White House renews its attempt to remove Fed Governor Lisa Cook

By Bryan Mena, Molly English, CNN

Washington (CNN) — The White House is renewing its effort to remove Lisa Cook from the Federal Reserve’s Board of Governors, according to a letter addressed to her attorney obtained by CNN.

The letter, dated August 5, said there is “sufficient reason to believe that you have made false statements on one or more mortgage agreements,” and asked her to submit a written response to the allegations within 21 days. The Trump administration first raised the accusations last year, which prompted a Justice Department investigation. Cook has not been charged with a crime and has denied any wrongdoing.

ABC News was the first to report on the letter.

Over the past 24 hours, Trump has pushed against two major Supreme Court rulings against him: The Cook case and the birthright citizenship case. On Thursday, Trump signed executive orders limiting so-called birth tourism and birthright citizenship.

The Supreme Court in June ruled that Cook wasn’t given the opportunity to address the administration’s accusations of mortgage fraud when President Donald Trump announced her firing last year. However, the ruling was narrow in scope as it did not determine there was enough cause to remove Cook based on the fraud allegations.

“These allegations are as baseless now as they were a year ago when President Trump tried to remove Governor Cook and interfere with the independence of the Federal Reserve,” Cook’s attorneys, Abbe Lowell and Norm Eisen, said in a statement. “No matter what President Trump tries to do next, this much is clear under the facts and Supreme Court precedent — there is no valid cause for removing Governor Cook.”

In an interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper, Lowell said that “allegation doesn’t amount to cause” and that “there’s not a chance that Governor Cook committed mortgage fraud.”

“We will respond in the time that we were provided,” he said. “It will be a thorough response. It will have documentation. It will make sense to people when they see it.”

Trump has long berated the politically independent Fed because it hasn’t lowered interest rates to his liking, especially Cook and former Fed Chair Jerome Powell. But the president has spared the current chairman, Kevin Warsh, at a time when higher inflation is raising the odds of rate hikes.

Trump is instead focusing his criticism on Warsh’s colleagues on the central bank’s eight-member Board, which votes on interest rate decisions, along with regional Fed presidents. While the Fed leader often plays an influential role in shaping the discussion on policy moves, decisions are ultimately the result of a committee process.

“He’s got a board that’s very political,” Trump said in an interview with Punchbowl News that published Friday “It’s not totally up to him. It’s up to a board. I think he’s great.”

“I won’t be criticizing him,” Trump added.

The Fed declined to comment.

Last month when asked to weigh on the high court’s ruling, Warsh said “I believe in the rule of law” and that “we’ll follow the Supreme Court decision.” Warsh has declined to weigh in on the case and what it means for Fed independence, unlike his predecessor. Powell attended oral arguments in the Lisa Cook case in January, in an unusual show of support.

During his last news conference as chair in April, Powell said Fed independence is “at risk” and that it’s now in the judiciary’s hands to preserve the Fed’s ability “to make monetary policy without political considerations.”

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