Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook denounces Trump’s mortgage fraud claims

Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook has warned the administration of United States President Donald Trump that it has no legal basis to fire her from her leadership position at the central bank.

Her legal team’s latest statement comes as Trump renews his efforts to push her out of her role, a manoeuvre widely viewed as an assault on the bank’s independence.

Under US law, Federal Reserve governors can only be removed “for cause”, and not for political reasons.

Trump has levelled accusations of mortgage fraud against Cook, a Democratic appointee, in a bid to meet the legal standard. But Cook’s lawyers, Abbe David Lowell and Norman Eisen, issued a letter on Wednesday offering a detailed rebuttal to the president’s allegations.

“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,” the lawyers said.

“An inadvertent error is not fraud, as the President and a third of his cabinet should know because they reportedly did the same thing. 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 letter serves as a response to a threat from the Trump administration this month.

In a message dated August 5, the White House warned that Trump, a Republican, was considering firing Cook “due to there being sufficient reason to believe that you made false statements on one or more mortgage agreements”. It gave her three weeks, until Wednesday, to respond.