3:06Lisa Cook, a voting member on the U.S. Federal Reserve’s Board of Governors, takes part in a public session reviewing potential changes to the central bank’s additional leverage-ratio rules on June 25, 2025, at the Fed’s Washington headquarters.Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images
President Donald Trump declared Tuesday that he is ousting Lisa Cook—currently a policy-maker on the Federal Reserve Board.
In a tweet-stamped letter to Cook, the president cited “adequate proof” he claims shows the governor submitted misleading details in mortgage paperwork—a finding contained in a referral forwarded to the Justice Department by Trump’s Federal Housing Finance Agency—and cited it as grounds for dismissal.
“At the very least, this behavior demonstrates extreme carelessness in high-stakes financial arrangements that undercuts your fitness and credibility as a banking watchdog,” the letter asserted.
“I have concluded that upholding the law demands your instant removal,” Trump concluded.
Cook answered with a brief release contending that Trump “lacks the legal power” to terminate her and pledged to “keep fulfilling my obligations.”
“I refuse to step aside,” she added.
Her counsel, Abbe Lowell, likewise vowed resistance, promising “all appropriate measures” to prevent what they label Trump’s “unlawful effort.”
ABC News has contacted the Fed for a response.
A week earlier, Trump had publicly urged Cook to quit on the same day Federal Housing Finance Agency chief Bill Pulte posted on X excerpts of an Aug. 15 note to Attorney General Pam Bondi alleging Cook doctored bank and property paperwork to secure better loan conditions—raising, in the agency’s words, the “possibility of mortgage fraud.”
In remarks given to ABC News last week, Cook said she first learned of Pulte’s criminal-referral request through news reports. The mortgage application in question occurred before she joined the Fed.
“I will not be pressured into leaving my post over issues floated in a tweet,” she declared then. “Nonetheless, I treat scrutiny of my finances seriously as a Fed governor, and I am assembling the correct records to address any valid inquiries with facts.”
Cook was appointed to the board by former President Joe Biden in 2022; her tenure lasts through January 2038. She is the first Black female governor in the institution’s history.
Sourse: abcnews.go.com
