Focused on the law & politics of finance. Currently Rock Center at Stanford Law School & Roosevelt Institute. Former Assistant Secretary, US Treasury Department & Democratic chief counsel, Senate Banking Committee. https://law.stanford.edu/graham-steele/
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@sbagen.bsky.social has a somber but timely warning about various 2029 rebuilding efforts. This to me is the key. If future leaders bake imagined political constraints into their planning, there just won’t be much “rebuilding” per se. www.offmessage.net/p/project-20...
Some were sanguine that the Fed’s structure meant the Fed system could remain independent even if Trump gained control of the Board. But this excellent piece shows how far Trump and his allies could go. These scenarios would have been unthinkable a few months ago. www.nytimes.com/2025/08/31/b...
CAFC ZMajority: these tariffs are orders of magnitude bigger than policies that SCOTUS has previously said implicated major questions doctrine
Appeals court knocks down most Trump tariffs but case almost certainly is heading to Supreme Court, which has been very deferential to president.
The idea that insurance premiums are a good way to mitigate climate risk to housing is a common misconception that, unfortunately, can obscure real solutions to the risks of climate change and perpetuate existing inequities. Why is that? Well... 1/8
We are in a bad place if "defending the proper interpretation of the Federal Reserve Act" constitutes cause sufficient to remove the *Chair of the Federal Reserve.*
I wonder what you make of arguments that we should just start playing our own game of Calvinball. democracyjournal.org/arguments/do...
That is, *National Bank Act* preemption.
Well, nothing is quite similar to the nature and stakes of this case. But the thing that jumps to mind most immediately is that Treasury and DOJ have disagreed with the OCC about the scope of preemption during the last two Democratic administrations.
My interpretation of their communications is the same as yours. My issue is that constructive ambiguity does not work in either litigation or a political fight. They're the experts on the FRA. If they tell a court Cook is right, that has a lot of weight and they only get one bite at this apple.
Fair enough. Reasonable people can disagree. In my experience working in senior roles in the US Senate and Treasury Department, including on litigation requiring Executive Branch coordination, when an agency declines to contradict DOJ it's mostly out of political comity, not legal principles.
I do not think that is correct. I believe they could say “we think her claims are correct and we are prepared to comply” as part of this suit. Different defendants take different positions—including ones that support plaintiffs—all the time.
Yes, is it rarer than a President firing a Fed Governor, which is an N of zero? My view is that either this is an existential threat to the Fed or it’s not. If it’s the former, then neutrality on this issue isn’t really an option.
I am?
I hope you can see the irony in arguing the Fed should not litigate independently in a case *about central bank independence.*
No, they have to file a response as a party to the case. And as they acknowledge in that filing, they have the ability to litigate independently from DOJ. Instead, they have decided to show up and take no position on the merits. bsky.app/profile/grah...
Sure it is.
The Fed has said removal protections benefit the Fed as an institution and the public by ensuring monetary policy is independent. But in its response in the Cook lawsuit, the Fed declines to support Cook’s arguments. It’s a disappointing failure of leadership. This is no time to be neutral.
Lisa Cook will likely sue to retain her seat on the Federal Reserve Board of Governors very shortly. While we wait (and even after she files), here's my analysis of her case in five not-so-easy pieces. 👇
"The President has the right to do whatever he wants."
Is that case when a Democrat is president?
i always hope Paul Butler is having a great day, but especially today!
Secretary Yellen is not prone to hyperbole or overheated rhetoric. If she says the situation at the Fed is this dire, then it’s dire.
Janet Yellen in FT oped - Trump’s attack on the Fed threatens US credibility. History teaches us that chaos follows when leaders undermine the independence of central banks www.ft.com/content/d2ea...
President Trump’s illegal attempted firing of Lisa Cook from the Federal Reserve is part of a pattern to bend independent agencies to his political whims, risking jobs and our economy. Congress and the courts must rein in these attacks. aflcio.org/press/releas...
WH press secretary from Trump’s first administration tells Politico that the Cook firing is just a test run for potentially firing Chair Powell.
"That deafening silence on Tuesday was Republicans and business leaders reacting to Donald Trump’s latest authoritarian power grab: his effort to fire Lisa Cook" My latest column: www.newyorker.com/news/the-fin...
The charge of mortgage fraud itself has its own racist history. bsky.app/profile/grah...
This piece is excellent. In my experience, market participants don’t know how to value things like rule of law so are lagging indicators. That’s why, in most cases, financial markets are not good mechanisms for imposing political discipline.
Anyone who would be willing to accept a nomination to an illegally vacated Board seat is by definition unqualified to serve as a Fed Governor. It's an automatic failure of the independence test. www.wsj.com/politics/pol...
An irony of the basis for Trump's attempted firing of Lisa Cook is that the (now reversed) NY civil fraud verdict against Trump was based on the theory he overvalued his assets in bank loan applications to secure more favorable financing terms. The federal mortgage fraud statute also prohibits this.
I think the risk there is lower unless her vote would have been outcome-changing. As opposed to the argument that the entire Board is illegitimate because she was participating.
I'd also note that every other fired commissioner has had to litigate in their personal capacity--FTC, NLRB, NCUA, etc. It's unfortunately a real practical obstacle if one doesn't have a lot of financial resources to pour into a legal challenge.
www.nytimes.com/2025/08/21/b...
I, too, hope she's still at work. But the Fed is also now subject to the legal risk that any Board matters she participates in could be challenged. This sort of no-win situation is why I noted back in April that the uncertainty alone could damage the Fed, regardless of how any case is resolved.
Frankly I think it’s unlikely that Cook would be challenging the firing if the Chair/Board staff thought she could not win and/or the fight was not worth it. It is a strongly consensus-based organization.
I would be careful about reading too much into the fact that Governor Cook has retained her own counsel. The Board and its staff may agree with her analysis, but as a matter of process, Governors have to litigate in a personal capacity. The Fed could always file an amicus brief in support.
Just received this statement from Lisa Cook: "President Trump purported to fire me 'for cause' when no cause exists under the law, and he has no authority to do so. I will not resign. I will continue to carry out my duties to help the American economy as I have been doing since 2022."
A key test for how much *Congress* values Fed independence is coming after the August recess.
Dear journalists: The President has not fired Lisa Cook. The President is *trying* to illegally fire her. Your words shape people’s reality. Please be accurate in your reporting.
In addition to all the senior economic officials in this administration, SCOTUS bears responsibility for this situation. They thought they could create an exception the Fed that the President would respect. Instead, he just created a pretext to justify the exception. bsky.app/profile/grah...
I feel your pain. Barr stepped down right before my first banking law class in January.
A truly reckless, baseless, and illegal act.
WSJ threatening us with a good time.
Conservatives have long argued (falsely) that the Global Financial Crisis was caused by unworthy borrowers of color taking advantage of banks to obtain mortgages they couldn’t afford. It’s no coincidence that the attacks on Governor Cook repeat this racist trope.
New at the Fed’s Jackson Hole event this year: Greater nervousness about the future of the institution amid Trump’s effort to take another board seat “This should be seen for what it is: a blatant shakedown and an attempt to strong-arm policymakers into lowering rates.” www.wsj.com/economy/cent...
Troubling look at the deregulatory, anti-worker turn at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. CFTC is small and often ignored, but it’s responsible for trillion-dollar markets that are only getting bigger with crypto. This is how financial crises happen. www.bloomberg.com/news/feature...
Truly weird story that illustrates the chaos of MAGA governance. Deputy Treasury Secretary, a conservative economist, is reportedly forced out over clashes with unqualified former IRS commissioner and suspicions he’s too close with Trump’s first Treasury Secretary. www.wsj.com/politics/tre...
Deputy Treasury Secretary Michael Faulkender is resigning less than five months after his confirmation, Treasury confirms to me. Laura Loomer posted about his departure Thursday evening.
WSJ EDITORIAL BOARD: Pulte's allegations against Cook are "an ominous turn in political lawfare. .. Weaponizing the housing regulator won’t build confidence in America’s institutions or markets." @wsj.com www.wsj.com/opinion/bill...
Documentation of federal troops violating the well-known "stand right, walk left" rule.
Trump's attacks on Fed Governor Lisa Cook would be laughable if they weren't such a stark example of weaponizing government. “Show me the man and I’ll show you the crime” is increasingly this administration's modus operandi. www.nytimes.com/live/2025/08...
While Trump lets crypto bros write federal policy, Illinois is implementing common-sense protections for investors and consumers. Today, I've signed into law first-of-their-kind safeguards in the Midwest for cryptocurrency and other digital assets. We won't tolerate fraudsters.
NEW: Trump’s team appears to be considering pardoning Binance founder CZ. He pleaded guilty in 2023 to money laundering violations that allowed terrorist groups to move $. Since then, Binance has done a $2B deal that benefited Trump’s crypto firm. A pardon could allow more deals +access to the US
Will he be better or worse than Trump's last Ambassador to Iceland? www.politico.com/news/2023/08...
@adamtooze.bsky.social on Trump’s Fed nominee Stephen Miran’s defense of the Trump tariffs in April.
Trump names Stephen Miran as his temporary pick to join the Fed's board of governors after Adriana Kugler announced last week that she would step down from her position roughly six months before her term expires. Miran will need to be confirmed by the Senate for that position
Stanford's student paper sues Noem and Rubio, saying their policies cause non-citizen students to avoid expressing themselves freely in the Daily's pages due to fear of detention and deportation h/t @joshgerstein.bsky.social www.thefire.org/sites/defaul...
This is well said. bsky.app/profile/dand...
If the reports that he is the front runner to be the next Fed chair are accurate, this sort of thing does not inspire confidence that he will be an independent thinker.
The SEC's Division of Corp Finance has figured out a way to defeat the purpose of the provision in the new stablecoin legislation that prohibits stable coin issuers from paying interest. I predict the first big losses on stablecoins will be related to this activity. www.sec.gov/newsroom/spe...
"Anything Republicans want to do is legal and anything Democrats want to do is illegal" is fast becoming the overriding theory of governance at both the state and federal levels.
I feel very comfortable assuming that this story, like much of this journalist’s other reporting, is not accurate.
The good news is that this administration's actions create opportunities for future administrations to think more expansively about how the financial system can support goals like racial equity and climate sustainability. Here's a shorter write-up of this issue: blogs.law.ox.ac.uk/oblb/blog-po...
Third, Wall Street won't save us. They are eager for tax cuts and deregulation. In exchange, they are happy to work with the Trump Administration to further its agenda of exclusion in the same way some law firms and universities have.
Second, the Trump administration's attacks are factually baseless. They are targeting reasonable actions taken by banking regulators and banks to respond to the financial impacts of climate change, financial and illicit finance risks of crypto, and racial discrimination in lending.
First, it's important to understand the Executive Order as an attempt to use the banking system to privilege certain groups and marginalize others. This administration claims (without legal basis) that conservatives are subject to "discrimination" while gutting actual anti-discrimination laws.
Conservatives accused banks of ‘discrimination’ and ‘redlining.’ They've tried to use federal regulations, state laws, state-constructed blacklists, law enforcement investigations, and jawboning to force banks to do business with energy companies, firearms businesses, crypto, and other industries.
This conspiracy theory is rooted in 2 sources: an Obama-era effort to stop payment fraud known as ‘Operation Choke Point’ that implicated certain industries (firearms, payday lending, gambling, tobacco, etc); and banks' voluntary commitments to address gun violence, climate change, and other issues.
Why is the White House planning to issue an order prohibiting banks from "discriminating" against conservatives and industries like crypto? Consider yourself lucky if you haven't followed this saga. I'll try to explain, pulling from a paper I wrote last year: papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....
Last week he was saying the Columbia “settlement” was fine.
We don’t need to invent hypotheticals. The Biden administration’s efforts to enforce antitrust law and regulate Wall Street engendered a much more intense reaction from the business community, including a barrage of lobbying, WSJ editorials, and tv ads and billboards.
Trump says Governor Kugler resigned because she knew Fed Chair Jay Powell was "doing the wrong thing on Interest Rates" and he calls on Powell to resign, too.
Time is one of the most precious resources in government. A lot of bad rules can be written in 6 months and a little delay might mean something never ultimately gets done.
Ok, nice talking with you. Have a good one.
Yes, I know.
These jobs change, and you never know what's going to happen when you take one--financial crisis, pandemic, insurrection, etc. The question is whether you're prepared to meet the moment or not, simple as that.
Fed governors are political appointees, nominated by the President and confirmed by the Senate. When you're in that kind of leadership position, you have to understand the assignment.
A truly baffling decision by a Biden-appointed Fed governor to step down several months early, handing Trump another seat on the Fed at a time he's attacking its independence. And announcing it today of all days, after he's removed the BLS commissioner. SMH.
This is a very strange take from a professor at Columbia, of all places.
Exclusive: Trump is asking bank executives for their pitches on monetizing mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, including a major public offering of stock, sources say
It's hard to make the case that Fed Chair Powell should be fired for cause over the cost of the Fed's renovation when the White House is wasting taxpayer money on things like this.
He may have no elbow left in a couple of years, but Miller is extremely fun to watch pitch in-person. Makes other pitchers seem like slow pitch when he's on the mound.
Has the White House explained why this is a reasonable use of government funds, but the Fed's renovation (which is self-funded) is not?
Seems like, in hindsight, based on everything that was included in the Trump tax-and-Medicaid-cut bill, the White House was maybe not being entirely honest with this "fact check."
I could not believe he came out and said it explicitly, but I watched the video and he does indeed call 'Trump accounts' a "backdoor for privatizing Social Security."
US Treasury sanctions Brazilian judge Alexandre de Moraes under the Global Magnitsky Act- he is overseeing investigation into Trump ally and former President Jair Bolsonaro The act was created to punish Russian officials responsible for death of Sergei Magnitsky home.treasury.gov/news/press-r...
Waller and Bowman dissent on the Fed's decision to hold on Wednesday, the first time two board members have opposed a monetary policy decision since 1993
In 2012, the Senator I worked for tried to pass an amendment to the STOCK Act prohibiting individual stock ownership. It was a wild experience. You learn a lot about Senators’ priorities when you try to regulate their personal conduct—especially their financial activities.
This piece summarizes the Trump family's crypto-related corruption well. In April, I testified about the threats to democracy, investors, and honest competition from the President's self-dealing.
The Justice Department has dropped its challenge to American Express Global Business Travel’s proposed acquisition of rival CWT
A horrible day for the planet, but a banner day for administrative law takes.
One would! But then we’re all un-learning a lot of important lessons these days
Very unfortunate things happening with financial regulation in the UK. Decisions about chartering and supervision should be free from political interference. This sort of deregulatory race-to-the-bottom never ends well. www.ft.com/content/6677...
A federal judge in Washington denied a request by an investment firm led by an ally of President Donald Trump for public access to Tuesday’s Federal Open Market Committee meeting.
This guy basically did the same thing Trump did with $TRUMP and $MELANIA. Only difference is that SCOTUS hasn't said he's immune from prosecution, I guess. www.nytimes.com/2025/07/27/u...
A stunning conflict of interest even for an administration full of conflicts.
Bad ideas, cont’d. Ignorance combined with arrogance.
“It’s common sense.” Some truly awful ideas from the Commerce Secretary here. www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...
