- calendar_today August 22, 2025
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President Donald Trump fired Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook in a letter where he announced he had “removed” her from office, effective immediately.” Cook, however, does not intend to leave and is calling the move unconstitutional.
The extraordinary exchange began with Trump posting the letter to Truth Social, just five days after first demanding her resignation on the platform. Trump claimed the power to fire Cook under the U.S. Constitution as well as under the Federal Reserve Act of 1913, which allows the president to remove governors from the Fed’s Board “for cause.” In his letter, Trump said that he had found “sufficient reason to believe that you have made false statements on one or more mortgage agreements.”
“I have determined that faithfully enacting the law requires your immediate removal from office,” Trump wrote.
Cook is being accused of mortgage fraud by Bill Pulte, a Trump appointee at an agency that regulates Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Pulte claimed that Cook had fraudulently listed two primary residences, one in Ann Arbor and one in Atlanta, in 2021, to secure favorable mortgage terms. Pulte appeared on Fox Business’ “Mornings with Maria” to discuss the allegations.
“It’s very odd to see people try to twist back way sideways and upside down to justify mortgage fraud,” Pulte said. “This is a very serious crime. Mortgage fraud carries up to 30 years in prison. I believe the president has ample cause to fire Lisa Cook. Whether he wants to do that or not is entirely up to the president. However, we will go where mortgage fraud is. If mortgage fraud is with a Republican or Democrat, it doesn’t matter—if you commit mortgage fraud in President Trump’s America, we’re going to come after you. And Lisa Cook is no exception to that.”
Pulte made the criminal referral against Cook to the Justice Department on August 15, charging that Cook falsified bank documents and property records. Cook has not been charged in the matter.
Cook was initially appointed to the Federal Reserve Board in 2022 by then-President Joe Biden. She immediately fired back at Trump’s letter, in which he claimed that he had the power to unilaterally fire her. “President Trump purported to fire me ‘for cause’ when no cause exists under the law, and he has no authority to do so. I will not resign. I will continue to carry out my duties to help the American economy as I have been doing since 2022,” Cook said in a statement given to Fox News Digital.
Cook’s attorney is high-profile Abbe Lowell, who has previously represented Hunter Biden, New York Attorney General Letitia James, and also Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump. Lowell did not pull any punches in his response to Trump’s letter. “President Trump has taken to social media to once again ‘fire by tweet,” and once again, his reflex to bully is flawed, and his demands lack any proper process, basis, or legal authority. We will take whatever actions are needed to prevent his attempted illegal action,” Lowell said.
FOX Business also requested comment from the Federal Reserve, but received no immediate reply.
Lowell later followed up that he would be filing a lawsuit on Cook’s behalf to force a formal legal challenge to Trump’s firing. “President Trump has no authority to remove Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook. His attempt to fire her, based solely on a referral letter, lacks any factual or legal basis. We will be filing a lawsuit challenging this illegal action,” Lowell said.
Democrats Speak Out Against Trump’s Move
High-profile Democrats immediately went to Cook’s defense as well. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., all released statements of support and against Trump’s move.
In a statement to Axios, Raskin said, “What an outrage and a scandal. This is the big one constitutionally.”
Warren said the attempt to fire Cook was “an authoritarian power grab,” and that “Trump is desperately looking for a scapegoat to cover for his own failure to lower costs for Americans, and firing Lisa Cook is his latest move.”
Jeffries had similar criticisms and said that there was not “a shred of credible evidence that she has done anything wrong.” He went on to directly attack Trump: “To the extent anyone is unfit to serve in a position of responsibility because of deceitful and potentially criminal conduct, it is the current occupant of the White House. The American people are not buying your phony projection and slander of a distinguished public servant.”
Trump’s move, of course, comes as he and the Federal Reserve have been at loggerheads over interest rates. Trump and his supporters have continued to call on the Federal Reserve to lower rates, both to spur the economy and to make it less costly to service the national debt, which now stands at more than $37 trillion.
In the end, this presents the stark constitutional question of how much power a president actually has over the Federal Reserve. The Fed Act of 1913 did grant the president the authority to fire board members “for cause,” but legal scholars have said that would still require a lawful and just cause, which Cook and her lawyers have said does not exist.
