The court let Federal Reserve board member Lisa Cook stay in office pending oral argument in January.
The Supreme Court issued an order on Oct. 1 indicating that it would hear oral argument over Federal Reserve board member Lisa Cook’s challenge to President Donald Trump’s attempt to fire her.
“The application for stay presented to The Chief Justice and by him referred to the Court is deferred pending oral argument in January 2026,” an order from the court reads. “The Clerk is directed to establish a briefing schedule for amici curiae and any supplemental briefs responding to amici.”
Trump had asked the court to intervene after a lower court blocked the firing. The Supreme Court’s Oct. 1 order effectively allows Cook to remain in her position.
This case and another, Trump v. Slaughter, could alter how much control presidents have in determining who holds key positions within the executive branch. In both cases, questions have arisen over a long-standing Supreme Court precedent from a case known as Humphrey’s Executor v. United States, in which the court ruled that Congress can set certain limits on the president’s removal power.
The Supreme Court said last month that it expects to hear arguments over whether to overturn that precedent in December, when it considers Trump v. Slaughter. That case focuses on Trump’s attempt to fire a member of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).
Trump sent Cook a letter on Aug. 25 stating that he was removing her “for cause,” citing “sufficient reason” to believe that she had made false statements on one or more mortgage agreements. According to the letter that the president posted on TruthSocial, Cook allegedly claimed in a mortgage document that her primary residence was in Georgia, two weeks after claiming that it was in Michigan on another mortgage document.
“It is inconceivable that you were not aware of your first commitment when making the second,” Trump wrote. “It is impossible that you intended to honor both.”
Trump invoked the Federal Reserve Act, which states that the president can remove a member of the board “for cause.”
It’s unclear how the Supreme Court will handle Cook’s case, which is currently in a more preliminary posture on what is known as the emergency docket. Trump is currently asking the court to stay a lower court block, but the case could lead the court to wrestle with deeper questions about how the Federal Reserve Act should be interpreted.
Georgetown University law professor David Super previously told The Epoch Times that Trump’s allegations “could force the Supreme Court to decide what level of justification is required for a ‘for cause’ firing of a Federal Reserve board member.”
“In the past, this term has been limited to serious proven wrongdoing in office,” he said.
Cook has argued that Trump did not cite a legally recognized “cause” and that his interpretation of the law would “destroy the Federal Reserve’s historical independence.” She has also denied the fraud allegation.
“The Court’s decision rightly allows Governor Cook to continue in her role on the Federal Reserve Board, and we look forward to further proceedings consistent with the Court’s order,” Cook’s attorney Abbe Lowell said in a statement provided to The Epoch Times.
With most of Trump’s firings, the Supreme Court has allowed him to temporarily remove bureaucrats without hearing oral argument. That was the case, for example, with the Federal Trade Commission and the heads of two labor boards earlier this year.
Justices Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor, and Ketanji Brown Jackson opposed these decisions, indicating that Humphrey’s Executor should prevent Trump from firing those officials.
Kagan wrote in a dissent joined by Sotomayor and Jackson: “The President cannot, as he concededly did here, fire an FTC Commissioner without any reason. To reach a different result requires reversing the rule stated in Humphrey’s.”
In Humphrey’s Executor, the court said that Congress could restrict the president’s ability to remove officials if their agency served “quasi-legislative” or “quasi-judicial” functions. It also focused on the independent nature of the FTC, which was the agency at issue in the 1935 decision.
Although a decision from the Supreme Court is still pending, the court has indicated that it views the Federal Reserve’s structure differently from how it views that of the labor boards whose officials Trump removed earlier this year.
In an opinion from May, a majority of the court disagreed with the removed officials’ attempts to compare their agencies to the Federal Reserve. It said that the “Federal Reserve is a uniquely structured, quasi-private entity that follows in the distinct historical tradition of the First and Second Banks of the United States.”
Andrew Moran contributed to this report.
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