Explainer: What's known about whether Trump can fire Powell from the Fed

April 22 (Reuters) - President Donald Trump on Monday kept up his verbal assault on Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell over the Fed's refusal for now to further cut interest rates, rattling financial markets growing ever more fearful that Trump may ultimately try to fire the U.S. central bank chief over the matter.

Whether Trump has the authority to do so is unclear.

The Federal Reserve Act of 1913 establishing the Fed stipulates that members of its Board of Governors, appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate to staggered 14-year terms, can be only be removed for "cause" - long thought to mean misconduct, not policy disagreement.

That said, the law omits reference to limits on removal from its description of the four-year term of the Fed chair, who is one of the seven governors.

There is no direct legal precedent, since no president has ever tried to fire a Fed chief. There are, however, lawsuits now working their way through the courts over unrelated firings by Trump being watched as possible proxies for whether he has that power. One is currently pending before the Supreme Court, where any attempt to fire Powell would almost certainly end up.

A lot would hinge on just how Trump might choose to "fire" the Fed chief.

As each of his p...
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