Lisa Cook, only the third Black governor on the Federal Reserve Board, is rumored to be under threat of firing. Now Former President Donald Trump is calling for her removal. Trump claims Cook lied on mortgage applications for two residential properties, before she started working at the Fed. In doing so, he points to a criminal referral filed against her by Bill Pulte to bolster his allegations.
Pulte, the prominent real estate developer and proud Trump supporter has been a leader on this front against the Fed. Nonetheless, he’s taken this particular aim of advocacy to focus on Cook and Fed Chairman Jerome Powell. He filed the referral, backed by evidence, in April 2021, claiming Cook lied about her properties as she defrauded financial institutions for better terms on mortgages. In Pulte’s story, Cook mortgages a new 15-year old condo in Cambridge. Though records showed it was actively rented out to other tenants, she marked it as her “Second Home.”
In his criticism, Trump cited the criminal referral as an excuse for Cook’s ouster from the Federal Reserve Board. The allegations in that letter terminating Cook largely echo these complaints. In the other party, Trump is pressuring the independent central bank to cut rates. He’s been agitating for this move for the last few months.
Cook isn’t the only one taking Trump to court. To date, she is trying to thwart his efforts to remove her from the board of the Federal Reserve. She subsequently filed a related lawsuit in a federal court in Washington, D.C. In her suit, she contends that Trump lacks the constitutional authority to fire her from her position.
Pulte asserts that Cook signed an ethics disclosure form with the U.S. Government only eight months after the purported misrepresentation. This form did not mince words, as it explicitly recommended the property not be an “investment/rental property.” In legal briefs from 2022 through 2025 he maintained that Cook always identified the property as an investment and rental. He continues to argue that Cook never called it a second home.
“Representing the property as a second home may have allowed Cook to secure a lower ‘Second Home’ mortgage down payment and rates, as investment properties typically carry higher down payments and higher rates due to increased risk,” – Bill Pulte.
Pulte went on to claim that these inconsistencies prove that Cook made a number of false or misleading representations about her various mortgages and properties.
In reply to Trump’s moves, Cook was pretty clear that “he cannot do that.” This comment serves to deepen her strong move on the nomination of her role at the Federal Reserve.
As the situation unfolds, Cook’s term on the Federal Reserve Board remains at risk due to Trump’s aggressive pursuit of her removal and the implications of Pulte’s criminal referral.