Posted on 08/30/2025 11:48:18 AM PDT by Angelino97
During Cook’s confirmation process in 2022, Senator Bill Hagerty accused her of lying on her résumé, with some senators calling her “grossly unqualified” and criticizing her research on racial inequality and its economic impact.
Cook denied the allegations, and she was confirmed in a tie-breaking vote by then-Vice President Kamala Harris.
Mortgage fraud claims (2025): The more recent and prominent accusations are not about her academic record but about alleged mortgage fraud. In August 2025, a criminal referral was made by Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) Director Bill Pulte, a Trump appointee. The referral alleged that Cook claimed two properties in Michigan and Georgia as her “primary residence” in 2021, before she was a Federal Reserve governor, potentially to secure more favorable loan terms.
That's Letitia James, I think. Cook signed two primary mortgage applications in two different states two weeks apart, and apparently has a separate second-house mortgage for a rental property in Massachussetts.
As of September 2025, Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook has been accused of mortgage fraud by the Trump administration, who is attempting to remove her from office. Cook has not been charged with any crime and has filed a lawsuit to block her firing, calling the allegations “unsubstantiated and unproven”. The outcome of the lawsuit and the credibility of the allegations are currently in question.
The allegations of mortgage fraud
Source of the accusations: The allegations came from Bill Pulte, the director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), a Trump appointee. He made a criminal referral to the Justice Department, claiming that Cook made false statements on mortgage applications for three different properties before she joined the Federal Reserve in 2022.
Specifics of the loans: The accusations focus on three mortgages Cook took out in 2021 when she was a professor at Michigan State University.
Michigan and Georgia properties: Pulte alleges that Cook designated both her Ann Arbor, Michigan, and Atlanta, Georgia, properties as her “primary residence” on mortgage applications submitted just two weeks apart. Lenders often provide more favorable terms for primary residences than for investment properties.
Cambridge property: For a condo in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Pulte’s referral noted that Cook indicated it would be a “second home” on a 2021 mortgage document but later disclosed it as a rental/investment property on federal ethics forms. Investment properties typically have higher interest rates.
Cook’s legal team has suggested that any discrepancies were “clerical errors” and that she did not benefit from them
-PJ
Someone who has that many “clerical errors” on the same exact kind of transaction
in multiple states must be a sad sack that has bad luck follow her wherever she goes.
Only God knows the number of “clerical errors” that followed her to the Federal Reserve.
I’ll take Obvious for $400 Alex
action.com
Cook has third home
The latest complaint alleges Cook took out a mortgage agreement on a condominium in Cambridge, Massachusetts for $361,000, claiming that the property was a second home. Pulte alleges that eight months later, however, Cook declared that she had earned between $15,000-$50,000 in rental income and declared it an investment property.Cook’s attorneys did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The Federal Reserve declined to comment.
President Donald Trump moved to fire Cook after the initial criminal referral, setting the stage for a contentious legal fight and escalating his battle with the central bank. Trump has hammered the Fed and its chair, Jerome Powell, to lower interest rates, and successfully ousting Cook would allow him to secure a majority on the central bank’s board of governors.
Cook, though, is seeking to block the move, filing a lawsuit in federal court on Thursday that labeled the president’s bid to oust her as “illegal” and casting it as a bid to seize control of the Fed. Her lawyers have also suggested that an unintentional “clerical error” may be behind the mortgage disputes in Pulte’s first criminal referral. The Department of Justice has already signaled plans to investigate Cook over the earlier referral.
Read more: Cook Signals ‘Clerical Error’ May Be Behind Mortgage Dispute
The latest Pulte referral also raises additional concerns about the Michigan and Georgia properties at the heart of the original referral. Pulte says that FHFA has reason to believe Cook’s Michigan property is “currently being used as a rental property,” and that she appears to have tried to rent the Georgia property despite calling it a “personal residence” in federal disclosures. He asks the Justice Department to investigate whether Cook has made “further potential criminal violations as well as material misrepresentations” in order to, among other things, “acquire and maintain her position as governor.”
Pulte has attacked Cook over social media in recent days. “No one is above the law,” he wrote on Thursday after she filed her lawsuit, posting a graphic that he said shows matching signatures on mortgage documents for the properties in Michigan and Georgia.
US District Judge Jia Cobb, an appointee of former President Joe Biden, has set a hearing for Friday on Cook’s request for a restraining order as she seeks to remain in her role.
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