The Supreme Court on Monday ruled against President Donald Trump’s attempt to remove Lisa Cook from the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, dealing a setback to Trump’s campaign to take control of monetary policy. The court’s 5-4 decision preserves Cook’s job as she continues to fight her removal, but it is not the final word on Trump’s bid to fire her. The narrow decision almost guarantees that this same dispute will return to the high court soon.

The majority opinion by Chief Justice John Roberts expresses explicit support for Fed independence. As an independent bank regulator, the Fed is run by a board of presidentially appointed governors who serve 14 year terms and are only removable for cause. The Trump administration argued that it had cause and that the Supreme Court could not review its removal decision. But the majority found the government’s arguments at odds with an independent Fed.

“To accept any one of those arguments would in effect transform the Federal Reserve’s for-cause protection into at-will employment—an interpretive leap out of step with the statute Congress enacted and our Nation’s tradition of central banking protected from political interference,” Roberts wrote.

The decision comes at a time when the future of Fed independence is in doubt. Trump’s pick for Fed chair, Kevin Warsh, is awaiting confirmation by the Senate. Keeping Cook in her seat steadies the ship, if only a little. The majority’s decision, however, is explicitly “narrow.” It requires that Cook be given proper notice of the cause of her removal and an opportunity to contest those charges. The decision does not lay out what that process looks like. And it saves for another day—which will almost........

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