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Trump expected to fire Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell soon after lawmakers' support
In an unprecedented decision that will kill the independent monetary policy of the United States, President Donald Trump is expected to soon fire Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell and replace him with a puppet who would cut interest rates to his liking.
Multiple media reports said that Trump has asked Republican lawmakers whether he should fire Powell and indicated to them he wanted to fire him.
The New York Times reported that Trump showed a group of Republican lawmakers a draft of a letter firing Powell and asked them if he should go ahead with it. Sources said that he indicated in the meeting that he wanted to go ahead with firing Powell.
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Separately, Bloomberg reported a White House official as saying that Trump is likely to fire Powell soon and discussed the matter with Republican lawmakers.
For months, Trump has been trashing Powell for not cutting interest rates to his liking. On his part, Powell has insisted that the Fed would cut the interest rate at an appropriate time on the basis of economic metrics and would not follow political directives. Any decision to fire Trump will likely disrupt the markets and shake faith in the US economy.
In its history of more than a century, no Chair of the Federal Reserve has been fired by any president. The independence of the Federal Reserve in setting the monetary policy of the country irrespective of the prevailing political environment is the bedrock of the central bank. Undoing the independence could disrupt the markets and set the stage for disastrous monetary policy that prioritises the president's whims and fancies and not economic prudence.
The Bloomberg reported that Republican lawmakers with whom Trump discussed the matter supported his move to fire Powell.
Under the law, the president may only fire the Federal Reserve Chair for 'cause'. While the law does not define what cause means, legal precedent states that cause compromises inefficiency, negligence of duty, and malfeasance in office, and states that policy disagreements is not a cause for firing.
Even though Trump's cause is clearly policy disagreement, he could announce the firing of Powell anyway. He would be confident that any legal challenge to the firing would be dismissed by the conservative majority of the Supreme Court that he has in his pocket. Trump himself appointed three of the Supreme Court judges in his first term who have almost always done his bidding on the bench.
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