President Donald Trump said Friday he would remove Lisa Cook from her role at the U.S. central bank if she doesn’t leave voluntarily — days after she made clear that she wouldn’t be “bullied” into leaving her job as a Federal Reserve governor.
“I’ll fire her if she doesn’t resign,” Trump told reporters.
The president’s call for Cook’s resignation stems from a criminal referral to the Justice Department from Bill Pulte, the director of the U.S. Federal Housing Finance Agency, accusing Cook of committing mortgage fraud in 2021, before she joined the Fed.
Pulte claimed his agency has obtained documents that appear to show Cook falsified “residence statuses for an Ann Arbor, Michigan-based residence and an Atlanta, Georgia-based property in order to potentially secure lower interest rates and more favorable loan terms.”
If Cook is removed from her job, that would give Trump the chance to nominate another one of his allies to join the Fed, which has traditionally been shielded from politics. Earlier this month, Trump picked Stephen Miran, the chair of the White House’s Council of Economic Advisers and a fierce backer of his tariffs, to replace Adriana Kugler, who abruptly resigned her position as Fed governor.
