Lisa Cook denies wrongdoing, fights removal from Federal Reserve bank

WASHINGTON – Lisa Cook, a member of the Federal Reserve board of governors, repeated her denial of mortgage fraud in her battle against being fired by President Donald Trump.

The Supreme Court rebuffed Trump’s initial attempt to fire Cook for not yet justifying why he wanted to remove her. Dan Scavino, a White House deputy chief of staff, wrote a fresh letter Aug. 5 seeking to dismiss her, and Cook again called the allegations against her “unfounded and untrue.”

“For the second time in a year, we have explained why there is no legal basis for President Trump to remove Governor Cook for cause,” Cook’s lawyer, Abbe Lowell, said in a statement. “These attacks on Governor Cook are not about real estate paperwork; they are an attempt by President Trump to force the Federal Reserve to bend to his will.”

The dispute over Trump’s attempt to remove Cook is part of a broader fight over the president’s ability to hire or fire anyone in the executive branch. The Supreme Court overturned a 90-year precedent in June so that he could remove members of other independent agencies, such as the Federal Trade Commission.

But in another decision in June, the justices blocked Trump’s initial attempt to remove Cook by ruling he could remove her only “for good reason.”

Chief Justice John Roberts said Cook was entitled, at a minimum, to “some explanation of the evidence at issue, some avenue for a response, and a deadline by which a response would be due.”

Trump’s action against Cook came after William Pulte, who was then director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, accused her of mortgage fraud in August 2025 for allegedly calling two of her homes her primary residence so she could get a more favorable interest rate.

Lowell called the mistake “inadvertent” rather than fraud and said members of Trump’s Cabinet “did the same thing.”

“Governor Cook’s apparent mistake on a form provided to her by her lender, which was aware of her other residences, was unintentional, not criminal, and occurred in her private capacity before she took office,” Lowell wrote in the formal reply to the White House.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Lisa Cook denies wrongdoing, fights removal from Federal Reserve bank