An emergency court hearing over President Donald Trump’s attempt to fire Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook ended with no immediate ruling from the judge overseeing the high-stakes legal battle.
US District Judge Jia Cobb spent more than two hours Friday morning hearing arguments over Cook’s request to keep her job on the prominent board while her legal challenge plays out.
Trump on Monday said he had fired Cook — the first Fed governor ever to be fired by the president, citing allegations of mortgage fraud.
The unprecedented move to fire Cook was a significant escalation of the president’s battle against the Fed, which has typically been shielded from political influence throughout its history. Trump has blamed the Fed for taking too long to lower interest rates.
Cobb has asked for more written arguments to be submitted to her by next Tuesday. It’s possible she rules after then, or takes additional time to sift through how to best proceed with the case. Her options include setting it on an expedited track for a prompt resolution of Cook’s underlying claims.
Though Cobb, an appointee of former President Joe Biden, held off for now on making an initial ruling in the case, she also made clear that she wasn’t prepared to fully buy into arguments pushed by either Cook or Trump.
The judge pushed back on a suggestion by Justice Department attorney Yaakov Roth that federal courts have no authority to second-guess a decision by a president to fire a member of the Federal Reserve “for cause.” But even with that judicial power, Cobb said, there still may be some level of deference by a court to the president’s decision-making.
“Deferential doesn’t mean that there’s no probing of it,” the judge said. “You just assume good faith, you defer.”
But Cobb also appeared sympathetic to arguments pushed by Cook’s lawyer, Abbe Lowell, that Cobb wasn’t given adequate notice of Trump’s reason for removing her, as well as an opportunity to defend herself against the fraud allegations underpinning the president’s decision.
“You’re not suggesting what happened here would satisfy due process requirements?” the judge asked Roth at one point.
“Was anything sent to her directly?” she added, referring to the fact that Trump’s had only posted a letter addressed to Cook announcing her firing on social media. “You still have to serve someone. You have to give them information.”
But Lowell ran into issues with Cobb over his argument that Trump’s decision to lean on the fraud allegations was pretextual since he has been vocal about his desire to install members on the board who are more aligned with him on monetary policy.
“I’m unconformable with the pretext argument,” the judge said at one point.
At an earlier point during Friday’s hearing, Lowell said that the fraud allegation, currently being investigated by the Justice Department, has become the administration’s “weapon of force.”
“There was never cause to begin, and it’s just their efforts to get rid of governors … so the president can have a majority,” Lowell argued.
Roth, meanwhile, tried to convince the judge that the due process concerns raised by Cook don’t ultimately matter because, he said, she’s yet to provide any public or private defense of the alleged fraud that would have swayed Trump ahead of his announcement on Monday.
“What’s the purpose of saying, ‘Well the president needed to hear her out?’ Well, what’s that going to change?” Roth said.
Roth also told Cobb that a short-term ruling keeping Cook on the job would irreparably harm the government because it hurts the board to have a member associated with it who has fraud allegations hanging over their head.
Part of Cobb’s analysis in deciding whether to issue the emergency order sought by Cook will involve the potential harm that could befall both sides, in addition to other factors including how strong the judge thinks Cook’s underlying claims are.
Trump’s pressure campaign vs. the Fed
For months, Trump has unleashed an intense pressure campaign against the Federal Reserve to lower interest rates, arguing that his tariff policy will not push up inflation. But central bankers want to see how Trump’s trade war and other sweeping policy changes affect the US economy before resuming interest rate cuts.
During the spring, Trump frequently threatened to fire Fed Chair Jerome Powell. But the president eventually backed off after his advisers privately warned that doing so would likely spark extreme volatility in financial markets.
The Fed is in the throes of a full-scale assault by the Trump administration. In addition to an unrelenting barrage of attacks, Trump and his allies have blasted the Fed for its management of a $2.5 billion renovation of its headquarters in Washington, DC, which has grown more costly over the years. Some of Trump’s allies saw it as a potential opening to oust Powell.
Now, instead of trying to fire Powell, whose term ends in May 2026, the Trump administration is trying to reshape the Fed by cementing a majority on its Board of Governors. If Cook, a Biden appointee, is successfully removed from the board, it would leave only two Fed governors appointed by a Democratic president on the seven-member board.
“We’ll have a majority very shortly,” Trump said Tuesday during a Cabinet meeting. “So, that’ll be great. Once we have a majority, housing is going to swing, and it’s going to be great.”
Fed policymakers are set to convene for their two-day policy meeting starting on September 16, in which they are widely expected to deliver the first interest rate cut since December, according to Wall Street’s predictions.
This story has been updated with additional developments.
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