By John Fritze, CNN

(CNN) — President Donald Trump took his effort to remove a governor from the Federal Reserve to the Supreme Court on Thursday, asking the justices to remove Lisa Cook from the powerful board a day after it cut interest rates for the first time in months.

Trump’s emergency appeal put the issue of Fed independence – a question of monumental significance for the US economy – onto the court’s docket months after the justices appeared to carve out special protections for that agency. On the other hand, Trump’s effort to remove Cook involves new legal theories that may find purchase on the 6-3 conservative court.

If Trump is successful in dismissing Cook, it would mark the first time a Fed governor was fired by a president in the central bank’s 111-year history.

The Federal Reserve cut its benchmark interest rate Wednesday for the first time since December, and signaled more cuts are likely this year. Trump has sharply criticized Fed Chair Jerome Powell for keeping rates high, and critics have suggested the administration’s real goal in targeting Cook has been to pressure the agency to act.

“That the Federal Reserve Board plays a uniquely important role in the American economy only heightens the government’s and the public’s interest in ensuring that an ethically compromised member does not continue wielding its vast powers,” the administration said in its emergency appeal.

“Put simply, the president may reasonably determine that interest rates paid by the American people should not be set by a governor who appears to have lied about facts material to the interest rates she secured for herself – and refuses to explain the ap-parent misrepresentations.”

This story is breaking and will be updated.

The-CNN-Wire
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