Yesterday, Donald Trump posted a letter to Truth Social announcing that he had fired the economist Lisa Cook from her position as a member of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors. Whether this is true—whether Trump has, in fact, successfully fired Cook—is an unsettled question of enormous consequence. Under the law, a president can fire a Fed governor only “for cause.” To clear that bar, Trump has accused Cook of having made false statements on a mortgage application.
Cook, who has not been charged with any crime, has promised to sue to keep her job. Her lawyers will likely argue, among other things, that the “for cause” standard requires proof that Cook has engaged in misconduct or poor performance related to her job as a Fed governor, and that it does not permit the president’s lackeys to go digging through her personal history to gin up a pretext for termination. But because no president before Trump crossed this particular line, the vague standard has never be
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