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David Wessel @davidmwessel.bsky.social · 07/08/2026

Read Dan Tarullo's analysis: www.brookings.edu/articles/fed...

Fed independence after Trump v. Cook | Brookings

graham steele @grahamsteele.bsky.social · 07/08/2026

FWIW, this was my take on the the unresolved issues (both legal and practical) after the Supreme Court's decision. www.yalejreg.com/nc/the-uncer...

What the Court Can’t Fix: The White House’s Continued Efforts to Remake the Fed

If the Court hoped that establishing a “substantial” bar to removing Fed Governors, accompanied by some minimal procedural guardrails, would halt the White House’s attempts to influence the Fed, it seems unlikely to have its intended effect. Before the opinion was even issued, the Court was already playing catch-up with a White House that has continued to seek out ways to remake the Fed in the President’s image.

During the pendency of the case, the White House and Treasury Department also reportedly sought to influence the selection process for the President of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta in the hopes of installing a preferred candidate. The reason the Atlanta Fed opening exists is due to concerns that the Board of Governors would block previous President Raphael Bostic’s re-appointment for fear that Bostic’s violations of investment restrictions would open avenues for renewed White House criticism. The desire to avoid potential controversy also led Biden-appointed Fed Governor Adriana Kugler to step down last summer after her husband violated Fed ethics policies.

In contrast to the heightened sensitivities of these non-aligned Fed Governors and Reserve Bank Presidents, Trump appointee Michelle Bowman is facing no apparent White House pressure for having violated the Fed’s communications blackout policy to attend an invite-only event with Wall Street investors. This is the political environment the Fed is currently operating in: those who are disfavored by the White House live under the threat of pretextual removal controversies, while the White House’s allies face little-to-no removal pressure, even when they engage in actions that give rise to a clear appearance of impropriety.

The Court’s new facts-and-circumstances test for for-cause removal seeks to deter pretextual removals, thereby preventing the President from “turn[ing] for-cause protection into little more than at-will employment.” Yet, these recent experiences illustrate how Cook is unlikely—and cannot reasonably be expected—to remove the Sword of Damocles hanging over the Fed. Indeed, there are media reports that the White House is already contemplating ways to take another run at removing Fed Governors—both Governor Cook and potentially also Governor Jerome Powell—in a manner that would comply with the letter, if not the spirit, of Cook.