Trump abandons fight to fire Fed Reserve governor after smackdown from Supreme Court

The Trump administration dropped its appellate fight to remove Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook, three weeks after the Supreme Court blocked the firing in a 5-4 ruling.

Both sides filed a joint request Monday asking the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to send the case back to the lower court.

That means the underlying legal question — whether Trump’s attempt to fire Cook violated the Federal Reserve Act — will now be decided by a federal district judge.

Cook became the first Federal Reserve governor fired in the central bank’s 111-year history when Trump moved against her in August 2025, citing mortgage fraud allegations she has denied. The June 29 Supreme Court ruling blocked the removal.

“This was never about mortgage documents signed years before I became a Federal Reserve governor,” Cook said in a statement after the ruling. “It was an attempt to remove me on a manufactured pretext because I refused to bow to political pressure.”

“There are some walls left that he cannot get over,” Cook’s attorney Abbe Lowell told PBS News after the June 29 decision.

On the same day the court protected Cook, it gave Trump expanded power to fire the heads of other independent federal agencies — green-lighting his removal of former Federal Trade Commission Commissioner Rebecca Slaughter. The Federal Reserve was the one exception.

Chief Justice John Roberts, writing for the majority, warned that removing Cook without proper process “would allow the President to remove a member of the Federal Reserve at any time, for any reason, without any notice before, and without any judicial check after.”

“We will take appropriate action immediately to make sure that someone who has committed wrongdoing will not be making vital decisions…” Trump posted on Truth Social after the ruling.