Court prevents Trump from firing Fed governor

Updated on June 29 at 1:35 p.m.The Supreme Court on Monday ruled in favor of Lisa Cook, a member of the Federal Reserve’s Board of Governors whom President Donald Trump had attempted to fire. By a vote of 5-4, the court held that Cook can continue to remain in her job while her challenge to Trump’s efforts to fire her moves forward.Writing for the majority, Chief Justice John Roberts contended that, if the Trump administration were correct, it “would in effect transform the Federal Reserve’s for-cause protection into at-will employment—an interpretive leap out of step with the statute Congress enacted and our Nation’s tradition of central banking protected from political interference.”Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, Brett Kavanaugh, and Ketanji Brown Jackson joined the Roberts decision.In his dissenting opinion, Justice Clarence Thomas called the ruling “incorrect.” “Although the Court expresses concern that the President removed a Board member for ‘the first time in the Federal Reserve’s 111-year history,’” he wrote, “it expresses no such concern that it today upholds an injunction against the President’s removal of an executive officer for the first time in the Constitution’s 237-year history.”Justice Samuel Alito also filed a dissenting opinion, which was joined by Justice Neil Gorsuch; Justice Amy Coney Barrett filed her own dissenting opinion.The decision was a major ruling on the president’s power over the seven-member board of the Federal Reserve, the country’s