WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump opened another chapter in his effort to fire Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook Friday by establishing a “committee of inquiry” to investigate allegations that she made false statements in mortgage applications.
The inquiry will include a hearing at the White House Nov 5, Trump said in a written memo, that Cook “shall” attend to answer questions from the committee. The hearing wouldn't be public but a transcript would be published, the memo said.
Trump's extraordinary demand that Cook testify before the committee will likely renew concerns about threats to the Federal Reserve's independence.
The president has called for the central bank to cut its key interest rate, but just last month, the Fed raised it instead, led by Chairman Kevin Warsh, whom Trump appointed earlier this year.
Trump's attempts to fire Cook from the Fed's seven-member board of governors represent the first time in the central bank's 113-year history that a president has sought to remove a Fed governor.
“As President, it is my job to ensure the laws are faithfully executed, including by firing subordinates who cannot be trusted to tell the truth and follow the law,” Trump wrote in the memorandum.
Cook's attorneys, Abbe Lowell and Norman Eisen, said they were considering having Cook appear at the Nov 5 hearing and respond to the charges.
“We have engaged with the White House to evaluate whether the process proposed has a possibility of being a genuine one and not simply a box checking exercise,” Lowell and Eisen said in a statement.
"Governor Cook welcomes the opportunity to present the facts so she can clear her name and demonstrate there is no legal basis to fire her.”
Trump initially tried to fire Cook in August 2025 after alleging she had committed mortgage fraud by declaring two different properties to be her “primary” residence in mortgage applications in 2021. Mortgages on primary homes can often receive a lower interest rate or other beneficial terms.
Lowell and Eisen have previously said Cook committed an “inadvertent error” and did refer to one of the properties as a vacation home in other documents.
“An inadvertent error is not fraud, as the President and a third of his cabinet should know because they reportedly did the same thing," Lowell and Eisen said in August.
Trump and some of his economic advisers have blamed the Fed's broader rate-setting committee, which includes 12 voting members and 19 officials in total, for forcing the rate hike. As a member of the board of governors, Cook is also one of the 12 voting members of the committee. The vote to lift rates Sept 16 was unanimous.
The move follows a Supreme Court ruling in June that Cook could keep her job after Trump sought to fire her last year. That ruling included a footnote that said nothing prevented Trump from “trying again” as long as she was given proper notice and an opportunity to respond to the charges.
Cook has denied any wrongdoing and has not been charged with a crime.