Trump Said to Discuss Firing Fed's Powell After Latest Rate Hike

[elleng]

38. Right.

*The Federal Reserve Act, which created the central bank in 1913, states that Fed board members can only be “removed for cause” by the president before their term expires. Powell’s term as chairman ends in 2022 and his term as a governor ends in 2028.

The law does not specify the definition of “for cause,” a term that applies to officials in other independent agencies, such as the Federal Trade Commission. In a 1935 case involving President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s removal of an FTC commissioner, the Supreme Court ruled that such officials could not be fired for political reasons.

More recently, some leading Republicans publicly pushed Trump to fire Democrat Richard Cordray as director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. But the law that created the agency also limited the removal of the CFPB’s chief “for cause.” Trump did not fire him amid concerns of a court fight. Cordray resigned late last year on his own accord to run for Ohio governor this fall.

Powell’s leadership of the Fed since taking over in February has drawn praise from economists and financial analysts for clearly signalling the direction of monetary policy and slowly raising the still historically low federal funds rate.'

https://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-trump-federal-reserve-fire-20181011-story.html