Federal Judge in Cook Ousting Case Is Undaunted by Trump Ire (1)

As a little girl growing up in Detroit, Jia Cobb often spent time at her father’s law office—just as her father did with his father, who in 1930, was one of the first Black graduates from the University of Chicago Law School.

As a Harvard Law School student, senior lawyers around the country ventured to Boston to watch her in action during mock trials.

When she was later hired as a public defender in Washington, her supervisors watched her do something they had never seen a public defender do while preparing for trial: she convinced colleagues to read grand jury witness transcripts and then cross-examine them in a mock trial setting. “She put in extra work. More work than the usual lawyer,” said Edward J. Ungvarsky, Cobb’s former supervisor at the Public Defender Service in Washington.

Now, Cobb’s work has caught the attention of the nation. The 45-year old judge has been thrust into the spotlight as the US district court judge overseeing President Donald Trump’s unprecedented effort to oust Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook over unproven allegations of mortgage fraud—a major test of the president’s power over independent agencies. Cobb’s ruling that Trump’s efforts violated the law was upheld last week by a divided appeals court in Washington. Cook was allowed to remain on the board unless—or until—the Supreme Court rules otherwise.

It was the 19^th time out of 20 that an appeals court upheld Cobb’s rulings in cases she’s overseen in her four years on the bench, according to Bloomberg Law’s Litigation Analytics. As a result, Cobb has an overall 94.7% affirmance rate, outperforming the district court’s rate as a whole of 63.1%. Cobb’s sole reversal was her summary judgment decision in a case involving the secretary of Health and Human Services and a Minnesota-based health-care system in 2024.

Cobb so far has the last word on a critical, untested element of the Cook case that the appeals court did not decide but will be in front of the Supreme Court: the provision within the central bank’s founding law that permits the president to oust governors for a justifiable reason, also known as “for cause.” The Justice Department on Thursday asked the Supreme Court to at least temporarily pause Cobb’s ruling.

“The best reading of the ‘for cause’ provision is that the bases for removal of a member of the Board of Governors are limited to grounds concerning a Governor’s behavior in office and whether they have been faithfully and effectively executing their statutory duties,” Cobb ruled. “Cook has shown that President Trump’s allegations likely do not qualify as cause justifying her removal under the Federal Reserve Act and that the court can resolve the parties’ dispute about the interpretation of this statute.”

On Friday, Chief Justice John Roberts asked Cook’s team for a response by Thursday.

‘Getting It Right’

Cobb, who declined to comment for this story, was nominated to the district court in 2021 by President Joe Biden. She spent time learning how to view cases from the appellate side during her tenure as a law clerk for Judge Diane Wood on the US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in 2005.

More than 700 law students applied for the clerk position. Cobb was one of three Wood accepted.

As a clerk, Cobb worked on a case that involved an expansion of Chicago O’Hare International Airport that would have resulted in the excavation of a historically Black cemetery. She helped draft a ruling favoring the expansion, but ensured a mortician worked with the families of those affected to have their loved ones moved to another cemetery.

“When you see the world from the point of view of the appellate court, you can take those lessons back to courtroom,” Wood said in an interview. “You learn to explain yourself and give insight on what you are thinking and learn to divide the world up in question of law, fact and discretion. She has the benefit of knowing and having such experience. She was a very fair-minded person. She understood the stakes of getting it right.”

When Cobb was randomly assigned the Cook case late last month, Trump took to social media saying that Cobb “must recuse” herself. She refused. That same week, Cobb temporarily blocked the president’s attempt to rapidly deport thousands of immigrants who came into the US while fleeing oppression and violence, prompting the Department of Homeland Security to call her an “activist judge.”

Back of the Uber

Labels aside, activism was in Cobb’s pedigree.

At Northwestern University, she was a political science major and Phi Beta Kappa who often spoke or wrote publicly on issues of diversity, race and gender. In law school, she served as coordinating editor for The Harvard Law Review and wrote a piece that examined the disparities of Black lawyers serving on law reviews.

Cobb spent six years as a public defender in Washington, where she was a lead attorney for indigent clients charged with homicide, sexual assault and other violent felonies.

After leaving the public defender office, Cobb spent 11 years at the civil rights and civil litigation firm Relman Colfax PLLC, where she was eventually made partner. There she was the lead attorney on numerous national, federal employment, sexual harassment and racial discrimination suits.

John Relman, the firm’s founding partner, said Cobb approached her work “as a calling.” She’d often sit in the back of an Uber on her way home and read briefs filed by her colleagues on other cases, solely because she was fascinated with the case and the lawyer’s approach.

When Cobb approached Relman shortly after Biden’s inauguration to tell him that she planned to apply for an opening on the US District Court in Washington, he offered his complete support. “She was a beloved partner, but we knew she was going to do an important job of promoting justice on the bench,” Relman said.

“She was instilled with the lore of the law from an early age and how important and special it is to do right by the principles of the law,” he said. “It’s that calling that brought her to the bench.

In October 2021, Cobb was confirmed by the Senate to fill the position vacated by Judge Emmet G. Sullivan, who took part-time status as a senior judge. Sullivan, 78, who was first appointed as judge to DC Superior Court in 1984 and later to the DC Court of Appeals and then the district court, said in an interview that he was impressed with Cobb’s work and has sent her emails commending her on some rulings.

“I consider Judge Cobb to be an outstanding successor to my active, judicial position,” Sullivan said.