WASHINGTON, Jan 28 - Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said on Wednesday that he attended last week’s arguments before the Supreme Court related to President Donald Trump’s effort to dismiss Fed Governor Lisa Cook because he viewed the case as critically important to the central bank.
At a news conference, Powell was asked why he was present for the proceedings. He replied: "I would say that that case is perhaps the most important legal case in the Fed’s 113 year history. And I, as I thought about it, I thought it might be hard to explain why I didn’t attend it."
Powell further pointed to historical precedent for such attendance. He said Paul Volcker, a former Fed chair, appeared at the Supreme Court in the 1980s, and Powell expressed the view that it was appropriate for him to be there as well.
The issue at the center of the arguments is the presidential effort to remove a sitting governor of the Federal Reserve. Powell framed his decision to attend as tied to the institutional importance of the dispute for the Fed, describing the case in sweeping terms as exceptionally consequential to the central bank’s legal standing.
When explaining his presence at the court, Powell emphasized both the rarity and the gravity of the situation, noting that the circumstances made nonattendance difficult to justify in his judgment. By invoking Volcker’s appearance decades earlier, he placed his presence within a limited set of precedents for Fed chairs engaging directly with the judiciary on matters touching the institution’s governance.
The chair’s comments were delivered publicly at a press event, where reporters questioned him about his reasons for attending the Supreme Court arguments. Powell’s answers focused on the case’s importance to the Federal Reserve and on precedent rather than on further legal or policy details.
Summary
- Powell attended Supreme Court arguments on the case concerning President Trump’s effort to remove Fed Governor Lisa Cook because he judged the matter to be of exceptional importance to the Federal Reserve.
- He described the case as potentially the most important legal matter in the Fed’s 113-year history and cited Paul Volcker’s prior Supreme Court appearance as precedent.