By Dan Burns

(Reuters) -A group of 18 former U.S. Federal Reserve officials, Treasury secretaries and other top economic officials who served under presidents from both parties urged the Supreme Court on Thursday to reject President Donald Trump’s petition to allow his unprecedented attempt to fire Fed Governor Lisa Cook to stand.

The group included the past three Fed chairs – Janet Yellen, Ben Bernanke and Alan Greenspan – as well as former Treasury secretaries Henry Paulson, Lawrence Summers, Jacob Lew, Timothy Geithner and Robert Rubin. In a brief to the Supreme Court, they argued that letting the Republican president remove Cook while her legal challenge to Trump’s action is ongoing would threaten the U.S. central bank’s independence and erode public confidence in it.

Both a distric

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