Washington (Reuters) -a federal judge postponed his decision on the governor of the American Federal Reserve (Fed) Lisa Cook against his dismissal by Donald Trump on Friday.

District judge JIA COBB asked the lawyers for Lisa Cook to present by Tuesday a note explaining in more detail their arguments according to which this dismissal is illegal.

The hearing, which was held in Washington, is the first step in a long legal battle which should end before the Supreme Court of the United States.

Lisa Cook announced Thursday to continue Donald Trump and the Fed on the grounds that the mortgage frauds to which she would have engaged before her entry into office would not give legal authority to the American president to dismiss her. According to her, Donald Trump is looking for a pretext to dismiss her because she refuses to lower interest rates.

This dismissal revives concerns about the independence of the Fed compared to the White House and weighed on the dollar. The law which created the Fed stipulates that the governors of the institution can only be revoked “for a valid reason”, without however specifying this notion.

In the documents deposited in court, Lisa Cook denied having committed mortgage fraud, while declaring that even if it had done so, this would not constitute a reason for revocation because the alleged offense occurred before it was confirmed by the American Senate and that it did not take up its functions in 2022.

Donald Trump says that a year earlier, Lisa Cook declared separate properties in Michigan and Georgia as main residences on mortgage loan requests, which could have allowed him to obtain lower interest rates.

(Written by Daniel Wiessner and Jan Wolfe; Bertrand de Meyer, edited by Kate Entringer and Jean-Stéphane Brosse)

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