{"id":575,"date":"2026-08-27T14:38:40","date_gmt":"2026-08-27T14:38:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/americanservicereview.com\/?p=575"},"modified":"2026-08-27T14:38:40","modified_gmt":"2026-08-27T14:38:40","slug":"fed-governor-lisa-cook-responds-to-trump-administrations-letter-stating-that-it-is-considering-her-removal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/americanservicereview.com\/?p=575","title":{"rendered":"Fed Governor Lisa Cook responds to Trump administration\u2019s letter stating that it is \u201cconsidering\u201d her removal"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p>A lawyer for Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook told the White House on Wednesday that allegations Cook committed mortgage fraud before joining the Fed are \u201cunfounded and untrue.\u201d As a result, attorney Abbe Lowell wrote, any effort to remove Cook from her job based on those allegations would be \u201ccorrosive of the independence that Congress sought to preserve\u201d for the Federal Reserve Bank.<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/americanservicereview.com\/?p=573\">Has the Supreme Court rendered the First Amendment\u2019s press clause invisible?<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Lowell\u2019s letter came approximately a year after William Pulte, the head of the Federal Housing Finance Agency,\u00a0sent two criminal referrals regarding Cook to the Department of Justice, and just under two months after the Supreme Court, by a vote of 5-4,  \u2013 citing the mortgage fraud allegations \u2013 to fire Cook. The opinion by Chief Justice John Roberts held that \u201cCook was entitled to notice and some opportunity to respond\u201d before she could be fired.<\/p>\n<p>On Aug. 5, White House Deputy Chief of Staff Dan Scavino notified Cook that Trump was \u201cconsidering\u201d whether to remove her from the Fed, and he gave her 21 days to respond to the mortgage fraud allegations.<\/p>\n<p>In Cook\u2019s response, Lowell explained that when Cook in 2021 signed a mortgage agreement to buy a condominium in Atlanta that designated the property as her \u201cprimary\u201d residence although she had signed another agreement listing her home in Michigan as her primary residence, it \u201cwas an entirely inadvertent oversight,\u201d without any \u201cintentional misconduct and zero intent to defraud or mislead.\u201d Cook had gone to the lender\u2019s website, Lowell emphasized, to get information about a mortgage for a vacation home \u2013 which, he wrote, was \u201ca clear indication of the loan type she was looking to acquire.\u201d Indeed, Lowell noted, the mortgage lender \u201cknew that she had lived in Michigan for more than 15 years and worked full-time as a tenured professor at Michigan State University.\u201d \u201cAll the information Governor Cook provided concerning her Michigan residence and employment,\u201d Lowell stated, \u201cindicated that she did not intend to make her Atlanta condominium her principal residence.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The letter also pushed back against suggestions that a rental listing for the Atlanta condo provided \u201cfurther proof of wrongdoing\u201d on Cook\u2019s part, by demonstrating that the condo was not her primary residence. Cook\u2019s mortgage agreement did not prohibit her from renting the property, Lowell stressed. And in any event, Lowell added, \u201cthough Governor Cook briefly listed the property for rent, she ultimately decided not to rent it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/americanservicereview.com\/?p=572\">What the public thinks of the Supreme Court<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Lowell pointed to reporting that suggests that several senior officials in the Trump administration \u2013 including Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Attorney General Todd Blanche \u2013 had also \u201centered into \u2018primary\u2019 residence mortgages for multiple homes,\u201d noting that those men had not been fired.<\/p>\n<p>Indeed, Lowell noted, in 1993 Trump himself \u201creportedly acquired \u2018primary\u2019 residence mortgages for two different Florida homes just seven weeks apart.\u201d Although Trump \u201csigned a form attesting\u201d that he would live in those properties for at least a year, he actually lived in New York during that time and \u201creportedly listed both Florida properties for rent.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Finally, Lowell submitted an expert opinion from Kathleen Engel, a law professor at Suffolk University Law School who specializes in mortgage finance and regulations. She indicated that, based on the materials that she had reviewed, \u201cno banking or mortgage professional can reliably conclude that\u201d Cook received more favorable terms for either her Atlanta or Michigan mortgages because they were listed as primary residences, that either mortgage \u201clender relied on an allegedly false occupancy representation\u201d in deciding to lend to Cook, or \u201cthat Dr. Cook acted with an intent to deceive.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/americanservicereview.com\/?p=571\">The ripple effects of SCOTUS\u2019 mail-in voting decision<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A lawyer for Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook told the White House on Wednesday that allegations Cook committed mortgage fraud before joining the Fed are \u201cunfounded and untrue.\u201d As a result, attorney Abbe Lowell wrote, any effort to remove Cook from her job based on those allegations would be \u201ccorrosive of the independence that Congress [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":574,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-575","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-court-news"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.6 - 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