Labor & Employment Law Daily Wrap Up, LITIGATION NEWS, TRENDS—Trump opposes Cook’s temporary restraining order in removal case, (Sep 8, 2025)

By Shashi Kant, BALLB, LLM

Court filings highlight sharp disputes over presidential discretion, due process rights, and the balance of equities in Fed’s governance.

On September 4, 2025, President Trump filed a supplemental memorandum opposing Lisa D. Cook’s motion for a temporary restraining order (TRO), defending his authority to remove her from the Federal Reserve Board (see Banking and Finance Law Daily, Sept. 3, 2025). That same day, Cook sought leave to file a sur-reply, arguing that new judicial decisions and the government’s fresh arguments required her response. Together, these filings underscore the high-stakes legal battle over whether the President may summarily remove a Federal Reserve Governor “for cause” and what protections, if any, attach to such an office.

Trump’s supplemental memorandum. Trump’s legal team argued that Cook’s challenge “remains unable to overcome the multiple independent legal obstacles to the relief she seeks.” The memorandum divided its opposition into three parts: Cook’s substantive challenge to her removal, her procedural claims, and the equitable factors governing TRO relief.

Substantive challenge. The government first contended that Cook’s claim faltered because presidential determinations of “cause” for removal are not subject to judicial review. The memorandum emphasized that “a removal for cause, when causes are not defined, is a matter of discretion and not reviewable.’” It argued that this rule applied with full force under the Federal Reserve Act, which authorizes removal “for cause” without defining the term. Even if review were permissible, the government maintained, Cook’s conduct supplied ample cause. Trump’s lawyers pointed to her “flatly inconsistent representations in important financial documents” concerning mortgage loans before she assumed office, concluding that such behavior rendered her unfit to serve as a senior financial regulator.

Procedural challenge. The memorandum next addressed Cook’s contention that she was entitled to notice and a hearing before being removed. It stressed that the Federal Reserve Act contains no such requirement, contrasting it with statutes that explicitly provide for hearings, such as the National Labor Relations Act. The government argued that due process protections apply only when Congress specifies particular removal grounds, which it did not do here.

On constitutional grounds, the government asserted that “public office is not property,” citing previous judicial decisions that rejected claims of vested property rights in government service. Cook, it argued, could not claim a property interest under the Due Process Clause. Moreover, the memorandum insisted that Cook had actual notice of the grounds for removal through public disclosures and presidential statements and could have defended herself but chose silence.

Equitable factors. Finally, the government emphasized that equitable considerations alone foreclosed Cook’s TRO. Trump’s lawyers relied on two Supreme Court decisions from 2025, Trump v. Wilcox (145 S. Ct. 1415 (2025)) and Trump v. Boyle (145 S. Ct. 2653, 2654 (2025)), which held that the government’s harm from reinstating a removed officer outweighed any harm to the officer from being kept out of office pending litigation. The memorandum argued that Cook’s alleged reputational harm flowed from revelations about her mortgage conduct, not the President’s removal decision. Loss of employment, it stressed, is not an irreparable injury warranting extraordinary relief.

Cook’s motion for sur-reply. Cook’s response was procedural: she asked the court for leave to file a sur-reply brief. Her attorneys noted that two significant decisions were issued after she filed her Reply but before the government’s supplemental memorandum. These were the D.C. Circuit’s September 2, 2025, order in Slaughter v. Trump (No. 25-5261 (D.C. Cir. Sept. 2, 2025)), denying a stay, and the District of Massachusetts’s September 3, 2025, opinion in President and Fellows of Harvard College v. HHS (2025 WL 2528380 (D. Mass. Sept. 3, 2025)). Cook argued that both rulings were relevant to her case and warranted a short additional filing. She further maintained that Trump’s supplemental memorandum introduced new legal arguments not raised in the initial opposition, including citations and reasoning that required rebuttal. According to her counsel, allowing a sur-reply would “aid the Court in its deliberations” given the “scope, breadth, complexities, and significance” of the issues at stake. Government attorneys opposed the request, but Cook attached a proposed sur-reply to her motion for the court’s consideration.

Background and context. The clash arises from Cook’s abrupt removal from the Federal Reserve Board by President Trump in late August 2025 (see Banking and Finance Law Daily, Aug. 28, 2025). Cook, a senate-confirmed Governor, challenged her removal as unlawful, filing suit on August 28 against Trump, the Board, and Chair Jerome Powell. On the same day, she sought emergency relief in the form of a TRO to block her ouster. The court held a hearing on August 29, and briefing continued into early September. At the center of the dispute is the Federal Reserve Act’s provision that Board members may be removed by the President “for cause.” Cook argues that this standard requires specific grounds and procedural safeguards, while the government insists it grants broad, unreviewable discretion (see Banking and Finance Law Daily, Sept. 2, 2025).

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