Lisa Cook's legal team says the renewed removal push is baseless and politically motivated
Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook formally pushed back against the Trump administration's renewed effort to remove her from the central bank on Wednesday. Her legal team delivered a five-page rebuttal to the White House stating that mortgage fraud allegations against her "remain unfounded and untrue."
Cook's attorney, Abbe Lowell, sent the letter to White House counsel David Warrington just before a deadline set by presidential aide Dan Scavino, who wrote on August 5, that there was "sufficient reason to believe" Cook "made false statements on one or more mortgage agreements."
A year-long battle over the Fed's independence
The dispute traces to late August 2025, when President Donald Trump first moved to fire Cook — a Biden appointee and the first Black woman to serve on the Federal Reserve's Board of Governors — after Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) Director Bill Pulte sent a criminal referral to the Department of Justice (DOJ).
Pulte alleged Cook had simultaneously designated properties in Michigan and Georgia as her primary residence during a two-week period in 2021, a classification that typically qualifies borrowers for more favorable loan terms than second home or investment property designations.
Cook denied wrongdoing and filed a lawsuit challenging her removal. The Supreme Court ruled 5-4 in June that she could remain in her post, finding Trump had not afforded her adequate process to contest the action, but the ruling preserved a path for the president to try again. That is what Scavino's August letter signaled was underway.
Lowell's letter argued that proceeding on the basis of Pulte's referral "would ignore the facts and the law," and that neither act cited by Scavino "shows intentional wrongdoing or amounts to a crime, and neither constitutes 'cause' under the Federal Reserve Act."
He further noted that Trump, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, and Attorney General Todd Blanche have each reportedly listed multiple properties as a primary residence at various points.
"An inadvertent oversight is not fraudulent or criminal," Lowell wrote, adding that Cook's paperwork discrepancy was "unintentional, not criminal, and occurred in her private capacity before she took office."
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— Mortgage Professional America Magazine (@MPAMagazineUS) August 21, 2026
Kenneth Katkin, law professor at Northern Kentucky University’s Chase College of Law, predicted that the court would likely side with Cook when speaking with Mortgage Professional America in late 2025.
“If you want an independent Fed, then you want the Fed governors to have certain kinds of legal protections against pressure from the president,” Katkin said.
"That's been the understanding for as long as we've had the Fed, but Trump is fundamentally challenging that. If the Supreme Court rules in favor of Trump, then they will be saying that the concept of Fed independence is over, that we won't have that anymore."
What this means for mortgage markets
For mortgage brokers and loan originators monitoring the rate environment, the Cook standoff is inseparable from the broader White House pressure campaign on monetary policy.
The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) held the federal funds target rate steady in a range of 3.5%–3.75% at both its January and March 2026 meetings, per FOMC statements, resisting Trump's calls for aggressive reductions.
Analysts covering how Fed rate decisions filter through to mortgage pricing have noted that any perception of political interference could push long-term bond yields higher, working against the rate relief borrowers are waiting for.
Lowell and co-counsel Norm Eisen underscored the political dimension in a statement released alongside the letter: "These attacks on Governor Cook are not about real estate paperwork; they are an attempt by President Trump to force the Federal Reserve to bend to his will."
Cook previously released a statement to The New York Times, saying her case is “about whether the Federal Reserve will set key interest rates guided by evidence and independent judgment or will succumb to political pressure. For as long as I serve at the Federal Reserve, I will uphold the principle of political independence in service to the American people.”
Cook's term on the board runs until January 2038.
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