President Trump’s housing regulator has filed a second criminal referral against Federal Reserve Board member Lisa Cook, this time related to a condominium in Massachusetts.
Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Bill Pulte alleges Ms. Cook took out a 15-year loan on the condo in Cambridge and listed it as a second home.
Months later, she documented rental income from the lodging and described it as a rental/investment property, according to Mr. Pulte’s criminal referral to Attorney General Pam Bondi.
Second homes often receive more favorable loan terms than investment properties, which are viewed as riskier.
The allegations pile pressure on Ms. Cook, who is challenging Mr. Trump’s decision to fire her from the Fed over claims she cited properties in Michigan and Georgia as her primary residences on 2021 mortgage documents.
“3 strikes and you’re out,” Mr. Pulte wrote on X.
SEE ALSO: Lisa Cook sues over Trump’s attempt to remove her from Fed
President Biden appointed Ms. Cook to the Fed in 2022.
Her removal and replacement, alongside confirmation of a pending governor nominee, would give the White House a Trump-appointed majority on the Fed board as he seeks lower interest rates from central bankers.
“This is an obvious smear campaign aimed at discrediting Gov. Cook by a political operative who has taken to social media more than 30 times in the last two days and demanded her removal before any review of the facts or evidence,” Ms. Cook’s lawyer Abbe Lowell said Friday in a statement on the second referral. “Nothing in these vague, unsubstantiated allegations has any relevance to Gov. Cook’s role at the Federal Reserve, and they in no way justify her removal from the Board.”
Ms. Cook filed a lawsuit in federal court challenging her removal, setting up a clash over presidential authority that could reach the Supreme Court.
She’s seeking a temporary restraining order that keeps her at the Fed while the court considers the validity of Mr. Trump’s move to fire her.
U.S. District Judge Jia Cobb heard from both sides during a two-hour hearing Friday, which ended without an immediate ruling.
Mr. Lowell said the firing is a thinly veiled attempt by Mr. Trump to gain sway over the Fed’s Board.
“He’s already said he wants a majority. He’s bragged that he’s going to get it,” Mr. Lowell told Judge Cobb, a Biden appointee.
Meanwhile, Justice Department lawyers say Mr. Trump has the authority to fire Ms. Cook and replace her.
Yaakov Roth, one of the government’s lawyers, told the court on Friday that Ms. Cook had not explained why she tried to list two residences as her primary home.
Mr. Cook’s lawsuit doesn’t explain why her mortgage documents said what they did, though it hints at a possible clerical error.
“Even if the President had been more careful in obscuring his real justification for targeting Governor Cook, the President’s concocted basis for removal — the unsubstantiated and unproven allegation that Governor Cook ’potentially’ erred in filling out a mortgage form prior to her Senate confirmation — does not amount to ’cause’ within the meaning of the [Federal Reserve Act] and is unsupported by case law,” Mr. Lowell wrote in the lawsuit.
Justice Department lawyers say Mr. Trump is acting within his authority and that Ms. Cook is unlikely to succeed on the merits.
“Incredibly, Dr. Cook even now hazards no explanation for her conduct and points to nothing she would say or prove in any ’hearing’ that would conceivably alter the President’s determination that the perception of financial misconduct alone is intolerable in this role,” they wrote Friday in a reply to Ms. Cook’s motion for a temporary restraining order.
• This article is based in part on wire service reports.
• Tom Howell Jr. can be reached at thowell@washingtontimes.com.
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