Lisa Cook, member of the Board of Governors of the US Federal Reserve, attends a Federal Reserve Board open meeting discussing proposed revisions to the board’s supplementary leverage ratio standards at the Federal Reserve Board building in Washington, DC, on June 25, 2025.
Saul Loeb | AFP | Getty Images
President Donald Trump on Wednesday demanded that Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook resign after a U.S. housing agency chief called on the Department of Justice to launch a criminal mortgage fraud investigation into the central bank official.
“Cook must resign, now!!!” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post that linked to a Bloomberg report on the allegations that Bill Pulte, director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, has lodged against Cook.
Pulte, who has aggressively backed Trump’s attacks on the Fed and its chairman, Jerome Powell, tore into Cook at length on social media Wednesday morning.
“Lisa Cooked is cooked,” he wrote in one post.
He later wrote that he believes Trump “has cause to fire” the Fed governor, who was nominated by former President Joe Biden in 2022.
Cook’s letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi is the latest example of the Trump administration airing allegations of mortgage-related wrongdoing against the president’s opponents. The Justice Department is investigating Sen. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., and New York Attorney General Letitia James on similar grounds.
It also shows Trump expanding his efforts for the Fed to slash interest rates, a pressure campaign that so far has mostly focused on Powell.
Cook voted with the majority on the Federal Open Market Committee to keep rates unchanged after the group’s latest meeting last month.
The Fed and the DOJ declined CNBC’s requests for comment on Pulte’s claims and Trump’s reaction.
Pulte wrote in the letter, dated Friday, that mortgage documents obtained by FHFA appear to show Cook “falsified bank documents and property records to acquire more favorable loan terms, potentially committing mortgage fraud.”
He accused Cook of “falsifying residence statuses” for a residence in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and a property in Atlanta, Georgia “in order to potentially secure lower interest rates and more favorable loan terms.”
For both properties, Cook “appears to have acquired mortgages that do not meet certain lending requirements and could have received favorable loan terms under fraudulent circumstances,” Pulte alleged.
Pulte in his social-media spree Wednesday morning also wielded his claims about Cook against Powell.
“I hear Jay Powell is scrambling this morning. He can scramble all he wants, but he might as well be scrambling eggs, because the party at the Fed is OVER!” he wrote at one point.
He claimed in another post, “Powell must look into it or he is complicit.”
This is developing news. Please check back for updates.
