The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday (October 1, 2025) allowed Lisa Cook to remain as a Federal Reserve Governor for now, declining to act on the Trump administration’s effort to immediately remove her from the central bank.

In a brief unsigned order, the court said it would hear arguments in January over Republican President Donald Trump’s effort to force Ms. Cook off the Fed board.

The court will consider whether to block a lower-court ruling in Ms. Cook’s favour while her challenge to her firing by Mr. Trump continues.

The order was a rare instance of Mr. Trump not quickly getting everything he wants from the justices in an emergency appeal.

The Trump administration has vowed to continue its legal fight to remove Ms. Cook.

“President Trump lawfully removed Lisa Cook for cause,” White House spokesman Kush Desai said in a statement after the court order, adding: “We look forward to ultimate victory after presenting our oral arguments before the Supreme Court in January.”

Separately, the justices are hearing arguments in December in a separate but related legal fight over Mr. Trump’s actions to fire members of the boards that oversee other independent federal agencies. The case concerns whether Mr. Trump can fire those officials at will.

But a second issue in the case could bear directly on Ms. Cook’s fate: whether federal judges have the authority to prevent the firings or instead may only order back pay for officials who were wrongly dismissed.

Mr. Trump had sought to oust Ms. Cook before the September meeting of the Fed’s interest rate-setting committee. But a judge ruled that the firing was illegal, and a divided appeals court rejected the Trump administration’s emergency appeal.

A day after the meeting concluded with a one-quarter of a percentage point reduction in a key interest rate, the administration turned to the Supreme Court in a new emergency appeal.

The White House campaign to unseat Ms. Cook marks an unprecedented bid to reshape the Fed board, which was designed to be largely independent from day-to-day politics. No President has fired a sitting Fed Governor in the Fed’s 112-year history.

Ms. Cook, who was appointed to the Fed board by Democratic President Joe Biden, has said she will not leave her job and won’t be “bullied” by Mr. Trump. One of her lawyers, Abbe Lowell, has said she “will continue to carry out her sworn duties as a Senate-confirmed Board Governor.”

Separately, Senate Republicans recently confirmed Stephen Miran, Mr. Trump’s nominee to an open spot on the Fed’s board. Both Ms. Cook and Mr. Miran took part in the Fed’s recent meeting. Mr. Miran was the sole dissenting vote, preferring a larger cut.

The next opportunity for Ms. Cook to cast a vote will be at the meeting of the Fed’s interest rate setting committee, scheduled for October 28-29.

Mr. Trump has accused Ms. Cook of mortgage fraud because she appeared to claim two properties, in Michigan and Georgia, as “primary residences” in June and July 2021, before she joined the Fed board. Such claims can lead to a lower mortgage rate and smaller down payment than if one of them was declared as a rental property or second home.

“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 D. John Sauer wrote in his Supreme Court filing.

Ms. Cook has denied any wrongdoing and has not been charged with a crime. According to documents obtained by The Associated Press, Ms. Cook specified that her Atlanta condo would be a “vacation home”, according to a loan estimate she obtained in May 2021. In a form seeking a security clearance, she described it as a “2nd home”. Both documents appear to undercut the administration’s claims of fraud.

U.S. District Judge Jia Cobb ruled that the administration had not satisfied a legal requirement that Fed Governors can only be fired “for cause”, which she said was limited to misconduct while in office. Ms. Cook joined the Fed’s board in 2022.

Ms. Cobb also held that Mr. Trump’s firing would have deprived Ms. Cook of her due process, or legal right, to contest the firing.

By a 2-1 vote, a panel of the federal appeals court in Washington rejected the administration’s request to let Ms. Cook’s firing proceed.

Mr. Trump’s lawyers have argued that even if the conduct occurred before her time as Governor, her alleged action “indisputably calls into question Cook’s trustworthiness and whether she can be a responsible steward of the interest rates and economy”.

(With AFP inputs)

Published – October 01, 2025 09:54 pm IST

The Trump administration announced Tuesday (January 28, 2025) that it is offering buyouts to all federal employees who opt to leave their jobs by next week — an unprecedented move to shrink the U.S. government at breakneck speed.

A memo from the Office of Personnel Management, the government’s human resources agency, also said it would begin subjecting all federal employees to “enhanced standards of suitability and conduct” and ominously warned of future downsizing. The email sent to employees said those who leave their posts voluntarily will receive about seven months of salary, but they have to chose to do so by Feb 6.

President Donald Trump has built a political career around promising to disrupt Washington, and vowed that his second administration would go far further in shaking up traditional political norms than his first did. Still, the repercussions of so many government workers being invited to leave their jobs were difficult to calculate.

Also read | Trump 2.0 as disruptor of the global legal order

The federal government employs more than 3 million people, which makes it roughly the nation’s 15th largest workforce. The average tenure for a federal employee is nearly 12 years, according to an analysis by the Pew Research Center of data from OPM.

Even a fraction of the workforce accepting buyouts could send shockwaves through the economy and trigger widespread disruptions throughout society as a whole, triggering wide-ranging — and as yet unknowable — implications for the delivery, timeliness and effectiveness of federal services across the nation.

Untold numbers of front-line health workers in the Veterans Affairs Department, officials who process loans for homebuyers or small businesses, and contractors who help procure the next generation of military weaponry could all head for the exits at once. It could also mean losing experienced food inspectors and scientists who test the water supply — while disrupting everything from air travel and consumer product protections.

In response, American Federation of Government Employees union President Everett Kelley said it should not be viewed as voluntary buyouts, but pressuring workers not considered loyal to the new administration to vacate their jobs.

“Purging the federal government of dedicated career federal employees will have vast, unintended consequences that will cause chaos for the Americans who depend on a functioning federal government,” Kelley said in a statement. “Between the flurry of anti-worker executive orders and policies, it is clear that the Trump administration’s goal is to turn the federal government into a toxic environment where workers cannot stay even if they want to.”

In its emailed memo detailing its plan, OPM lists four directives that it says Trump is mandating for the federal workforce going forward — including that most workers return to their offices full-time.

“The substantial majority of federal employees who have been working remotely since Covid will be required to return to their physical offices five days a week,” it reads. That echoes Trump, who said of federal employees over the weekend: “You have to go to your office and work. Otherwise you’re not going to have a job.”

The memo also says Trump “will insist on excellence at every level,” and while some parts of the government’s workforce may increase under his administration, “The majority of federal agencies are likely to be downsized.”

Finally, it says, the ”federal workforce should be comprised of employees who are reliable, loyal, trustworthy, and who strive for excellence in their daily work.”

“Employees will be subject to enhanced standards of suitability and conduct as we move forward,” the memo reads. “Employees who engage in unlawful behavior or other misconduct will be prioritized for appropriate investigation and discipline, including termination.”

The emailed message includes a “deferred resignation letter” for federal employees wishing to participate in the buyout program.

“If you resign under this program, you will retain all pay and benefits regardless of your daily workload and will be exempted from all applicable in-person work requirements until September 30,” it says.

The email even includes instructions on how to accept, stating: “If you wish to resign: Select ‘Reply’ to this email. You must reply from your government account.” It adds: “Type the word ‘Resign’ into the body of this email and hit ‘send.’”

Meanwhile, OPM has released guidance for an executive order Trump signed on the first day of his second term known as “Schedule Career/Policy.” It replaces Schedule F, an order Trump signed late in his first term that sought to reclassify thousands of federal employees and make them political appointees without the same job security protections.

President Joe Biden rescinded Trump’s Schedule F order almost immediately upon taking office in 2021, and under his administration, OPM issued a new rule last year designed to make it more difficult to fire many federal employees.

That move was seen as a safeguard against using a new Schedule F order to help carry out the key goals of Project 2025, a sweeping plan by a conservative Washington think tank to dismiss large swaths of the federal workforce in favor of more conservative alternatives while also cutting back on the overall size of government.

But that hasn’t stopped the Trump administration from swiftly moving to gut the federal workforce and leave employees with little recourse to protest firings or reassignments.

Trump’s OPM on Monday set deadlines for agencies to begin to recommend workers for reclassification. Agency heads are being instructed to establish a contact person no later than Wednesday and begin to submit interim personnel recommendations within 90 days.

“Agencies are encouraged to submit recommendations on a rolling basis before this date,” Charles Ezell, the acting director of OPM, said in a memo.

Perhaps more stunning, the Trump personnel office simply did away with the Biden administration’s 2024 regulation to better protect federal workers. Monday’s memo said Trump’s new executive order used the president’s authority “to directly nullify these regulations.”

Wisconsin, United States:

Donald Trump has nominated Fox Business host Sean Duffy to be the next Transportation Secretary. The former congressman will replace Pete Buttigieg in January to oversee a huge federal portfolio of infrastructure spending and transit regulations.

President-elect Donald Trump. File
| Photo Credit: Reuters

President-elect Donald Trump has selected Chris Wright, a campaign donor and fossil fuel executive, to serve as energy secretary in a second Trump administration.

Mr. Wright, CEO of Denver-based Liberty Energy, is a vocal advocate of oil and gas development, including fracking, a key pillar of Trump’s quest to achieve U.S. “energy dominance” in the global market.

Mr. Wright has won support from influential conservatives, including oil and gas tycoon Harold Hamm. Hamm, executive chairman of Oklahoma-based Continental Resources, a major shale oil company, is a longtime Trump supporter and adviser who played a key role on energy issues in Mr. Trump’s first term.

Hamm helped organise an event at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in April where Mr. Trump reportedly asked industry leaders and lobbyists to donate $1 billion to Trump’s campaign, with the expectation that Mr. Trump would curtail environmental regulations if re-elected.

Mr. Wright has been one of the industry’s loudest voices against efforts to fight climate change and could give fossil fuels a boost, including quick action to end a year-long pause on natural gas export approvals by the Biden administration.

Mr. Wright has criticised what he calls a “top-down” approach to climate by liberal and left-wing groups and said the climate movement around the world is “collapsing under its own weight”.

This combination photo shows Nikki Haley, former United States Ambassador to the United Nations, left, speaking in Taipei, Taiwan, Aug. 21, 2024, and Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump speaking at a campaign rally, Oct. 27, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo)

President-elect Donald Trump ruled out two of his previous Cabinet members — former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and former envoy to the United Nations Nikki Haley — to be part of his upcoming administration.

Trump, 78, was elected as the 47th President of the United States. He defeated Vice President Kamala Harris, 60, in the elections held on November 5. In the first term, Trump served as the 45th President from January 20, 2017, to January 20, 2021.

Also read | Donald Trump wins White House race: U.S. Election Results 2024 in Charts

“I will not be inviting former Ambassador Nikki Haley, or former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, to join the Trump Administration, which is currently in formation,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social.

Mr. Pompeo served as the CIA Director and Secretary of State in his first term, while Ms. Haley served as his ambassador to the United Nations in the first two years of his presidency. Both his cabinet-ranking officials later entered the presidential race against him in the Republican primaries.

While Mr. Pompeo dropped from the race early, Ms. Haley was the last challenger against Trump till February this year. Later on, the two endorsed his campaign. Ms. Haley announced her support for Trump during the Republican National Convention in Wisconsin in July this year.

However, in his post, Trump thanked his two former Cabinet officials for their service.

“I very much enjoyed and appreciated working with them previously, and would like to thank them for their service to our Country. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!” Trump said.

The Department of Commerce building in Washington D.C. File
| Photo Credit: Reuters

The story so far: The government is still gauging the impact of a decision by the U.S. Treasury department to impose sanctions on 19 Indian entities among nearly 400 companies, mainly for supplying “dual-use” technologies to Russia. In addition, the Bureau of Industry and Security run by the U.S. Commerce Department added 40 companies including five from India for re-exporting goods and parts to Russia that were imported from the U.S.

Why are recent U.S. sanctions significant?

Since April 2021, when U.S. President Joe Biden passed an executive order (E.O. 14024) on “Blocking Property With Respect To Specified Harmful Foreign Activities of the Government of the Russian Federation”, the U.S. has sanctioned hundreds of companies from more than 20 countries worldwide for supplies and sales to Russia, including some from India. But on October 30, the U.S. Department of Treasury invoked the E.O. to sanction 19 Indian entities, including companies and individuals for providing “dual-use” technologies to Russia and other deals with Russian companies calling them “Third-Country Sanctions Evaders”. The companies, mostly based in Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Bengaluru and Hyderabad, are reputable, well-established companies dealing in technological manufacturing, with some even holding government contracts. These companies will now be on a U.S. “blacklist”, have assets or funds in the U.S. frozen, and face travel bans.

How has the Indian government responded?

The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) has been fairly muted on the action by the U.S., which is likely to cost Indian companies millions of dollars in contracts and legal appeals. When asked during a briefing, Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said that the MEA had “seen reports of U.S. sanctions”, but declined to comment on whether this was discussed between U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan and NSA Ajit Doval, who spoke a day later. The MEA said the companies were “not in violation of Indian laws”, and pointed out that the government was trying to “clarify issues”. “India has a robust legal and regulatory framework on strategic trade and non-proliferation controls,” Mr. Jaiswal said, referring to India’s membership of key non-proliferation export control regimes such as the Wassenaar Arrangement, Australia Group and the Missile Technology Control Regime.

What else can India do?

India does not recognise unilateral sanctions by the U.S. or any other country, following only those sanctions imposed by the UN. However, as India-U.S. high-tech trade increases, the U.S.’s strictures will have an increasing impact on both Indian companies and the government’s moves. According to the MEA, Indian agencies are already “sensitising” Indian companies on the new measures being implemented by the U.S. that could impact them. The government could also increase measures to sanction-proof those Indian companies doing business with Russia, by building more structural banking mechanisms, and facilitating payments in national currencies, as have been explored for refineries procuring Russian oil, diamond processing units and other sectors where the U.S. and EU sanctions have been the most stringent. Eventually, rejecting any U.S. decision will come at the cost of bilateral ties, and the government will have to evaluate the cost-benefit calculus on whether to accept U.S.’s moves, or to react more strongly to sanctions.

Will the Trump victory make a difference?

While a new U.S. administration after Donald Trump’s electoral win is expected to pursue a softer line on Russia, it is unlikely that these sanctions will be removed anytime soon, say analysts. During his campaign, Mr. Trump has consistently side-stepped any criticism of Russia’s war in Ukraine, saying that once he comes to power, he would “end the war within 24 hours”. This has been seen as an indication that the Trump administration would not impose further sanctions on Russia. However, the U.S. Congress has frequently taken very tough positions on Russia, and in 2017, virtually forced Mr. Trump’s hand during his first tenure into signing the CAATSA law (Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act) that threatened sanctions against countries for procuring major Russian military hardware, including the S-400 missile defence systems that India has signed a deal for. While Mr. Trump has led the Republican party to a majority in the Senate, it is unlikely that he will reverse any of the sanctions already imposed on Russia.

The Department of Commerce building in Washington D.C. File
| Photo Credit: Reuters

The story so far: The government is still gauging the impact of a decision by the U.S. Treasury department to impose sanctions on 19 Indian entities among nearly 400 companies, mainly for supplying “dual-use” technologies to Russia. In addition, the Bureau of Industry and Security run by the U.S. Commerce Department added 40 companies including five from India for re-exporting goods and parts to Russia that were imported from the U.S.

Why are recent U.S. sanctions significant?

Since April 2021, when U.S. President Joe Biden passed an executive order (E.O. 14024) on “Blocking Property With Respect To Specified Harmful Foreign Activities of the Government of the Russian Federation”, the U.S. has sanctioned hundreds of companies from more than 20 countries worldwide for supplies and sales to Russia, including some from India. But on October 30, the U.S. Department of Treasury invoked the E.O. to sanction 19 Indian entities, including companies and individuals for providing “dual-use” technologies to Russia and other deals with Russian companies calling them “Third-Country Sanctions Evaders”. The companies, mostly based in Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Bengaluru and Hyderabad, are reputable, well-established companies dealing in technological manufacturing, with some even holding government contracts. These companies will now be on a U.S. “blacklist”, have assets or funds in the U.S. frozen, and face travel bans.

How has the Indian government responded?

The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) has been fairly muted on the action by the U.S., which is likely to cost Indian companies millions of dollars in contracts and legal appeals. When asked during a briefing, Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said that the MEA had “seen reports of U.S. sanctions”, but declined to comment on whether this was discussed between U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan and NSA Ajit Doval, who spoke a day later. The MEA said the companies were “not in violation of Indian laws”, and pointed out that the government was trying to “clarify issues”. “India has a robust legal and regulatory framework on strategic trade and non-proliferation controls,” Mr. Jaiswal said, referring to India’s membership of key non-proliferation export control regimes such as the Wassenaar Arrangement, Australia Group and the Missile Technology Control Regime.

What else can India do?

India does not recognise unilateral sanctions by the U.S. or any other country, following only those sanctions imposed by the UN. However, as India-U.S. high-tech trade increases, the U.S.’s strictures will have an increasing impact on both Indian companies and the government’s moves. According to the MEA, Indian agencies are already “sensitising” Indian companies on the new measures being implemented by the U.S. that could impact them. The government could also increase measures to sanction-proof those Indian companies doing business with Russia, by building more structural banking mechanisms, and facilitating payments in national currencies, as have been explored for refineries procuring Russian oil, diamond processing units and other sectors where the U.S. and EU sanctions have been the most stringent. Eventually, rejecting any U.S. decision will come at the cost of bilateral ties, and the government will have to evaluate the cost-benefit calculus on whether to accept U.S.’s moves, or to react more strongly to sanctions.

Will the Trump victory make a difference?

While a new U.S. administration after Donald Trump’s electoral win is expected to pursue a softer line on Russia, it is unlikely that these sanctions will be removed anytime soon, say analysts. During his campaign, Mr. Trump has consistently side-stepped any criticism of Russia’s war in Ukraine, saying that once he comes to power, he would “end the war within 24 hours”. This has been seen as an indication that the Trump administration would not impose further sanctions on Russia. However, the U.S. Congress has frequently taken very tough positions on Russia, and in 2017, virtually forced Mr. Trump’s hand during his first tenure into signing the CAATSA law (Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act) that threatened sanctions against countries for procuring major Russian military hardware, including the S-400 missile defence systems that India has signed a deal for. While Mr. Trump has led the Republican party to a majority in the Senate, it is unlikely that he will reverse any of the sanctions already imposed on Russia.