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The US Supreme Court on Monday ruled in a 5-4 decision that Federal Reserve governor Lisa Cook can continue serving on the Board of Governors, hobbling President Trump's effort to remove her.

Trump fired Cook, the first Black woman to serve as a Fed governor, last August, claiming she committed mortgage fraud by making misrepresentations on loan documents years before her appointment to the central bank. Cook, a Biden appointee, denied any wrongdoing and sued.

The technical matter before the court was whether Cook should be allowed to remain in her position while her lawsuit against Trump moves forward.

"The Court rejects the Government's halfhearted contention that Cook in fact received due process. At minimum, Cook was entitled to some explanation of the evidence at issue, some avenue for a response," the opinion said.

The majority opinion was written by Chief Justice John Roberts and joined by the court's three liberal justices — Sonya Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, Ketanji Brown Jackson — as well as Trump appointee Brett Kavanaugh.

The ruling is the court's most definitive defense yet of Federal Reserve independence. In a separate case on Monday, the conservative majority held that the president has wide power to remove other independent regulatory heads. But it effectively said the Fed is different.