Supreme Court says Fed’s Cook can keep her job for now, but it upholds other Trump firings - AP News

Supreme Court says Fed’s Cook can keep her job for now, but it upholds other Trump firings

The Supreme Court has ruled that Federal Reserve governor Lisa Cook can remain in her job for now, hobbling President Donald Trump’s bid to assert control over the nation’s central bank.

President Donald Trump slammed the Supreme Court’s mail ballot ruling Monday as “detrimental to honest elections” while praising a separate decision expanding his presidential authority to fire independent agency officials.

Federal Reserve Board of Governors member Lisa Cook leaves the Supreme Court in Washington, Jan. 21, 2026. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein, File)

Visitors sit on the steps of the U.S. Supreme Court, Monday, June 8, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Mariam Zuhaib)

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Monday dramatically expanded presidential power, upholding President Donald Trump’s firings of the heads of independent federal agencies with one important exception: the Federal Reserve.

The justices allowed Fed governor Lisa Cook to stay in her job while she fights the Republican president’s effort to fire her over allegations of mortgage fraud, which she has denied.

But other than at the nation’s central bank, with its role of setting interest rates, the court held that presidents have free rein to fire agency heads at will, despite federal laws that require a cause for such dismissals and a 91-year-old decision that had limited executive authority.

With the six conservative justices in the majority, the nine-member court jettisoned its unanimous decision in Humphrey’s Executor that had limited when presidents can fire agencies’ board members — in part to try to ensure decision-making free of political influence.

“We hold that such protection from removal is contrary to the separation of powers enshrined in the Constitution,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the court.

Support for Trump’s position

The justices ruled in the case of former Federal Trade Commission member Rebecca Slaughter, whom Trump fired without cause despite a provision of federal law that requires a reason. The logic of the decision extends to other agencies, including the National Labor Relations Board, the Merit Systems Protection Board and the Consumer Product Safety Commission, where Trump also has fired board members.

Rebecca Slaughter, Federal Trade Commissioner, holds her newborn daughter Hattie, as she testifies via video conference during a Senate committee hearing in 2020. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

Trump voiced his approval in a Truth Social post. “It is such an Honor to be the sitting President who won this Historic and Unprecedented Ruling, one of the most important ever given with respect to Presidential Powers,” he wrote.

The court already had signaled its support for the Trump administration’s position, over the liberals’ objection, by allowing Slaughter and the board members of other agencies to be removed from their jobs even as their legal challenges continued.

No president before Trump had sought to wrest control of the agencies that regulate wide swaths of American life, including nuclear energy, product safety and labor relations. But at arguments in Slaughter’s case in December, the six conservatives, including three appointed by Trump, seemed more concerned about issuing a ruling that would endure than handing too much power to Trump.

Their rhetoric was reminiscent of the presidential immunity case in 2024 that allowed Trump to avoid prosecution for his efforts to undo his 2020 presidential election loss to Democrat Joe Biden. The court is writing a decision “for the ages,” Justice Neil Gorsuch said then.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor, in a dissent she summarized aloud in the courtroom, said the ruling could lead to “submission, instability, and even oppression.”