On the same day embattled Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook’s attorneys submitted a pivotal legal document to Chief Justice John Roberts, a formidable cadre of economic heavyweights provided an extraordinary amicus brief to the Supreme Court.

Former Fed chairs Ben Bernanke, Alan Greenspan and Janet Yellen were joined by five former Treasury secretaries and several prominent economists and White House advisers appointed by both Democratic and Republican presidents in arguing that allowing Cook to be immediately removed from office would be a bad idea.

Cook’s ongoing legal battle has become a lightning rod for debates about Federal Reserve independence and what, if any, limitations there are on a U.S. president’s ability to fire a Fed governor.

President Donald Trump announced his intention to fire Cook on Aug. 25 in a two-page letter posted to the social media platform Truth Social. His grounds for taking that unprecedented step centered on Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Bill Pulte’s criminal referral of Cook to the Department of Justice on Aug. 15. Pulte alleged Cook fraudulently claimed homes in both Georgia and Michigan as her primary residence to potentially receive better mortgage terms.

Cook denied those claims and sued to keep her job. Both a U.S. district court judge and a federal appeals court ruled in Cook’s favor, which allowed her to attend the Fed’s September monetary policy meeting. As expected, Justice Department attorneys representing Trump appealed the lower court’s temporary restraining order to the Supreme Court.

In the amicus brief, the economic experts argued that allowing the executive branch to remove Cook “while under the cloud of legal challenge will erode public confidence in the Fed’s independence and threaten the long-term stability of our economy.”

They added that the “risk of harm to the Federal Reserve’s longstanding reputation for independence — and the ensuing harm to the economy — more than justifies maintaining the status quo by keeping Governor Cook in her position while the legality of her removal is adjudicated.”

The solicitor general’s stance

In the Supreme Court filing requesting a stay of the preliminary injunction barring Cook’s removal, Solicitor General D. John Sauer accused lower courts of “improper judicial interference with the President’s removal authority.”

Sauer argued that “so long as the President identifies a cause, the determination of ‘some cause relating to the conduct, ability, fitness, or competence of the officer’ is within the President’s unreviewable discretion.”

Elaborating on the question of what constitutes removal “for cause,” he stated: “The President’s strong concerns about the appearance of mortgage fraud, based on facially contradictory representations made to obtain mortgages by someone whose job is to set interest rates that affect Americans’ mortgages, satisfies any conception of cause.”

Regarding the allegations against the governor, Sauer wrote, “It is difficult to see how Cook could have honestly represented that she intended to occupy both a property in Michigan and a property in Georgia as her ‘principal residence’ during the same period — and she herself has offered no explanation.”

Chief Justice Roberts requested a response to Sauer’s request to stay the lower court’s order, which Cook’s attorneys — now including Paul Clement, the U.S. solicitor general during the second Bush administration — delivered shortly before the 4 p.m. deadline Thursday.

Cook’s response

In the 51-page response, Cook’s lawyers argued that a Fed governor can only be removed for ineligibility or what’s known as “INM” — inefficiency, neglect or malfeasance in office. They claimed the “flimsy, unproven allegations of pre-office wrongdoing” do not meet “for cause” standards.

The response also directly addressed the mortgage fraud allegations against Cook, claiming that “fundamental flaws” in the allegations were exposed to the public based on reporting by the news outlet Reuters.

Cook’s attorneys cited two Reuters articles, one of which reported that Cook “declared in financial forms that her Atlanta property would be used as a ‘vacation home’ and not her primary residence.” The other article quoted the city accessor of Ann Arbor, Mich., who said he has “no reason to believe” Cook violated property tax rules.

“The bottom line is this,” wrote Cook’s legal team, “Contrary to the President’s boundless assertion of authority, there must be some meaningful check on the President’s ability to remove Governor Cook. Otherwise, any president could remove any governor based on any charge of wrongdoing, however flawed.”

With Cook’s response in hand, the Supreme Court could issue an order soon addressing Trump’s request to stay the lower court’s injunction.