Federal Reserve Gov. Lisa Cook “did not ever commit mortgage fraud,” her lawyer, Abbe Lowell, wrote Tuesday in a court filing.
The defense comes days after lawyers for President Donald Trump asserted that Cook “offered no defense to the charges — not in public or in private.”
Trump dismissed Cook last week, citing a criminal referral Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Bill Pulte submitted to the Justice Department last month. Cook sued Trump to halt the firing.
Pulte alleges Cook may have committed mortgage fraud because she obtained mortgages for properties in Georgia and Michigan but listed each as a principal residence. Pulte, in a second referral, also flagged a third residence of Cook’s in Massachusetts.
In a questionnaire previously submitted to the government, Cook listed the Michigan address as her “primary residence” and the Georgia address as her “2nd home,” Lowell noted in Tuesday’s filing.
In a second questionnaire that Cook submitted, the Georgia address listed as her “present” residence, while the Michigan home is her “present” and “current permanent residence,” the filing shows. The Massachusetts home, meanwhile, is listed as Cook’s “present residence,” as well as “a second home and rental property,” according to the filing.
Further, Lowell argued, government entities received those mortgage details before the Senate confirmed Cook’s nomination to the Fed in May 2022. And that information was disclosed to the White House before former President Joe Biden nominated her, Lowell wrote.
“The Government has long known about the alleged facial inconsistencies in Governor Cook’s financial documents,” he argued.
Senators or White House officials “could have inquired of her about any alleged ‘facial inconsistencies’” at the time, but they didn’t, Lowell wrote.
Lowell also took issue with the “equivocal language” Pulte used in his accusation, saying it “makes clear that the charges against Governor Cook were nothing more than a set of cherry-picked, cut-and-paste allegations to try to give the President political cover to remove a Board member with whom he has policy disagreements.”
“The public record is replete with [Trump’s] comments demanding that the Board, including Governor Cook and its other members, lower interest rates or face consequences in 2025,” Lowell wrote.
The Justice Department may respond with its own briefing by Thursday.
In a second filing Tuesday, meanwhile, Lowell said attorneys for Cook and the DOJ were unable to forge an agreement that allows her to perform her Fed duties as the case ensues. Lowell reiterated Cook’s aim for a temporary ruling to preserve the status quo, presumably so Cook can participate, without dispute, in the Federal Open Market Committee’s next interest rate-setting meeting Sept. 16.
