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Lisa Cook isn’t going down without a fight.
Cook plans to file a lawsuit challenging President Donald Trump’s attempt to fire her from her position on the Federal Reserve’s board of governors, her attorney said Tuesday.
“President Trump has no authority to remove Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook,” her lawyer Abbe Lowell said in a statement. “His attempt to fire her, based solely on a referral letter, lacks any factual or legal basis. We will be filing a lawsuit challenging this illegal action.”
The White House press office didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
The showdown between Cook and Trump comes as Trump has exerted pressure on the Federal Reserve to lower interest rates.
Over the past several months, he’s frequently criticized Federal Reserve Board Chairman Jerome Powell, whom he appointed to the position in his first term, and other members of the board for keeping interest rates high.
Trump published a letter Thursday night saying he was firing Cook for “cause,” accusing her of lying on mortgage documents.
Cook said in a statement that she took the allegations — which were first raised by Trump ally Bill Pulte, the director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency — seriously. But she said Trump did not have the authority to fire her.
“President Trump purported to fire me ‘for cause’ when no cause exists under the law, and he has no authority to do so,” Cook said in a statement following Trump’s letter.
Federal Reserve governors serve staggered 14-year terms after they are appointed by the president and confirmed by the US Senate.
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The term for Cook, an appointee of former President Joe Biden, is scheduled to conclude in 2038. Another Biden appointee, Adriana Kugler, resigned from the board earlier in August.
Because the Federal Reserve is an independent agency, presidents have limited power to fire its members.
Cook’s legal challenge puts Trump on a collision course with the Supreme Court, which has so far been friendly toward his decisions to fire members of independent agencies.
Earlier this year, the Supreme Court sided with Trump in pushing out members from their posts in two other independent agencies while additional legal battles played out. In those cases, Trump said he was firing the appointees without citing any cause.
But in one of the unsigned opinions, in May, the Supreme Court majority said their decision would not “implicate the constitutionality of for-cause removal protections” of Federal Reserve members, without explaining what they meant.
“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,” the justices wrote.
To challenge her firing, Cook hired Lowell, a pugilistic Washington attorney who recently founded Lowell & Associates, a firm focused on representing Trump’s political targets.
Lowell’s firm represents New York Attorney General Letitia James, whom Trump and Pulte have also criticized over her personal mortgage filings.
Lowell is also suing the administration on behalf of Mark Zaid, a national security lawyer who represents whistleblowers, and Miles Taylor, an official in Trump’s first presidential administration who has since publicly criticized him.
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