What do you do when you are highly underqualified for your job, which you plagiarized to get in the first place, and on top of it all you broke the law and now your current boss doesn't want you any more? Well, you sue of course... and if that doesn't work, you claim that the world will end if you are let go.
Yes, that's the traditional flowchart for government DEI hires, it's also what Fed governor Lisa Cook is doing as she fights tooth and nail to say on at the Fed.
Fed Governor Lisa Cook’s attorneys urged the US Supreme Court to let her stay on the job while she fights President Donald Trump’s attempt to fire her, warning that even her temporary removal risks “chaos and disruption” in financial markets.
Granting the Justice Department’s request to allow Trump to immediately oust her “would sound the death knell for the central-bank independence that has helped make the United States’ economy the strongest in the world,” her lawyers wrote in a brief filed Thursday.
Or maybe just keep your client from breaking the law? Of course, since that's impossible, you go straight to the apocalypse that will follow should Trump get to say his favorite phrase.
In her brief, Cook's lawyers claim that Trump should have no authority to fire her, and that as of 2023, "only 12 nations with central banks allow the removal of central-bank board members at the executive’s discretion for policy reasons or for no reason at all." Those 12 nations are Bangladesh, Chile, China, Comoros, Iran, Kazakhstan, Laos, Morocco, Thailand, Tunisia, Turkmenistan, and Vietnam.
Well, the US will make it 13.
The DOJ has asked the Supreme Court to let Trump remove Cook, an appointee of former President Joe Biden, who has continued serving in her post since late August when Trump announced he would remove her due to mortgage fraud allegations that she’s denied.
The Supreme Court set a fast schedule for written briefs in the case but hasn’t signaled precisely when it intends to rule.
In the new filing, Cook’s lawyers argued that the Justice Department’s delay in asking for Supreme Court intervention until after the Fed’s last policy meeting on Sept. 16-17 was a possible sign the administration “understood the chaos” that might unleash in markets. It also undercut the government’s demand for “immediate relief,” according to the filing.
Cook’s brief cites a 2009 law review article in which then-Judge Brett Kavanaugh discussed how the Fed is insulated from direct presidential control because of its “power to directly affect the short-term functioning of the US economy.” Kavanaugh, now a Supreme Court justice, will be a pivotal vote in the case.
The largely conservative Supreme Court this year has largely sided with Trump in fights over his firings of other federal agency officials, but the justices previously made a point of distinguishing the Fed as a “uniquely structured, quasi-private entity.” A key question with Cook is whether the court will apply that distinction in a case involving alleged wrongdoing by a Fed official, albeit before she was appointed to her post.
Cook’s theatrical filing came hours after she won the support of a bipartisan group of former Treasury secretaries, former Federal chairs and other experts who all signed a letter in the docket, backing her case with the justices. The group, which includes former Fed chairs Ben Bernanke, Alan Greenspan and Janet Yellen - the people directly responsible for America's catastrophic debt load - said allowing Trump to oust Cook while she challenges her removal would do lasting damage to the public’s trust in the Fed while jeopardizing the credibility and efficacy of US monetary policy.
As if anyone believes the Federal "Inflation is transitory" Reserve has credibility, especially after it slashed rates 50bps 2 months before the 2024 election to ensure that Kamala Harris is elected. As for the letter, it's not the first time we have seen 51 former officials bend over backwards and trample their reputation, just to lie just to perpetuate the broken status quo.
Trump said last month he was firing Cook after Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Bill Pulte accused her of fraudulently listing homes in Michigan and Georgia as a “primary residence” when she obtained mortgages in 2021 to secure more favorable terms on loans.
Cook’s lawyers have said the allegations are part of a “smear campaign” aimed at discrediting Cook and helping Trump seize control of the Fed, which he has pressured for months to lower interest rates. They argued in the latest brief to the Supreme Court that “fundamental flaws” in the mortgage fraud claims “have already come to light,” citing media reports that she “properly declared her Michigan home as her principal residence” and “accurately described the Georgia property in question as a vacation home.”
“When that record is compiled, it will demonstrate that Governor Cook never acted improperly with respect to her mortgages and thus will eliminate the president’s stated ground for his purported removal,” her lawyers wrote.
A month ago, Cook filed a lawsuit in federal court in Washington to block her dismissal, arguing Trump’s unproven claims about mortgage fraud do not amount to “cause” under US law for firing her, and that her purported dismissal via social media post deprived her of her constitutional right to due process.
Shortly after, her sorority sister, US District Judge Jia Cobb on Sept. 9 ruled that Cook could remain on the job as her case proceeded, saying that Trump’s attempt to oust her likely violated the law. A divided federal appeals court upheld the ruling on Sept. 15, just hours before the start of the Fed’s highly anticipated two-day meeting to vote on interest rates.
The officials lowered their benchmark interest rate by a quarter percentage point. One year ago they lowered the rate by half a percentage point when the economy was in stronger shape and when inflation was hotter. However, back then the Fed was also tasked with helping elected Kamala Harris. It failed.