Benen (@stevebenen.com) 2025-08-26T12:52:39.622Z

https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/trumps-offensive-feds-lisa-cook-five-alarm-fire-rcna227188

Evidently, he was serious — at least about his intentions. NBC News reported:

President Donald Trump is removing Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook effective immediately, according to a letter he posted to Truth Social on Monday night. In the letter, Trump writes: ‘Pursuant to my authority under Article II of the Constitution of the United States and the Federal Reserve Act of 1913, as amended, you are hereby removed from your position on the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve, effective immediately.’

This is a story with a lot of moving parts, so let’s unpack the relevant details and review what we know.

Who’s Lisa Cook?

Joe Biden appointed Cook, an accomplished economist, to the Federal Reserve’s board of governors three years ago, and at that point, she became the first Black woman to serve on the Fed board. Her tenure has been uncontroversial, at least until last week.

.......Are the allegations credible?

There’s reason for skepticism. Pulte is both a critic of the Fed and a White House loyalist — The Washington Post, for example, recently described the FHFA chief as “a prominent Trump sidekick” — who’s conveniently started going after a variety of Trump targets with dubious claims of mortgage fraud.

......Has the U.S. Supreme Court weighed in on the subject?

As a matter of fact, it was just three months ago when Republican-appointed justices granted the president considerable power to oust officials serving in independent agencies, but simultaneously, the high court explicitly said that the Federal Reserve is a “uniquely structured, quasi-private entity.” That distinction appears to limit Trump’s powers over the Fed.

Why would Trump be so eager to target the Fed in the first place?

Because the White House wants to seize control over U.S. monetary policy, especially as it relates to interest rates. Trump has already launched an unprecedented campaign against Fed Chairman Jerome Powell, and if the president is able to force out Cook and replace her with someone who’ll do the White House’s bidding, it would gut the institution’s independence and shift power in the Oval Office’s direction.

Why would that be dangerous?

[BoRaGard]

2. "Go pound golf balls, ya adulterous golf cheat." - Cookie (American)

[riversedge]

3. Trumps mind is basless--its empty--or just plain MUSH!!

[LetMyPeopleVote]

4. Furious Trump's Firing of Fed's Lisa Cook May Be About to Backfire

The fired Fed governor has filed suit against Trump—and the discovery process may allow her celebrated lawyer to find out if the White House ordered a Trump loyalist to move against her.

With Lisa Cook suing to challenge Trump's firing of her, experts in mortgage law tell me her lawyer can now use discovery to dig into the role Trump loyalist William Pulte played in singling out mortgages of her, Schiff and Letitia James for scrutiny:

newrepublic.com/article/1996...

— Greg Sargent (@gregsargent.bsky.social) 2025-08-26T17:28:38.714Z

https://newrepublic.com/article/199612/furious-trump-firing-fed-lisa-cook-may-backfire

Case in point: Trump’s appalling new effort to fire Lisa Cook from the Federal Reserve’s board of governors. On Monday night his anger at Cook peaked as he announced that he’s removing Cook—who has infuriated him for months by helping to keep interest rates higher than he wants—essentially declaring Fed independence a dead letter.

Yet this maneuver may yet backfire on Trump—in part because the accomplices helping carry it out have grown almost absurdly brazen in doing so.

The move appears to be illegal, though Trump may still get away with it. The law allows a president to remove a Fed board member “for cause,” which has generally meant something like a real reason grounded in actual misconduct, not a fake reason that the president pulled out of his rear end.

But Trump’s letter firing Cook claims he can do this for cause “at my discretion,” meaning he gets to declare something “cause” by simply saying so, as The New York Times’s Charlie Savage notes. The courts will decide whether the executive power includes this nearly limitless authority, and while Supreme Court precedent here is complex, a win for Trump is not at all assured.

Enter Trump’s accomplices. The “cause” he cited is the charge that Cook committed mortgage fraud, a claim manufactured for him by William Pulte, a staunch Trump loyalist who heads the Federal Housing Finance Agency, which oversees mortgage markets. Pulte tweeted “findings” that Cook has fraudulently declared several principal or primary residences for mortgage purposes.......

Pulte is apparently manipulating agency processes for the express purpose of creating a pretext for referring matters involving Trump’s designated enemies to DOJ. As Georgetown law professor Adam Levitin points out, it’s probable that the only way the mortgages of three leading Trump foes could all face scrutiny is if Pulte personally ordered it. That’s an “abuse of office,” Levitin writes, and a “far greater offense” than anything Cook, Schiff, or James might have done.......

Democrats should be making it absolutely clear, right now, that anyone who carries out corrupt or illegal orders for Trump cannot count on bureaucratic obscurity to shield them from political or legal accountability later. Yes, Trump might preemptively pardon top officials who are legally vulnerable. But Democrats should pointedly pose the question: Do you really think it’s wise to count on Donald Trump to secure you from jeopardy later?

[LetMyPeopleVote]

5. Deadline: Legal Blog--Trump's attempt to fire a Federal Reserve governor tests a weird Supreme Court move

The high court majority recently went out of its way to signal its intention to protect the Federal Reserve board’s independence.

Trump’s attempt to fire a Federal Reserve governor tests a weird Supreme Court move.

Trump’s attempt to fire a Federal Reserve governor tests a weird Supreme Court move www.msnbc.com/deadline-whi...

— Bubbajonz (@bubbajonz.bsky.social) 2025-08-26T20:43:36.156Z

https://www.msnbc.com/deadline-white-house/deadline-legal-blog/lisa-cook-fired-federal-reserve-supreme-court-humphreys-rcna227270

Back in May, when a divided Supreme Court gave President Donald Trump the power to fire members of certain labor boards without cause, the Republican-appointed majority went out of its way to signal its intention to protect the Federal Reserve board, even though the Fed itself wasn’t at issue in that case.

Now, Trump’s attempt to fire Federal Reserve governor Lisa Cook could test the high court’s strange signal.

In that May shadow docket case, Trump v. Wilcox, which involved members of the National Labor Relations Board and Merit Systems Protection Board, the majority addressed those board members’ argument that the logic behind stripping their protections would also imperil the Federal Reserve’s independence.

“We disagree,” the majority wrote, citing a previous precedent in noting that the Fed “is a uniquely structured, quasi-private entity that follows in the distinct historical tradition of the First and Second Banks of the United States.”

Dissenting in the Wilcox case, Justice Elena Kagan wrote for the Democratic appointees that she appreciated the majority’s “intention to avoid imperiling the Fed” but that its decision still posed “a puzzle.” That’s because the Federal Reserve’s independence rests on the same foundation as agencies such as the NLRB and the MSPB — which, Kagan pointed out, means it rests on a nearly century-old precedent, Humphrey’s Executor. The Trump administration wants to overturn that 1935 decision, and the majority’s recent rulings on presidential power suggest that it’s on board with that effort.

“If the idea is to reassure the markets, a simpler — and more judicial — approach would have been to” rule against Trump “on the continued authority of Humphrey’s,” Kagan wrote in Wilcox......

While it will depend on how exactly Cook presses her legal claim and how the administration defends itself, the case’s resolution could turn on the narrower issue of the sufficiency of cause for removal, as opposed to the justices resolving the outer limits of presidential authority when it comes to the Federal Reserve. Given Kagan’s critique of the logic behind the majority’s Fed carveout in Wilcox (not that the majority has to care about that), the majority might appreciate such narrower grounds as a way of solving the “puzzle,” as Kagan put it, that the court created for itself.

We may see trump's attorney citing Justice Kagan's dissent in this litigation. I think that Justice Kagan has the better argument, but the majority may be committed to defend their prior bad shadow docket ruling which will hurt trump's argument.