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WASHINGTON (CN) — President Donald Trump on Tuesday stepped up his attacks on the Federal Reserve, calling on a member of the central bank’s governing board to resign after a senior administration official accused her of committing mortgage fraud.
Trump’s assault on Lisa Cook, a member of the Fed’s board of governors since 2022, comes as the president continues to slam the independent bank’s leadership over its refusal to cut interest rates despite lower-than-expected inflation.
And the move comes after the head of the U.S. government’s federal housing agency and a close Trump ally asked the Justice Department to open a criminal investigation into Cook, claiming she falsified property records in two states to secure favorable loan terms.
The president issued his call for Cook, the first Black woman to sit on the Federal Reserve’s board of governors, to immediately resign in a post on his social media platform, Truth Social.
“Cook must resign, now!!!” Trump wrote, attaching a link to a media report about the mortgage fraud claims.
Bill Pulte, a businessman and former social media philanthropist serving as director of the U.S. Federal Housing Finance Agency, accused the Fed governor of criminal activity in an Aug. 15 letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi.
According to Pulte in the criminal referral, which he posted to X Tuesday morning, Cook misrepresented her residence statuses for two properties in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and Atlanta. The federal housing agency director argues that the falsified records potentially rose to “mortgage fraud under the criminal statute.”
Pulte told the Justice Department that Cook had entered into a 30-year mortgage agreement for an Atlanta condominium she purchased in 2021, to the tune of $540,000. The agreement stipulated that the Georgia home would be her primary residence for one year, he wrote.
But two weeks earlier, Pulte said, Cook received a loan for a property in Michigan, entering into a $203,000 mortgage agreement which carried similar residency terms.
He added that housing records indicated the Fed governor had listed the Atlanta property for rent in September 2022, and that rental properties typically require a different type of mortgage agreement. Cook’s financial disclosures from 2022 and 2023 indicate that she had not reported any rental income from the Georgia address, Pulte said.
In a statement to Courthouse News Tuesday evening, Cook said that she had learned of Pulte’s criminal referral from media reports and pointed out that the mortgage applications in question were made before she joined the Federal Reserve.
“I have no intention of being bullied to step down from my position because of some questions raised in a tweet,” she said.
Still, Cook added that she took questions about her financial history seriously and that she was “gathering accurate information to answer any legitimate questions and provide the facts.”
The Trump administration has accused several other prominent government officials of similar acts of mortgage fraud, including New York Attorney General Letitia James and California Senator Adam Schiff. Both have denied the accusations.
The president’s attack on Cook comes as he continues to slam Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell on social media. Trump has been furious with the central bank head over his refusal to cut interest rates despite what he says are signs of cooling inflation.
“Could somebody please inform Jerome ‘Too Late’ Powell that he is hurting the Housing Industry, very badly?” Trump wrote on Truth Social Monday night. “People can’t get a Mortgage because of him. There is no Inflation, and every sign is pointing to a major Rate Cut.”
On Capitol Hill, Republican lawmakers have for months said that the White House should fire Powell, an unprecedented move that would threaten the Fed’s historical independence and almost certainly attract legal challenges.
“Today is a great day to fire Jerome Powell,” Alabama Senator Tommy Tuberville wrote on X Tuesday morning. The lawmaker has posted the same message every day for weeks.
Meanwhile, the Fed has been hesitant to adjust interest rates amid some economic uncertainty. Last month’s Consumer Price Index report showed inflation rose at 2.7% year-over-year, a figure slightly below forecasts. Still, the president has argued that the country’s inflation performance demonstrates a need for the Fed to cut rates.
The central bank, however, has for months resisted Trump’s urging and held interest rates flat in anticipation of a potential inflation hike thanks to the White House’s recently implemented tariff regime.
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