
Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook on Tuesday laid out in greater detail her opposition to President Donald Trump's bid to remove her from office, saying it was too late to fire her for mortgage information she disclosed during her confirmation process.
In a filing in U.S. District Court, Cook said she listed mortgages on three properties on forms submitted to the White House and U.S. Senate in the vetting process for her appointment to the Fed in 2022. Any inconsistencies were known when she was confirmed and cannot give Trump grounds to fire her now, she said.
Trump and Federal Housing Finance Agency Director William Pulte, whom Trump appointed, have accused her of committing fraud by listing all three properties as primary residences when she applied for mortgages, potentially to secure lower interest rates.
Trump has said that gives him cause to fire Cook, the first Black woman to serve as a Fed governor.
She has filed a lawsuit seeking to block her unprecedented removal, setting up a legal battle that could upend long-established norms for the Fed's independence. Tuesday's filing reiterated in greater detail arguments she made in court last week as part of the lawsuit.
In the filing, Cook said that on a background check form, she listed a property in Michigan as a primary residence and one in Georgia as a "2nd home." On a separate questionnaire she listed both homes as her "present residence," the Michigan property as her "current permanent residence," and a third property in Massachusetts as both a present residence and a second home and rental property, she said.
"If those are facial contradictions, as the Government and President claim ... Senators or White House advisors could have inquired of her about any alleged 'facial inconsistencies,'" Cook's lawyer, Abbe Lowell, wrote in the filing.
The White House and the U.S. Department of Justice did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Cook has asked U.S. District Judge Jia Cobb in Washington, D.C., to temporarily block Trump from removing her from her post pending further litigation. She says that Trump does not have the legal authority to remove her and that the fraud allegations were a pretext to do so.
Cobb held a hearing on Friday where a Trump administration lawyer argued that removing a Fed governor for cause is within the president's broad powers and Cobb had no power to review it.
Trump, a Republican, attacked the Fed for not cutting interest rates during his first term in the White House and resumed that campaign when his second term began in January. He has berated Fed Chair Jerome Powell, though he has stopped threatening to remove Powell before his term as central bank chief ends in May.
Stephen Miran, a Federal Reserve governor whose term ends at the end of January, said Thursday that he is looking for 150 basis points of interest-rate cuts this year to boost the U.S. labor market. ...
Federal Reserve Vice Chair for Supervision Michelle Bowman outlined significant changes to bank supervision and regulation during a speech at the California Bankers Association Bank Presidents Seminar...
Further changes to the Federal Reserve's short-term interest rate will need to be "finely tuned" to incoming data given the risks to both the U.S. central bank's employment and inflation goals, Richmo...
Richmond Federal Reserve Bank President Tom Barkin said the monetary policy outlook remains in a fragile balance given the conflicting pressures of rising unemployment and persistently high inflation....
The US Federal Reserve agreed to cut interest rates at its December meeting only after a highly nuanced debate about the current risks facing the US economy, according to minutes from the two-day meet...
Oil prices stabilized on Thursday (February 12th), as the market reassigned a risk premium to US-Iran tensions despite US inventory data showing swelling domestic supplies. This movement confirms one thing: geopolitical headlines are still more...
Gold prices weakened slightly on Thursday (February 12th), as more solid US employment data reduced market confidence in an imminent Federal Reserve interest rate cut. The strong employment data prompted market participants to shift expectations of...
The Hang Seng Index reversed its downward trend in Hong Kong on Thursday (February 12th), weakening by around 0.9% to around 27,000 after a strong session earlier. This decline halted the momentum of the short term rally, as investors began to...