Trump calls on Fed governor to resign over mortgage fraud accusations
President Trump called Wednesday for the resignation of Federal Reserve board of governors member Lisa Cook following allegations by the head of the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) that she committed mortgage fraud.
FHFA Director William Pulte wrote Wednesday morning on social platform X that Cook had designated two of her houses as her primary residences.
“Lisa D. Cook, committed mortgage fraud by designating her out-of-state condo as her primary residence, just two weeks after taking a loan on her Michigan home where she also declared it as her primary residence,” he said.
Trump called for Cook to step down shortly thereafter.
“Cook must resign, now!!!” he wrote on his own social media website, Truth Social.
Pulte said his agency sent a criminal referral to the Department of Justice (DOJ) regarding the allegations against Cook.
In his series of posts, Pulte included photographs of document signatures apparently belonging to Cook that allegedly applied to two different residences, one in Michigan and another described as an “Atlanta condo.”
“I believe the DOJ will open a criminal investigation into her alleged mortgage fraud,” he said.
The Hill asked the Justice Department whether it will investigate the claims from Pulte. The Federal Reserve declined to immediately comment on the allegations.
Government mortgage credit provider Fannie Mae describes on its website “the limits that apply to the number of financed properties a borrower may have.” In a table on that page for principal residences, the “maximum number of financed properties” is designated as having “no limit.”
The Trump administration has been engaging in a pressure campaign on the Fed for several months. Trump and Pulte have repeatedly called for the central bank to lower interest rates, which it has not done due to rising inflation. Lower interest rates would make borrowing cheaper and likely spur stock market gains.
Trump accused Fed Chair Jerome Powell of fraud earlier this summer over an ongoing renovation project at Fed headquarters in Washington.
Following a report in July that Trump had discussed attempting to fire Powell with congressional Republicans, he later said it was “highly unlikely” that he would do so after the stock market dipped on his initial comments, “unless he has to leave for fraud.”
Trump and Powell then made a rare joint public appearance at the renovation site, where Trump sprung a document on Powell about a purported additional cost overrun for the project. Powell dismissed the document.
Amid the pressure campaign, Fed governor Adriana Kugler resigned from her post earlier this month without providing a reason.
The Wall Street Journal reported earlier this month that her resignation came as a surprise to her coworkers.
The departure “followed her disclosure of finance transactions that violated the central bank’s recently strengthened policies around personal financial transactions,” the paper reported on Wednesday.
The Hill reached out to Kugler earlier this month at Georgetown University, where she is a professor of public policy, but did not receive a response.
The Fed’s last rate-setting meeting in July also saw its first double dissent from two standing governors in more than 30 years — another potential sign that the pressure campaign is having an effect.
Governor Christopher Waller and Vice Chair of Supervision Michelle Bowman both voted to lower interest rates by a quarter-percent in July while the rest of the voting members of the committee elected to keep them at their current range.
Policy experts say that Trump’s relentless efforts to influence the Fed’s monetary policy are eroding the independence of the central bank, which is traditionally left to its own devices on determining short term interest rates and the money supply.
Threats to central bank independence are “reverberating through markets with yields drifting higher, elevating borrowing costs and tightening financial conditions,” EY-Parthenon chief economist Gregory Daco wrote earlier this month.
Updated at 12:32 p.m. EDT