Washington (AP) – Alan Greenspan, Ben Bernanke, Janet Yellen and other former top economic officials appointed by the President of both parties, asked the Supreme Court on Thursday to preserve the political independence of the Federal Reserve and to remain Lisa Cook as a governor of the central bank.
The judges weigh an emergency room from the administration to remove Cook, while their lawsuit questions their dismissal by the Republican President Donald Trump.
The White House campaign to relieve Cook marks an unprecedented offer to redesign the Fed Board, which is largely independent of daily politics. No president has released a seated governor in the 112-year history of the agency.
At the beginning of September, a judge found that Trump’s switch to the fire chef was probably illegal. An appeal court declined an emergency lawsuit against Cook before the FED session last week when Cook took part in a vote to reduce an essential interest rate by a quarter with one percentage point.
One day after this session, the administration turned to the Supreme Court and asked again for its implementation.
In their registration, the lawyers of the former economic officers wrote that Cook “would immediately expose the Federal Reserve to political influences, which would erod the public’s trust in the independence of the Fed and endanger the credibility and effectiveness of US money policy.”
Greenspan, Bernanke and Yellen were successive chair of the FED Seven Governor Council and over six presidential administrations until 1987. Greenspan and Bernanke were originally appointed by the Republican President Ronald Reagan or George W. Bush. President Barack Obama, a democrat, nominated Yellen into the Fed and she was the democratic President Joe Bidens Minister of Finance.
The list of signatories includes other secretaries of the Ministry of Finance, the head of the council of business advisors and former Senator Phil Gramm, R-Texas, former chairman of the committee of the Senate banking, housing and city affairs.
Trump tried to fire cook on August 25, but a judge decided that she could stay in her job. Trump accused Cook of the mortgage fraud because in June and July 2021 it was apparently claimed as a “primary residences” in Michigan and Georgia before they included the board. Such claims can lead to a lower mortgage and a lower deposit than if one of them has been declared as a rental property or second home.
Cook contested any misconduct and was not charged with a crime. According to the documents received by The Associated Press, Cook stated that her apartment in Atlanta would be a “holiday home”, according to a loan estimate that she received in May 2021. In a form in which they were looking for a security release, she described it as a “2nd house”. Both documents seem to undermine the administration’s claims for fraud.
The attempt to fire Koch differs from Trump’s dismissal of board members from other independent agencies. These shots, including the National Labor Relations Board, the Federal Trade Commission and the Consumer Product Safety Commission, were carried out at will.
When the Supreme Court of Court passed these shots for the time being, he warned that he looked at the Fed differently. Trump has rely on the legislative idea that the Federal Reserve has set up and allows governors to be rejected “for reasons”.
