President Donald Trump is attempting to fire Lisa Cook, one of the board members of the Federal Reserve. Mainstream commentators have described this as an unprecedented attack on the Fed's autonomy—no president has ever dismissed a member of the board, which is supposed to operate independent of political pressure—while conservatives say the allegations against Cook make her a special case. (Many libertarians, on the other hand, care less about tinkering with the Fed's composition and instead want to abolish it outright.)
The Trump administration has accused Cook of committing mortgage fraud; William Pulte, director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, penned a criminal referral alleging that she made false statements about her principal residence in order to obtain more favorable mortgage terms. She has yet to be charged and deserves the presumption of innocence, just like anyone else. Whether this justification is sufficient for the president to remove Cook "for cause" is a matter up for debate: Reason's Damon Root writes that the constitutional questions are not fully settled.
