Donald Trump moved to remove Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook over unproven mortgage-fraud allegations raised by Bill Pulte, director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency. Cook refused to resign, and her lawyer, Abbe Lowell, pledged a lawsuit contesting the President's authority, calling the effort baseless. The dispute is expected to proceed through lower courts and could reach the Supreme Court, which has offered mixed signals about presidential removal powers and treated the Fed as a special case. Congressional Republicans and corporate leaders largely remained silent, while Representative Don Bacon called for due process. The episode follows recent Trump threats against other federal officials and illustrates a pattern of pushing norms until met with pushback.
On Monday night, Cook said she wouldn't resign, and on Tuesday, her lawyer, Abbe Lowell, said she will file a lawsuit challenging Trump's authority to force her out, adding that the attempted ouster "lacks any factual or legal basis." The standoff will go through the lower courts and may well end up before the Supreme Court, which previously has issued mixed signals about the limits of the President's power.
Over the years, of course, we have learned to expect abject submission from Trump's G.O.P. quislings on Capitol Hill. In this instance, the only murmur of protest came from Representative Don Bacon, of Nebraska, who isn't running for reëlection. Bacon said that Cook was entitled to due process and, referring to the President, stated the obvious: "This is his way to gain control of the Fed."
The failure of Wall Street and corporate leaders to register any immediate protests demands more comment. Whether Trump is described as a would-be-dictator, a Mob boss, or a reckless gambler is largely a matter of semantics from an economic perspective. In practical terms, his modus operandi is to push things as far as he can, regardless of laws or existing norms, until he receives powerful pushback. When there is no pushback, he keeps pushing.
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