All three living former Fed chairs—Alan Greenspan, Ben Bernanke, and Janet Yellen—filed a Supreme Court brief on Thursday, calling on the justices to block President Donald Trump’s attempt to remove Fed Governor Lisa Cook from her 0 filing warned that firing Lisa during an ongoing legal challenge would “threaten that independence and erode public confidence in the Fed.” They weren’t the only ones who 1 brief was backed by a wide bipartisan lineup of top economic names, including ex-Treasury Secretaries Robert Rubin, Larry Summers, Hank Paulson, Jack Lew, and Timothy 2 said the independence of the Fed, granted within limits set by Congress, was a “critical feature of our national monetary system.” They argued the Court should not let the White House interfere with 3 is currently the target of a White House effort to reshape the Fed’s stance on interest 4 wants rate cuts fast, and Lisa has been in the way.
That’s the backdrop for the president’s push to remove 5 administration is claiming he had “cause” to fire her, based on mortgage fraud accusations pushed in August by Bill Pulte, head of the Federal Housing Finance Authority and one of Trump’s close 6 faces legal block in firing campaign against Fed official Lisa Cook, who has vehemently denied Pulte’s accusations, hasn’t been charged with 7 has 8 News reviewed documents in September that appeared to contradict the fraud claims 9 despite no formal charges, Trump still pressed 10 federal courts already blocked the removal 11 didn’t back off—he escalated the matter to the Supreme 12 administration wants the green light to fire Lisa 13 court filings, Solicitor General 14 Sauer said the judge’s earlier decision to pause the firing was “improper judicial interference.” The Supreme Court didn’t dismiss the case.
Instead, they gave Lisa until Thursday evening to respond to Trump’s appeal. Meanwhile, the White House is sticking to its 15 said Lisa was “lawfully removed for cause.” It hasn’t walked that 16 it hasn’t denied that Lisa has been a target amid pressure to push the Fed into faster rate 17 situation is 18 is the first president in 19 to try and remove a sitting Fed 20 alone raised alarms for 21 brief filed Thursday isn’t some academic lecture. It’s a direct warning from the people who ran 22 policy across multiple administrations, both Republican and 23 Tarullo, former Fed governor, also signed 24 did economists Ken Rogoff, Phil Gramm, and John 25 the White House Council of Economic Advisers, signers included Glenn Hubbard, Greg Mankiw, Christina Romer, Cecilia Rouse, Jared Bernstein, and Jason 26 of these officials served in Trump’s 27 are currently in 28 all agreed on this: removing Lisa under these conditions risks doing serious 29 wrote, “an erosion of Fed independence could result in substantial long-term harm and inferior economic performance overall.” Economists point to Nixon’s Fed pressure as warning The brief didn’t just talk about 30 pointed back to the early 1970s, when President Richard Nixon leaned hard on the Fed to lower 31 pushed then-chair Arthur Burns to cut interest rates, and Burns didn’t 32 result?
“The Fed made only limited efforts to maintain policy independence and, for doctrinal as well as political reasons, enabled a decade of high and volatile inflation,” the brief 33 era ended in a deep recession and a long fight to get inflation back under 34 who signed the brief said this is the kind of mistake the country can’t afford to 35 wrote that “there is broad consensus among economists, based on decades of macroeconomic research, that a more independent central bank will lead to lower and more stable inflation without creating higher unemployment.” They added that “elected officials often favor lowering interest rates to boost employment, particularly leading up to an election,” but that doing so without regard to long-term effects “can instead lead to persistently higher inflation in the long-term and thus ultimately harm the national economy.” Want your project in front of crypto’s top minds?
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