Justices rule Trump cannot fire Fed member, but grants more power over independent agencies

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Monday delivered a setback to President Donald Trump, rejecting his attempt to fire Federal Reserve board member Lisa Cook, while in a separate case giving him a freer hand to exert control over other hitherto independent federal agencies.

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The two decisions, issued at the same time and both authored by Chief Justice John Roberts, together marked another example of the conservative-majority court pushing back on one aspect of Trump’s broad exertion of executive power while giving him the green light on another.

Though Trump may not fire Cook for now, the court allowed him to remove a member of the Federal Trade Commission, Rebecca Kelly Slaughter. In the latter case, the court overturned a key 1935 Supreme Court ruling called Humphrey’s Executor v. United States, which upheld restrictions on the president’s power to fire FTC members.

The court was divided differently in each case. In Cook, the vote was 5-4 with the court’s liberals joining the majority, while they dissented in Slaughter, which was 6-3 on ideological lines. Only Roberts and fellow conservative Justice Brett Kavanaugh were in the majority in both cases.

In the Cook case, Roberts rejected the Trump administration’s contention that the president’s firing of Cook could not be reviewed in court and that she could not stay in office while contesting the decision.

“To accept any of those arguments would in effect transform the Federal Reserve’s for-cause protection into at-will employment,” he wrote.

Such a step would be “out of step with the statute Congress enacted and our nation’s tradition of central banking protected from political interference,” he continued.

The court in effect created a Federal Reserve exception to its general view — long-favored by conservatives suspicious of what some term a federal bureaucratic deep state — that restrictions on the president’s power to fire members of federal agencies imposed by Congress were an unconstitutional restriction of executive authority.

“Our Constitution creates three branches, but only one president,” Roberts wrote in the Slaughter ruling.

“Subordinates who exercise the president’s power are subject to removal by him. Then, and only then, can they remain accountable to the president, and the president to the people,” wrote Roberts.

So, while Cook can remain in office for now, the court granted Trump free rein to continue firing members of agencies that were specifically set up by Congress to be free of political interference. The court concluded that the Federal Reserve is different from other independent agencies, in part based on its unique structure and history.

While the FTC ruling only directly affects Slaughter, whom Trump fired in March 2025, the logic applies to other agencies with similar restrictions on the president firing members without cause.

The court has already allowed Trump to fire, without cause, members other agencies that regulate health, safety, labor and environmental issues, including the Consumer Product Safety Commission, the Surface Transportation Board and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

Since taking office in January 2025, Trump has also sought to remove members of other independent federal agencies, which the Supreme Court has allowed .

The court, whose majority has been skeptical of the concept of independent federal agencies that are not subject to presidential control, has undermined removal protections for federal employees in recent years in a series of cases involving other agencies that were brought by business interests.

The president has more broadly sought to dramatically reshape the federal government using an aggressive form of executive power. In addition to seeking to control previously independent agencies, he has also tried to dismantle some agencies and has fired thousands of federal workers .

But the separate Cook ruling imposes a new barrier to Trump’s attempt to stamp his mark on the Federal Reserve, an independent body that guides U.S. monetary policy. Since taking office in January 2025, Trump has pushed for lower interest rates and has criticized the Fed, and recent Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell in particular, for failing to act on his wishes.

The Senate recently confirmed Kevin Warsh to replace Powell as chairman of the board of governors. Powell’s term as a member of the board of governors, however, does not expire until 2028.

Trump has also appointed one of his advisers, Stephen Miran, to serve as a Fed governor.

Trump did not try to fire Powell, although the Justice Department embarked on an investigation of him related to refurbishments at the Fed’s headquarters in Washington. It later dropped the probe.

Global markets have long relied on the independence of the Federal Reserve. No president has ever tried to fire a top Fed official.

Under the Federal Reserve Act, presidents are restricted from removing governors unless it is “for cause,” meaning there is evidence of wrongdoing.

Trump has said he fired Cook for cause, over allegations of mortgage fraud made by one of his political appointees, Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Bill Pulte. Cook has denied the allegations, and bank documents obtained by NBC News appear to contradict the fraud claim.

Trump moved to fire Cook in late August, prompting her to file a federal lawsuit. Cook, who has remained on the board since, had argued that Trump did not have the authority to remove her from office while she challenged his decision in court. Lower courts ruled in her favor , leading Trump to rush to the Supreme Court.

As for the FTC, Trump fired, without cause, both Democratic commissioners on the five-person FTC, Slaughter and Alvaro Bedoya . Both challenged the move, although Bedoya later dropped out of the case.

Slaughter cited the 1914 law that set up the FTC, which says members can be removed only for “inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office.”

A federal judge ruled in favor of Slaughter in July, citing the 1935 Supreme Court ruling in Humphrey’s Executor. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit reached a similar conclusion.