President Donald Trump is restarting his effort to remove Lisa Cook from the Federal Reserve Board, about a month after he was blocked from doing so by the Supreme Court.
In a letter to Cook this week, the White House said the president was considering firing her from her position over unproven allegations that she engaged in mortgage fraud, reviving efforts that began last summer. It gave Cook 21 days to respond and directed her to submit any evidence or argument to the White House by Aug. 26.
Wednesday’s letter, made public on Friday, follows a June Supreme Court ruling that said Cook was entitled to notice and some opportunity to respond before her attempted termination. Writing for the majority, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. asserted that Congress gave the Fed a special status when it established it as an independent agency.
Trump signaled after the decision that he would soon revive the effort.
Abbe Lowell, an attorney for Cook, said that the allegations were “as baseless now as they were a year ago” and that they marked the latest effort to undermine the independence of the Fed.
“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,” he said in a statement. “As we did before, we will challenge this latest pretext and preserve her position and the historic role of the Fed.”
A Fed spokesman declined to comment.
Trump is the first president in the Fed’s 112-year history to try to fire one of the Fed’s board members.
Last August, Trump alleged that Cook claimed two homes as primary residences to get a better mortgage rate. Cook denied wrongdoing.
ABC first reported on the letter to Cook.
Cook, who was initially appointed to the Fed board by President Joe Biden in 2022 and renominated to a 14-year term in 2023, is the first Black woman to hold the position.
The White House letter cites the June 29 Supreme Court opinion that, it says, entitles Cook to notice of the allegations and a chance to respond before any removal.
Though recent presidents have sought to respect the Fed’s independence on interest rates, Trump since returning to office last year has repeatedly targeted the central bank and pressed for lower interest rates. In addition to seeking to remove Cook, he egged on a Justice Department probe into former chair Jerome H. Powell over renovations to the central bank’s Washington headquarters.
The probe was later dropped amid pushback from a bipartisan group of lawmakers and a judge who deemed it an abuse of prosecutorial power.
In the June decision on the Fed, Roberts wrote that any change in the Fed’s independent status would need to come from Congress.
“That is why we cannot accept the Government’s contentions in this case,” the chief justice wrote. “To do so would allow the President to remove a member of the Federal Reserve at any time, for any reason, without any notice before, and without any judicial check after.”
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