Fed Governor Cook Pushes Back on Trump’s Renewed Effort to Fire Her

Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook on Wednesday pushed back in a court filing on President Donald Trump’s renewed effort to fire her from the central bank.

Lawyer Abbe Lowell told the White House in a five-page letter that allegations of mortgage fraud against her “remain unfounded and untrue.”

CNBC said that Lowell’s defense of Cook came just before the deadline for a reply that Trump aide Dan Scavino set three weeks ago, when he wrote to Cook that there is “sufficient reason to believe that you made false statements on one or more mortgage agreements.”

Trump wants the Fed to sharply lower interest rates, and he first moved to fire Cook, a Biden appointee, in late August 2025, CNBC noted.

Criminal Referral

Trump took action after Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Bill Pulte sent a criminal referral to the Department of Justice that accused Cook of possible mortgage fraud, alleging she claimed two different properties as her primary residence at the same time.

Cook denied the allegations and filed a lawsuit challenging her dismissal. In June, the Supreme Court blocked Trump from firing Cook but left the president a path to try again.

In his letter to White House counsel David Warrington, Lowell said that trying to fire Cook based on Pulte’s referral “would ignore the facts and the law.”

CNBC reported that Scavino’s Aug. 5 letter to Cook describes “two acts by Governor Cook that, ‘taken together,’ supposedly constitute grounds for her removal,” Lowell wrote. “But neither of those acts shows intentional wrongdoing or amounts to a crime, and neither constitutes ‘cause’ under the Federal Reserve Act.”

Lowell also said that Trump himself, along with others in his administration, including Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Attorney General Todd Blanche, reportedly also have listed multiple properties as primary residences in the past.

“An inadvertent oversight is not fraudulent or criminal,” Lowell wrote in his letter. “Governor Cook’s apparent mistake on a form provided to her by her lender, which was aware of her other residences, was unintentional, not criminal, and occurred in her private capacity before she took office.”

‘Troubling Questions’

Lowell added that attempting to fire Cook based on Pulte’s allegations would be selective, and “would raise troubling questions about why President Trump is singling out Governor Cook.”

CNBC noted that Lowell’s letter also included a declaration in Cook’s defense from Suffolk University Law School research law professor Kathleen Engel.

The White House did not immediately comment on Lowell’s letter, CNBC noted.