Supreme Court rules Trump cannot fire Fed member Lisa Cook; grants him more power over other independent agencies

The Supreme Court 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.

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.