Federal Reserve governor Lisa Cook is hitting back at the Trump administration’s second attempt to oust her by pointing out that the president has reportedly engaged in the same activity she’s being accused of.
The White House has said Cook committed mortgage fraud by claiming multiple primary residences on her taxes, an accusation it has deemed serious enough to warrant her ouster from the Fed board. Cook has repeatedly denied wrongdoing. In a Wednesday letter to the White House, her counsel pointed to a number of recent news stories that found President Donald Trump and multiple Cabinet members appear to have done the same — without facing any repercussions.
“Surely the President does not believe himself ‘unfit for office’ because he signed these contradictory ‘primary’ mortgage documents,” Cook’s letter says.
The letter is a response to Trump’s second attempt to remove Cook, a Biden appointee, from the seven-person board, which kicked off with a letter on Aug. 5, giving her 21 days to respond to the allegation. Trump has appointed three of the current governors, but the Supreme Court ruled in June that the president couldn’t remove Cook while her lawsuit challenging the termination continued.
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Trump has used accusations of mortgage fraud to try to oust Cook and New York Attorney General Letitia James, but multiple news outlets have reported that administration members have also claimed multiple primary residences.
For example, Trump got two mortgages for Florida homes in 1993 that he claimed would be his principal residence, according to ProPublica.
“President Trump’s two mortgages you are referencing are from the same lender,” a White House spokesperson said in a statement to ProPublica. “There was no defraudation. It is illogical to believe that the same lender would agree to defraud itself.”
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Attorney General Todd Blanche have also claimed multiple primary home mortgages at the same time.
“An inadvertent error is not fraud, as the President and a third of his cabinet should know because they reportedly did the same thing,” Cook’s counsel Abbe D. Lowell said in a statement Wednesday. “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. Our response should put this matter to rest once and for all, but, if necessary and in keeping with the Supreme Court’s ruling, we are prepared to challenge any illegal attempt to remove Governor Cook.”
The Justice Department denied those claims in a Thursday statement.
“The Attorney General has only one mortgage on his home in Florida. He is a co-signer of a loan on a home owned by his son, as are many parents across America. Any representation otherwise is fiction,” a spokesperson said.
The White House and Treasury Department did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
This story was updated to reflect the DOJ’s statement.
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