By Ann Saphir

(Reuters) -Questions about Federal Reserve independence will take center stage on Thursday, when President Donald Trump’s economic advisor Stephen Miran testifies at a Senate Banking Committee hearing on his nomination to the U.S. central bank’s seven-member governing board.

The hearing, set to start at 10 a.m. EDT (1400 GMT), comes as Trump steps up efforts to exert control over the Fed, whose ability to manage inflation effectively is widely seen as requiring freedom from political influence over interest-rate decisions.

In an unprecedented move last week, Trump said he was firing Fed Governor Lisa Cook and was already weighing possible replacements. Cook sued, arguing that his unsubstantiated claim of mortgage fraud when she was an economics professor was a pretext to i

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