There are 12 voting members on the FOMC. How does Trump get a majority?
FOMC Voting Committee
The FOMC has 12 voting members: the seven members of the Board of Governors and five of the 12 Federal Reserve Bank presidents. The president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York is a permanent voting member, while the other four voting seats are held by Reserve Bank presidents on a one-year rotating basis.
Board of Governors
The President appoints members to the Federal Reserve’s Board of Governors, with the U.S. Senate providing “advice and consent” through a confirmation process. The process requires the Senate Banking Committee to question and approve nominees before the broader U.S. Senate gives its final confirmation. Governors are appointed to staggered 14-year terms.
Trump wants Fed Chair Powell to resign but he refuses.
Jerome Powell’s term as Chair of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors ends on May 15, 2026. He can, however, continue to serve as a member of the Board of Governors until his term expires on January 31, 2028.
Trump Appointments
As of September 1, 2025, the active Federal Reserve Governors appointed by Donald Trump are:
- Jerome H. Powell: Initially appointed as a governor by President Barack Obama in 2012, but nominated by Trump as Chair in 2017 and re-nominated for a second term as Chair. His term as Chair expires in May 2026, and his governor term extends to January 2028.
- Michelle W. Bowman: Appointed by Trump in 2018, currently serving as Vice Chair for Supervision with her term as a governor extending to January 2034.
- Christopher J. Waller: Appointed by Trump in 2020, with his term as a governor extending to January 2030.
These three are the currently active Federal Reserve Governors appointed by Trump. Note that Trump has also nominated Stephen Miran to replace Adriana Kugler, but this nomination is still pending Senate confirmation and is not yet active.
Adriana Kugler unexpectedly resigned with no reason given on August 8, 2025.
Bowman, Waller, and Kugler’s replacement (likely Stephen Miran) will all vote with Trump.
Trump Fired Lisa Cook
When: President Donald Trump announced his intent to fire Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook on August 25, 2025, stating in a letter posted on Truth Social that her removal from the Federal Reserve Board of Governors was “effective immediately.” However, as of the latest available information, no court ruling has finalized her removal, and Cook remains listed as an active governor pending legal proceedings.
Why: Trump cited allegations of mortgage fraud as the reason for attempting to fire Cook. Specifically, he referenced claims by Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Bill Pulte, a Trump ally, who accused Cook of falsifying mortgage applications by claiming two properties (one in Atlanta, Georgia, and one in Ann Arbor, Michigan) as her primary residence in 2021, before she joined the Fed, potentially to secure lower interest rates. Trump argued in his letter that this alleged conduct compromised Cook’s integrity and her ability to serve as a financial regulator, stating, “The American people must be able to have full confidence in the honesty of the members entrusted with setting policy and overseeing the Federal Reserve.” Additionally, on August 29, 2025, Pulte filed a second criminal referral alleging misrepresentations related to a condominium in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in Cook’s government ethics filings during her Fed tenure.
Legal Challenge: Cook, through her attorney Abbe Lowell, has contested the firing, arguing that Trump lacks the authority to remove her without sufficient cause under the Federal Reserve Act, which allows presidential removal of governors only “for cause” (e.g., malfeasance or misconduct). Cook has not been charged with any crime, and her lawyer called the allegations “unsubstantiated” and part of a “smear campaign.” On August 29, 2025, Cook sought an emergency temporary restraining order in federal court to block her removal, with a hearing before Judge Jia Cobb ending without an immediate ruling.
What If Cook Removal is Successful?
If the Cook removal is successful, Trump will have four voting Fed governors in his pocket.
That’s only four votes of the 12 voting FOMC members.
However, it’s four of seven Fed governors.
Can Fed Governors Remove Regional Fed Presidents?
Legal Authority and the 2019 DOJ Opinion – Courtesy of Grok AI
- Federal Reserve Act Provisions:
- The Federal Reserve Act, specifically 12 U.S.C. § 248(f), states that the Board of Governors has the power “to suspend or remove any officer or director of any Federal Reserve Bank, the cause of such removal to be forthwith communicated in writing by the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System to the removed officer or director and to said bank.” The use of “cause” in this section suggests that some justification (e.g., misconduct, neglect of duty, or malfeasance) is required for removal, though the term is not explicitly defined in the statute.
- Conversely, 12 U.S.C. § 341 (Fifth) notes that the board of directors of a regional Federal Reserve Bank can dismiss officers “at pleasure,” which introduces ambiguity about whether the Board of Governors’ authority is similarly unconstrained or bound by a “for cause” requirement.
- 2019 Department of Justice Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) Opinion:
- A 2019 OLC opinion, as referenced in the Google AI response, concluded that regional Federal Reserve Bank presidents are “inferior officers” under the U.S. Constitution and are subject to “plenary removal” by the Board of Governors, meaning they can be removed at will without requiring cause. This opinion argues that the Board of Governors has broad authority to oversee regional banks, including the power to remove their presidents.
- However, this opinion has not been tested in court, and its legal weight remains speculative. The OLC’s interpretation hinges on the constitutional classification of regional presidents as inferior officers, which allows for broader removal powers under Article II, but it does not reconcile the apparent tension with the Federal Reserve Act’s mention of “cause” in § 248(f).
Reappointment Process:
- Regional Federal Reserve Bank presidents are appointed for five-year terms by their respective bank’s Class B and C directors, subject to approval by the Board of Governors. These terms expire on the last day of February in years ending in 1 and 6 (e.g., 2026, 2031). The Board of Governors’ role in approving reappointments gives it indirect influence over whether a president continues in their role. By declining to approve a reappointment, the Board could effectively end a president’s tenure without formally “removing” them during their term. This is a practical workaround but not equivalent to a mid-term dismissal.
- Historically, presidents are routinely reappointed unless they retire, resign, or reach the mandatory retirement age (65, or 75 if appointed after 55). The Board has never declined a reappointment to force a president out, making this a theoretical rather than practical mechanism.
Historical Practice:
- The Board of Governors has never removed a regional Federal Reserve Bank president in the history of the Federal Reserve System. This lack of precedent underscores the cautious approach to exercising such authority, likely due to the quasi-independent structure of the regional banks and the desire to maintain stability and cooperation within the system.
- Regional banks operate as private entities with public functions, and their presidents are not federal employees in the traditional sense, which complicates direct intervention by the Board.
Grok Conclusion
The Federal Reserve Board of Governors has the theoretical authority to remove regional Federal Reserve Bank presidents, based on the 2019 Department of Justice OLC opinion, which asserts at-will removal power. However, the Federal Reserve Act’s language suggests a “for cause” requirement, creating legal ambiguity that has not been resolved in court. In practice, the Board’s influence is more likely exercised indirectly through its approval power over reappointments every five years, but it has never used this to oust a president. The lack of historical precedent and the potential for legal challenges make any attempt to remove a regional president a significant and untested action.
It Could Backfire
The New Republic reports Furious Trump’s Firing of Fed’s Lisa Cook May Be About to Backfire
To execute his authoritarian takeover, President Donald Trump requires the devoted service of willing accomplices. He needs loyalists in strategic positions who will bend or break the law to carry out his designs, from unleashing state-sponsored retribution against enemies to illegally renditioning people to foreign gulags to occupying American cities with U.S. troops.
Trump, plainly, has become newly emboldened in recent days. But another thing that makes this moment so ominous is that his accomplices also appear to be newly emboldened. They are acting freshly unconstrained—brashly, arrogantly certain they will never face accountability no matter what they do to carry out Trump’s corrupt bidding.
Case in point: Trump’s appalling new effort to fire Lisa Cook from the Federal Reserve’s board of governors. On Monday night his anger at Cook peaked as he announced that he’s removing Cook—who has infuriated him for months by helping to keep interest rates higher than he wants—essentially declaring Fed independence a dead letter.
Yet this maneuver may yet backfire on Trump—in part because the accomplices helping carry it out have grown almost absurdly brazen in doing so.
The move appears to be illegal, though Trump may still get away with it. The law allows a president to remove a Fed board member “for cause,” which has generally meant something like a real reason grounded in actual misconduct, not a fake reason that the president pulled out of his rear end.
Enter Trump’s accomplices. The “cause” he cited is the charge that Cook committed mortgage fraud, a claim manufactured for him by William Pulte, a staunch Trump loyalist who heads the Federal Housing Finance Agency, which oversees mortgage markets. Pulte tweeted “findings” that Cook has fraudulently declared several principal or primary residences for mortgage purposes.
Tellingly, Pulte has done a similar maneuver for other Trump foes like Senator Adam Schiff and New York Attorney General Letitia James, both Democrats. They’ve all denied wrongdoing, but all three have been referred to the Justice Department for prosecution.
The real question this raises is: Why is Pulte scrutinizing mortgages that just happen to belong to many high-profile opponents of Trump, and how did he come to select these targets? Experts recently told me that this use of the FHFA mortgage-fraud process appears highly suspect at best. When a Washington Post reporter asked FHFA to identify the procedural basis for Pulte to single out these targets, she received no answer.
Cook just announced that she’s suing to challenge her firing, and people with experience in mortgage law and governance tell me that Cook’s lawyer, well-known D.C. attorney Abbe Lowell, has a major opening in the coming litigation. He can use the discovery process to shed light on why Pulte targeted these mortgages and on any White House involvement in that.
“I’d be highly confident that Abbe is going to explore every avenue of discovery to determine what role, if any, the White House played in instigating this investigation,” Benjamin Klubes, a former acting general counsel at HUD and now a white-collar criminal defense attorney in D.C., told me. Notably, Lowell is also James’s attorney, so he’ll have two avenues to explore. “Abbe will definitely focus on Pulte’s role to determine how and why he chose these targets,” Klubes said.
If and when all this becomes the story—when Pulte’s misconduct and any White House involvement in it gets flushed out into the open—it may suddenly start looking very different from what Trump hoped.
Trump’s Comment
“We’ll have a majority very shortly,” said Trump at a recent cabinet meeting. “So that’ll be great.”
The process is as easy as I describe, at least in theory. Whether that majority would act to remove regional Fed presidents is the key question.
But If Trump replaces Cook and Adriana Kugler with total loyalists that’s two of the needed four votes.
I wonder if any other board members resign in disgust.
So there you have it, theory and practice. In theory, this is very easy. And it’s clear this is the path Trump is taking.
In practice, can Trump find four Fed governors who will go along?
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