Supreme Court ruling proves Federal Reserve is unique agency, Lisa Cook's lawyer says

**Geoff Bennett** (0:00)
For more on today's ruling that blocked President Trump from firing Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook, we are joined now by Cook's lead counsel, Abbe Lowell. Welcome to the News Hour.

**Abbe Lowell** (0:09)
That's good to be here.

**Geoff Bennett** (0:10)
So what was your reaction when you read the Supreme Court's decision today? What stood out to you most?

**Abbe Lowell** (0:15)
Well, I mean, the first reaction was one of joy and relief and a little bit of optimism that in the midst of what is a power grab by this administration and this president, there are some walls left that he cannot get over.

**Geoff Bennett** (0:28)
The court decided this on narrow procedural grounds rather than ruling directly on whether a president can ever remove a Federal Reserve Governor. So why is that a victory rather than a deferral of the core question?

**Abbe Lowell** (0:41)
There are two reasons why it is a victory. To begin with, they just didn't simply say, this is a procedural, go back and do it. It gave some parameters as to what happens. Remember that this went to the Supreme Court on an emergency docket basis to stop an injunction that we got in the district court. And because there have been so many of those, that the Supreme Court has been willing to overturn, the fact that ours stands strong has to be seen by anybody as a victory. That's one. And as I said, the second reason is, it's not just, okay, we saw it, you did it wrong, go do it better. There are words in this statute that should make it very much more difficult for the president to do what he's trying to do and to infuse politics into the Federal Reserve.

**Geoff Bennett** (1:25)
Well, it speaks to the constitutional status of the Federal Reserve going forward.

**Abbe Lowell** (1:29)
It does. So again, I realized that today was also the decision about other independent agencies, and this is a super independent agency. The court made very clear something that we've put forward from the beginning, which is in American history and in the law, the Federal Reserve Board stands unique. Having said that, this decision also points out things that others can use. It does define what due process means about notice and an opportunity to be heard. And at least in terms of this next chapter, it points out some parameters of what cause can be and what it cannot be.

**Geoff Bennett** (2:00)
The same court that protected Lisa Cook upheld President Trump's firing of the FTC Commissioner Rebecca Slaughter and expanded his authority over other independent government agencies. How should we understand that ruling?

**Abbe Lowell** (2:14)
In terms of both, you have to understand them together, I think. So look, we now can predict, unfortunately, many of the votes that take place on this nine member Supreme Court before a word is uttered or any opinion is written. And that remained to be the case, unfortunately, in my opinion, in the FTC slaughter case. What it means is that this court is not about to be all it can be to put a check and balance on another branch of government, which I and others believe is what the founders wanted. And remember, this was not just the court and the president, it was Congress that created these independent agencies, and Congress should have a say as well. So, when they established it, we think the precedent, I think the precedent, that applied to the slaughter case was one that should have been prevailed and not overruled. That said, remember again, in the midst of all federal agencies, the Federal Reserve stands alone. It is an agency, but it also is the US bank, and it also has a history unlike any other agency, going back to the founding of our country. And what today was, was the court made very clear to this president and to every president that comes after, that this is a unique agency for which, if you're going to try to do something wrong, you're going to be hiled to a much higher standard.

**Geoff Bennett** (3:28)
And yet the president says he's pushing forward. After the ruling, President Trump wrote on Truth Social that the case was decided on a strictly procedural basis, and he vowed to take appropriate action immediately to remove Dr. Cook from the board. So what's your response to that? And what options, if any, does the government have left?

**Abbe Lowell** (3:45)
My response is to thank President Trump again for whenever there could be any doubt that his motives are wrong, that the action he's going to take is improper, or that he is not going to conform to the basis of the Supreme Court's decision. It took him minutes, like a child who's been disappointed by losing a game, to go and say something about, oh, I'm still tougher than the next person. That said, what he has done in his immediacy is point out that if he thinks that whatever he's going to give now is process, he has undermined that by what he said. And if he's going to try to come up with some of the pretext for what happened to be true cause to remove this governor, he has undermined that as well.