Supreme Court Expands Trump's Removal Power, Spares Cook

The question of central bank independence, which we in Belgrade follow through the relationship between the government and the National Bank of Serbia, gained a precedent from Washington on Monday that will be cited in constitutional law textbooks for years. The US Supreme Court, by a vote of six to three, expanded the president’s power to remove the heads of independent regulatory bodies, yet in the same stroke drew a line that Donald Trump was not allowed to cross, leaving Federal Reserve governor Lisa Cook in her post. For European chancelleries that measure the stability of the dollar and the transatlantic bond, the message is twofold: executive power in America is growing, but the monetary institution remains shielded for now.

The court ruled that the president may dismiss members of commissions and agencies without stating a reason, seriously weakening a 1935 precedent that for decades protected independent bodies from political pressure. Specifically, the majority approved Trump’s removal of Rebecca Slaughter, a commissioner of the Federal Trade Commission, confirming that the president holds control over bodies that exercise executive authority. The three liberal justices remained in the minority, warning that the decision dismantles the system of checks and balances on which the American administrative state rests.

Why was Lisa Cook spared at the Fed?

The key to the distinction lies in the nature of the institution. The majority concluded that the Federal Reserve is not an ordinary regulatory agency but a body with a special constitutional standing whose independence in conducting monetary policy has deeper roots. Trump had tried back in August 2025 to remove Cook, accusing her of irregularities in mortgage filings, a move that would have made her the first governor dismissed in one hundred eleven years of the institution’s existence. The court halted that step, so Cook remains in place until her term expires, and investors on Wall Street breathed easier because the danger of a political takeover of the central bank has been averted for now.

The difference in treatment of the two women, one removed and the other protected, reveals the careful legal construction with which the court tried to reconcile a stronger executive with preserving confidence in the dollar. Governor Cook said after the ruling that she remains committed to the mandate the law entrusts to her, while the White House welcomed the decision as a partial victory because it widens its reach over the rest of the federal apparatus.

What comes after the election ruling?

The Supreme Court on Monday also upheld state laws that allow mail-in ballots arriving after election day to be counted, which Trump met with a sharp reaction. The president called on Congress to urgently pass the so-called SAVE America Act, a law that would standardize voting rules and, he claims, prevent abuse. Democrats in Congress have already signaled resistance, calling the proposal an attempt to narrow voting rights.

All eyes are now on June 30, when the court is expected to rule on Trump’s attempt to end citizenship acquired by birth on American soil, a question that touches the Fourteenth Amendment and millions of people. For diplomatic observers in Brussels and Belgrade, this series of rulings sketches a new map of power in Washington, in which the president gains levers his predecessors did not have, while the judiciary still proves willing to set a limit where it judges institutional independence to be most fragile. Would a similar line around central bank independence hold up under the same test in our own legal system?