Justice Dept Zeroes In On Fed Governor Lisa Cook

The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has opened a criminal investigation into Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook.

The probe centers on allegations that Cook misrepresented her primary residence on mortgage applications — one in Michigan, the other in Georgia — to obtain more favorable loan terms. These accusations were first raised by Bill Pulte, head of the Federal Housing Finance Agency and a Trump appointee, who referred the matter to the DOJ last month. Pulte wrote on X:

According to mortgage documents obtained by U.S. Federal Housing, it appears an individual, Ms. Lisa DeNell Cook, has falsified bank documents and property records to acquire more favorable loan terms, potentially committing mortgage fraud under the criminal statute. This has included falsifying 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.

Here is the Criminal Referral Letter on Lisa Cook, the current Fed Governor. pic.twitter.com/aG0LGnokei

— Pulte (@pulte) August 20, 2025

Cook has denied wrongdoing and argues the claims are politically motivated, calling her firing unlawful.

In January 2022, former President Joe Biden nominated Cook to the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve. She was confirmed in May 2022, becoming the first black woman to serve as a Fed governor.

Days after Pulte’s accusations, President Trump demanded her resignation, citing “serious financial misconduct.” She refused to resign. Five days later, Trump issued a letter to Cook stating he had fired her for cause, writing, “The American people must be able to have full confidence in the honesty of the members entrusted with setting policy and overseeing the Federal Reserve. In light of your deceitful and possibly criminal conduct in a financial matter, they cannot and I do not have such confidence in your integrity.”

Three days after that, Cook filed a lawsuit in federal court, seeking to block her removal. The next day, a federal judge heard arguments in Cook’s lawsuit but did not rule on the case.

At the beginning of this month, nearly 600 economists signed a letter defending Cook and warning against threats to Fed independence.

If the DOJ files criminal charges against Cook, Trump would have legal grounds to justify Cook’s removal; Cook’s legal team argues that the president cannot dismiss a Fed governor except under strict “for cause” standards.

City Journal noted:

Cook also seems to have consistently inflated her own credentials. In 2022, investigative journalist Christopher Brunet pointed out that, despite billing herself as a macroeconomist, Cook had never published a peer-reviewed macroeconomics article and had misrepresented her publication history in her CV, claiming that she had published an article in the journal American Economic Review. In truth, the article was published in American Economic Review Papers and Proceedings, a less prestigious, non-peer-reviewed magazine. …

In a series of academic papers spanning more than a decade, Cook appears to have copied language from other scholars without proper quotation and duplicated her own work and that of coauthors in multiple academic journals without proper attribution. Both practices appear to violate Michigan State University’s own written academic standards.