Fed's Lisa Cook blasts mortgage fraud allegations against her as 'baseless' in letter to DoJ

Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook

In a letter to Attorney General Pam Biondi on Monday, lawyers for Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook disputed allegations by a Trump administration official that she committed mortgage fraud.

US President Donald Trump used the accusation as a basis to seek her firing.

It was the first time a president has sought to remove a Fed governor in the central bank’s 112-year history. Cook sued to keep her job, and the Supreme Court ruled last month that she could remain in the position while she fights the administration in court. The Supreme Court has said it would hear arguments in the case in January.

The letter to Bondi was the first comprehensive response to a criminal referral in August by Bill Pulte, director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency. Pulte has made several other mortgage fraud accusations against leading Democrats, including New York Attorney General Letitia James, Sen. Adam Schiff of California, and California Rep. Eric Swalwell.

Cook’s attorney, Abbe Lowell, wrote that the case against Cook largely rests on “one stray reference” in a 2021 mortgage document that was “plainly innocuous in light of the several other truthful and more specific disclosures” about the homes she has purchased.

“There is no fraud, no intent to deceive, nothing whatsoever criminal or remotely a basis to allege mortgage fraud,” the letter said.