Lisa Cook sues Trump over firing; alleges illegal removal amid mortgage fraud claims.
Lisa Cook won’t step down from the Federal Reserve without a fight. As expected, the Federal Reserve governor filed a lawsuit against Donald Trump today, attempting to block her removal from the board and challenging his authority to remove her. Cook’s filing called Trump’s attempt „unprecedented and illegal“, setting the stage for a fight that seems destined to go to the Supreme Court:
Federal Reserve Board Governor Lisa Cook on Thursday sued President Donald Trump, seeking to block his unprecedented move to fire her.
The suit, filed in federal court in Washington, D.C., also names Fed Chairman Jerome Powell and the board of governors itself as defendants.
“This case challenges President Trump’s unprecedented and illegal attempt to remove Governor Cook from her position which, if allowed to occur, would the first of its kind in the Board’s history,” Cook’s attorney, Abbe Lowell, wrote in the lawsuit.
There may be a reason for that, though. How many Fed governors have allegedly committed mortgage fraud? Trump fired Cook for claiming simultaneous primary-residence status in both Michigan and Georgia, which allowed Cook to get favorable loan terms in both places. Both CNBC and the New York Times note that neither Cook nor Lowell address this point in their lawsuit challenging Trump’s action to remove her, other than to call it immaterial:
In a 24-page filing, lawyers for Ms. Cook described the firing as “unprecedented and illegal,” and said it would “subvert” the central bank’s congressionally mandated protections as laid out in the Federal Reserve Act. The filing said Mr. Trump violated Ms. Cook’s right to due process, highlighting that she had no chance to respond to the allegations before the president announced her termination.
The lawsuit did not provide an explanation for why Ms. Cook listed two residences as her primary residence, which is the issue at the crux of Mr. Pulte’s campaign against her. Instead, it sought to paint the firing as purely political and not based on anything other than a desire to oust a governor who was not ready to fall in line with the president’s directives on interest rates.
