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lite.cnn.com - on gopher - inofficial
ARTICLE VIEW:
Trump official lodges new criminal referral against Fed Governor Lisa
Cook
By Chris Isidore, CNN
Updated:
1:35 PM EDT, Fri August 29, 2025
Source: CNN
A Trump administration housing official has sent a new criminal
referral to the Justice Department against Federal Reserve Governor
Lisa Cook, as she sues the administration to fight the president’s
efforts to fire her.
The new criminal referral, made late Thursday and revealed in a post by
Federal Housing Finance Agency director Bill Pulte, alleges Cook
identified a property in Cambridge, Massachusetts, as a second home on
official documents, but instead used it as an investment property.
Cook, the first Black woman to serve as a Fed governor, has challenging
President earlier this week. A hearing on that suit
The battle over Cook’s job is about more than one position: The
nation’s central bank operates independently so that officials can
make economic decisions without pressure over political considerations.
Trump’s attempts to fire Cook – and to force the bank to cut
interest rates – get to the heart of the question about the Fed’s
independence and whether Trump’s presidential powers have limits.
The Fed has been resistant to cutting rates this year, citing Trump’s
tariffs and their potential to raise inflation. Trump, however, has
repeatedly demanded lower borrowing costs, often lobbing personal
insults in the process.
Cook has not been charged with any crimes.
At the Friday hearing on her civil suit, her attorney, Abbe Lowell
argued the mortgage fraud allegations are a pretext because of
Trump’s political ire with the Fed for not lowering interest rates.
In a statement to CNN, Lowell denied there was any validity to the
allegations against his client.
“This is an obvious smear campaign aimed at discrediting Gov. Cook by
a political operative who has taken to social media more than 30 times
in the last two days and demanded her removal before any review of the
facts or evidence,” Lowell said in the statement. “Nothing in these
vague, unsubstantiated allegations has any relevance to Gov. Cook’s
role at the Federal Reserve, and they in no way justify her removal
from the board.”
In court Friday in Cook’s civil case, the Justice Department didn’t
acknowledge any criminal investigation it may be conducting.
But lawyers for the department have argued to a judge weighing the
legality of her firing that “a Governor’s failure to carefully read
her own financial documents casts a shadow over the Federal Reserve’s
decisions,” according to a Justice Department court filing this week.
Still, the Justice Department has tasked Ed Martin—whom the attorney
general is using as a special investigator for a smattering of
politically charged allegations that President Donald Trump is
interested in—to look into the allegations around Cook, according to
a person familiar with the investigation.
Many of Trump’s attacks on the Fed have been focused on Fed Chair
Jerome Powell, whom he appointed during his first term in office, and
who was reappointed to another term under President Joe Biden.
Trump has not tried to remove Powell, despite . Some of those threats
prompted a sell-off in US equity markets by investors concerned about
Fed independence. The president does not have the power to remove a
member of the Fed Board except “for cause,” not just because of a
disagreement over monetary policy. But Trump used the allegations of
mortgage fraud against Cook as justification for her removal.
In the Thursday referral to the DOJ, Pulte described the new
allegations as “extremely troubling.”
“Second homes receive lower mortgage costs than investment
properties, because investment properties are inherently riskier,” he
wrote.
The FHFA had already made a criminal referral alleging that Cook
committed mortgage fraud by getting mortgages for two different
properties, one in Michigan, another in Georgia, and claiming on both
mortgages that they would be her primary residence.
This story has been updated with additional reporting and context.
– CNN’s Jeremy Herb, Phil Mattingly and Evan Perez contributed to
this report.
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