A federal appeals court on Monday denied a last-minute attempt by President Trump to block Lisa Cook, a governor on the Federal Reserve, from participating in a meeting of the central bank, in a move that will allow her to cast a vote this week on interest rates.
The ruling marked the second legal defeat for Mr. Trump, who has sought to install a roster of political loyalists at the Fed. With Ms. Cook, the president has labored to oust her over allegations of mortgage fraud, even though she hasn’t been charged with a crime.
The decision from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit upheld the work of a lower judge, who temporarily blocked Mr. Trump earlier this month from firing Ms. Cook while the two sides war over the legality of her dismissal. The court rejected the president’s emergency request to halt that order, which would have allowed him to proceed with the firing.
Mr. Trump and his top deputies had claimed that Ms. Cook falsified records to obtain favorable mortgage terms before her arrival at the Fed. But Ms. Cook, who has been neither charged with nor convicted of a crime, sued on grounds that her dismissal was unlawful under the Fed’s chartering statute.
A preliminary loan estimate reviewed by The New York Times suggests that Ms. Cook did not try to deceive lenders about one of the properties, a home in Atlanta, that she purchased before joining the country’s central bank in 2022. Those documents complicate the administration’s claim that Ms. Cook sought to commit fraud and undermines their stated reason for removing her from her role.
The law allows the president to only dismiss officials at the Fed for cause, typically defined as professional neglect or malfeasance. A judge on the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia ruled earlier this month that Mr. Trump had not met that standard, and could not oust Ms. Cook for conduct that occurred unrelated to her duties and before she was confirmed by the Senate in 2022.
Tony Romm is a reporter covering economic policy and the Trump administration for The Times, based in Washington.
Colby Smith covers the Federal Reserve and the U.S. economy for The Times.
Ben Casselman is the chief economics correspondent for The Times. He has reported on the economy for nearly 20 years.
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