The Fed now stands alone as a 'super independent' agency protected from Trump — why the Supreme Court made one exception

The ruling comes after years of escalating attacks by Trump, who has been feuding with the Fed since the first term of his presidency, when he would criticize then-Fed Chair Jerome Powell for not lowering interest rates. During his second term, his criticisms escalated to threatening to fire the chair and a criminal investigation into the Fed over renovations.

Trump never actually tried to terminate Powell, who is no longer the Fed Chair but still serves on the Board. But he did try to fire Board member Lisa D. Cook over alleged mortgage fraud, which Cook denies.

“Cook must resign, now!!!” Trump said in a Truth Social post on August 20, 2025. In the same post, he links to a Bloomberg article about the topic. On August 25, Trump wrote a letter to Cook dismissing her from office.

PBS reports that, during a Cabinet meeting shortly thereafter, Trump said “we’ll have a majority very shortly” on the Fed Board, implying that this would allow interest rates to go down.

Here’s why the Supreme Court is invested in keeping the Federal Reserve independent, and why it says those rules don’t apply to other agencies.

Why the Supreme Court says the Federal Reserve needs to stay independent

The Supreme Court ruling disagrees with all three of the government’s arguments saying otherwise.

“To accept any of those arguments would in effect transform the Federal Reserve’s for-cause protection into an at-will employment — an interpretive leap out of step with the statute Congress enacted and our Nation’s tradition of central banking protected from political interference,” said Chief Justice John Roberts in the decision.

On the same day, a 6-3 ruling allowed Trump to fire Federal Trade Commission Commissioner Rebecca Slaughter; she says her firing was without cause. In doing so, the court struck down Humphrey’s Executor v. United States, a 1935 ruling limiting the President’s power over independent agencies like the FTC.

The court has allowed Trump to fire people from independent federal agencies in the past, including the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the Consumer Product Safety Commission.

Slaughter said that it was “very difficult for me to reconcile Cook and Slaughter decisions in that somehow Wall Street is special and gets special treatment.”

The Federal Reserve sets interest rates, which affects everything from mortgages and car loans to credit cards and savings accounts. Congress designed the Fed to operate independently from the White House, with officials protected from removal except for cause.

Other independent agencies were also established by Congress with protections intended to limit direct presidential influence over their work. However, the Supreme Court’s recent ruling narrows those protections for many agencies outside the Federal Reserve.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, for example, was created to oversee consumer financial products and services. Since returning to office, the Trump administration has significantly curtailed the agency’s operations, including pausing many enforcement and supervisory activities. Supporters of the bureau say those changes reduce federal oversight of financial companies, while administration officials have argued they are part of a broader effort to reduce regulation.

The ruling may not be as good for the Fed as it seems

The ruling denies Trump total control over the Fed, which Cook’s lawyer, Abbe Lowell, takes as a win.