Trump has justified his move by pointing to accusations from Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Bill Pulte, a Trump appointee, who alleged Cook committed mortgage fraud. Cook, appointed in 2022 by former Democratic President Joe Biden as the first Black woman to serve as a Fed governor, has denied wrongdoing.
Cook’s lawyers say the allegations are a pretext — an attempt to remove her because of disagreements over monetary policy. Trump has repeatedly pushed for lower interest rates and has often criticized Fed Chair Jerome Powell for not moving faster.
This month, the Trump administration opened a criminal investigation into Powell over remarks he made to Congress last year about a Fed building project — a step Powell similarly characterized as a pretext aimed at increasing political influence over interest rates.
Congress created the Federal Reserve with safeguards designed to limit political interference. Under the Federal Reserve Act, a president may remove a governor only “for cause,” though the law does not define the term or lay out a specific removal process.
A Procedural Off-Ramp for the Court?
Beyond the questions of presidential power and the judiciary’s role in reviewing actions that affect the Fed, the case presents the court — which holds a 6–3 conservative majority and has backed Trump in several rulings since he returned to office last year — with a potential way to rule on narrower grounds.
Cook’s attorneys argue that Trump’s Truth Social letter amounted to an immediate termination without advance notice or a chance to respond to the allegations — falling short of the constitutional requirements of due process.
“One way for the court to side with Cook would be to say that the process she received — generally characterized in such cases as notice and an opportunity to be heard — was insufficient,” said Jane Manners, a Fordham Law School professor who has studied the history of laws governing officer removal.
Manners noted that while the exact form of a hearing is unclear, legal precedents often point toward a “judicial-type hearing” that includes evidence and testimony, including from the official facing removal.
Does a Fed Seat Count as “Property”?
Trump’s Justice Department has urged the Supreme Court to reject Cook’s due process claim, arguing that a government position is not a form of protected property under the Constitution.
“Officers exercise significant government power, and no individual has a property right to such power,” the administration argued in court filings.
Even if due process protections apply, the administration says Cook received adequate notice and an opportunity to respond. Lawyers for Trump point to an August 20 social media post in which he referenced Pulte’s referral of the mortgage allegations to the Justice Department for criminal investigation and wrote, “Cook must resign, now!!!”
According to the administration, Cook had time to respond before Trump posted the letter removing her five days later. “Cook had an opportunity to explain why no misconduct occurred, and she spurned it,” the filing stated.
Cook sued Trump in August after he announced he would remove her.
In September, U.S. District Judge Jia Cobb temporarily blocked Trump from carrying out the directive. Cobb found Cook was likely to prevail on her due process claim and also concluded the mortgage allegations likely did not qualify as legally sufficient “cause” under the Federal Reserve Act, particularly because they concern conduct that allegedly occurred before the Senate confirmed Cook to the post.
Cobb also criticized the way the administration communicated the basis for removal, writing that it was “doubtful that Cook should have been required to piece together the evidentiary basis for a ‘for cause’ removal from a scattered assortment of social media posts and news articles.”
After the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit refused to pause Cobb’s order, the Trump administration asked the Supreme Court to step in.
