Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook has once again denied accusations that she engaged in mortgage fraud. She challenged a criminal referral made by a Trump administration official and the president’s attempt to remove her from the central bank. Her lawyers sent a detailed rebuttal to Attorney General Pam Bondi on Monday.
The dispute follows an August referral by Bill Pulte, director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, who has lodged multiple mortgage fraud claims against prominent Democrats, including New York Attorney General Letitia James, Sen. Adam Schiff, and Rep. Eric Swalwell. President Donald Trump seized on Pulte’s referral as grounds to seek Cook’s removal, an unprecedented step in the Federal Reserve’s 112-year history.
The escalating confrontation was also on the heels of Trump’s criticism of the Fed for not lowering interest rates quickly enough. Removing Cook would give the president a fourth appointment on the seven-member board, allowing him to reshape its majority. Cook has since sued to retain her post, and the Supreme Court ruled last month that she may remain while the case moves forward. The court plans to hear arguments in January.
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In their letter, attorney Abbe Lowell said the claims rest on “one stray reference” in a 2021 mortgage document, calling it “plainly innocuous in light of the several other truthful and more specific disclosures” Cook made about her property holdings. The letter insisted that “There is no fraud, no intent to deceive, nothing whatsoever criminal or remotely a basis to allege mortgage fraud.”
Cook, appointed in 2022 by President Joe Biden and the first Black woman to serve on the Fed’s governing board, has not commented publicly. A Justice Department spokeswoman said the department “does not comment on current or prospective litigation including matters that may be under investigation.” FHFA officials did not respond to inquiries, according to AP’s report.
Pulte’s accusations center on Cook listing two separate homes as her “primary residence.” He pointed to a house in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and a condominium in Atlanta, assertions he repeated publicly on Aug. 20 on X. “Do not declare two principal residences in President Trump’s America,” he wrote. “Mortgage fraud is a serious crime and must be prosecuted as such.”
Lowell countered that Pulte has selectively targeted Democrats and ignored comparable allegations involving Republicans. He also said Cook had lived primarily in the Ann Arbor home since buying it in 2005, which made it accurate to list it as her “primary residence” on a June 2021 refinancing application. When she purchased the Atlanta condo a month later, she referred to it in a July 2021 document as her “primary residence,” which Lowell described as an “isolated notation” inconsistent with fraud. A May 2021 application had listed the property as a “vacation home,” and Cook had publicly disclosed it as a second home during her confirmation process.
“It would be impossible to conclude that she intended to defraud the lender by inadvertently listing the property as her ‘Primary Residence,’” Lowell wrote.
Pulte filed a second referral tied to a third property in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Lowell explained that Cook had lived in the home while working at Harvard University and properly designated it as her primary residence at the time. When she refinanced in 2021, she reclassified the property as a second home, consistent with disclosures she made in federal filings. According to Lowell, “Once again, Director Pulte offers no evidence indicating that Governor Cook had the ‘required specific intent to defraud’ in relation to the Cambridge property.”
He also noted that similar concerns involving Trump administration officials, Trump allies, and even members of Pulte’s own family have not drawn comparable scrutiny. “One would expect that he would have made referrals to you based on the same types of documents about others,” Lowell wrote.
Pulte’s own tenure atop the FHFA has come under criticism. He has unsettled the housing industry by forcing out ethics officers and senior leaders at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and by promoting the idea of 50-year mortgages, an approach widely condemned for inflating long-term borrowing costs. Fannie Mae executives were ousted last month after raising alarms that a Pulte ally shared confidential pricing information with Freddie Mac, data sharing that could expose the company to claims of collusion, AP reported last week.
Lowell on Monday also sought the dismissal of a separate mortgage fraud case against Letitia James, arguing that Pulte and others engaged in “outrageous” conduct and have turned the FHFA into “a weapon to be brandished against President Trump’s political enemies.” The defense filing said Pulte pushed the investigation even after internal Fannie Mae investigators failed to uncover clear and convincing evidence of wrongdoing.
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