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

A view of the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington. The case of firing of the of the head of federal agency dedicated to protecting whistleblowers, is not expected to be docketed until after the Supreme Court returns from the Presidents Day holiday weekend.
| Photo Credit: AP

The Trump administration wants the Supreme Court to permit the firing of the head of the federal agency dedicated to protecting whistleblowers, according to documents obtained on Sunday (February 16, 2025) that would mark the first appeal to the justices since President Donald Trump took office.

The emergency appeal is the start of what probably will be a steady stream from lawyers for the Republican president and his administration seeking to undo lower court rulings that have slowed his second term agenda.

The Justice Department’s filing obtained by The Associated Press asks the conservative-majority court to lift a judge’s court order temporarily reinstating Hampton Dellinger as the leader of the Office of Special Counsel.

Dellinger has argued that the law says he can only be dismissed for problems with the performance of his job, none of which were cited in the email dismissing him.

The petition came hours after a divided appeals court panel refused on procedural grounds to lift the order, which was filed Wednesday and expires on Feb. 26.

The case is not expected to be docketed until after the Supreme Court returns from the Presidents Day holiday weekend. The justices would not act until Tuesday at the earliest.

It’s not clear what reception Trump will get from the conservative-dominated court that includes three justices he nominated in his first term.

The case began last week when Dellinger sued over his removal as head of the Office of Special Counsel, which is responsible for guarding the federal workforce from illegal personnel actions, such as retaliation for whistleblowing. He was appointed by Democratic President Joe Biden and confirmed by the Senate to a five-year term in 2024.

Dellinger said the office’s work “needed now more than ever,” noting the “unprecedented” number of firings, without cause, of federal employees with civil service protections in recent weeks by the Trump administration.

The administration argues that the order reinstating Dellinger for two weeks wrongly restricts what the president can do. The brief cites the Supreme Court decision that gave Trump immunity from criminal prosecution and reflected a muscular view of executive power.

“Until now, as far as we are aware, no court in American history has wielded an injunction to force the president to retain an agency head,” acting Solicitor General Sarah M Harris wrote.

The brief references some of the dozen or more cases where judges have slowed Trump’s agenda, including by ordering the temporary lifting of a foreign aid funding freeze and blocking workers with Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency team from accessing Treasury Department data for now.

The executive branch has argued since the Carter administration that the Office of Special Counsel is the kind of job where the president should have the power to hire and fire, and letting the order in Dellinger’s case stand could “embolden” judges to issue additional blocks in the roughly 70 lawsuits the Trump administration is facing so far, the Justice Department argues.

Dellinger’s firing was the latest move in Trump’s sweeping effort to shrink and reshape the federal government, testing the limits of well-established civil service protections by moving to dismantle federal agencies and push out staffers.

The independent Office of Special Counsel is separate from Justice Department special counsels such as Jack Smith, who are appointed by the attorney general for specific investigations, such as Smith’s criminal investigation of Trump before he returned to the White House.