Trump administration renews push to fire Fed governor Lisa Cook ahead of
key vote
[September 15, 2025] By
ALAN SUDERMAN
President Donald Trump’s administration renewed its request Sunday for a
federal appeals court to let him fire Lisa Cook from the Federal
Reserve’s board of governors, a move the president is seeking ahead of
the central bank’s vote on interest rates.
The Trump administration filed a response just ahead of a 3 p.m. Eastern
deadline Sunday to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of
Columbia, arguing that Cook’s legal arguments for why she should stay on
the job were meritless. Lawyers for Cook argued in a Saturday filing
that the Trump administration has not shown sufficient cause to fire
her, and stressed the risks to the economy and country if the president
were allowed to fire a Fed governor without proper cause.
Sunday’s filing is the latest step in an unprecedented effort by the
White House to shape the historically independent Fed. Cook’s firing
marks the first time in the central bank’s 112-year history that a
president has tried to fire a governor.
“The public and the executive share an interest in ensuring the
integrity of the Federal Reserve,” Trump’s lawyers argued in Sunday’s
filing. “And that requires respecting the president’s statutory
authority to remove governors ‘for cause’ when such cause arises.”
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 Bill Pulte, a Trump appointee to the
agency that regulates mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac,
has accused Cook of signing separate documents in which she
allegedly said that both the Atlanta property and a home in Ann
Arbor, Michigan, also purchased in June 2021, were both “primary
residences.” Pulte submitted a criminal referral to the Justice
Department, which has opened an investigation.
Trump relied on those allegations to fire Cook “for
cause.”
Cook, the first Black woman to serve as a Fed governor, referred to
the condominium as a “vacation home” in a loan estimate, a
characterization that could undermine claims by the Trump
administration that she committed mortgage fraud. Documents obtained
by The Associated Press also showed that on a second form submitted
by Cook to gain a security clearance, she described the property as
a “second home.”
Cook sued the Trump administration to block her firing and a federal
judge ruled Tuesday that the removal was illegal and reinstated her
to the Fed’s board.
The administration appealed and asked for an emergency ruling just
before the Fed is set to meet this week and decide whether to reduce
its key interest rate. Most economists expect they will cut the rate
by a quarter point.
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