Trump loses last-minute court bid to block Cook: She can vote in Fed rate cut meeting

A US appeals court on Tuesday rejected President Donald Trump’s bid to remove Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook, effectively meaning that she can resume being at the helm of the agency ahead of its policy meeting.

Trump last month fired Cook, marking the first time a president had pursued such action since the central bank’s founding in 1913.

The DC Circuit denied the Justice Department’s request to put on hold a judge’s order temporarily blocking the Republican president from removing Cook, an appointee of Democratic former President Joe Biden. The administration is expected to appeal the ruling to the US Supreme Court.

Last week, District Judge Jia Cobb ruled that Trump’s claims that Cook was engaged in mortgage fraud are not sufficient grounds to remove her from the Fed’s charge, according to rules that were used to create the agency.

In August, Cook filed a lawsuit against Trump over his move to remove her. “This case challenges President Trump’s unprecedented and illegal attempt to remove Governor Cook from her position which, if allowed to occur, would (be) the first of its kind in the Board’s history,” court documents said.

Meanwhile, the Trump administration, in a court filing on Thursday, had asked the DC Circuit to move quickly so that Trump could remove Cook before the Fed’s policy meeting on Tuesday and Wednesday. Administration lawyers said that allowing the president to fire Cook would “strengthen, not diminish, the Federal Reserve’s integrity.”

Cook vs Trump 2.0

In the previous disclosures, Cook maintained that she had owned homes in Georgia, Massachusetts and Michigan, according to court records. One of the sources told The New York Times that federal prosecutors have begun issuing subpoenas to people related to the case.

The opening of the investigation comes as a little surprise since Martin, who leads the department’s vaguely defined weaponisation task force after Senate Republicans scuttled his nomination to be the permanent US attorney in the District of Columbia, signalled his intention to do so as the White House stepped up its attacks on Cook.

The tussle between Cook and the Trump administration started when Bill Pulte, the director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, said his office had investigated the Federal Reserve Governor and found that she appeared to have falsified bank documents to obtain favourable terms on a mortgage.

With inputs from agencies