Fed’s Powell says he attended Supreme Court arguments over Cook due to case’s importance to Fed

WASHINGTON, Jan 28 (Reuters) – Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said on Wednesday that he attended last week’s Supreme Court arguments over President Donald Trump’s effort to fire Fed Governor Lisa Cook because of the case’s importance to the U.S. central bank.

Asked at a news conference why he attended the Supreme Court arguments, Powell said: “I would say that that case is perhaps the most important legal case in the Fed’s 113 year history. And I, as I thought about it, I thought it might be hard to explain why I didn’t attend it.”

Powell added that there was precedence for previous Fed chairs to attend such hearings, noting that Paul Volcker appeared at the Supreme Court in the 1980s, and he believed that it was appropriate for him to do so as well.

(Reporting by David Lawder; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama )