Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook is pushing back against allegations of mortgage fraud, calling the claims "baseless" and urging the Justice Department to drop its investigation. In a letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi and the DOJ's special attorney for mortgage fraud, Cook's lawyer, Abbe Lowell, argued that the accusations are based on "cherry-picked, incomplete snippets" of Cook's mortgage documents, CNN reports. The inquiry began after Bill Pulte, director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, accused Cook of improperly claiming multiple properties as her primary residence to secure mortgages.
President Trump has seized on the allegations as grounds to try to fire Cook, who has responded with a lawsuit to keep her job; the Supreme Court has allowed her to stay for now and is expected to rule in the case next year. Lowell's 54-page letter, which includes numerous exhibits, asserts that Cook's mortgage applications were accurate and consistent with her career moves, which required her to relocate multiple times for academic and government positions. "This reflects why different mortgage applications accurately reported different properties as her primary residence at different periods of time," Lowell said.
Lowell acknowledged a single "inadvertent notation" in a 2021 Atlanta condo purchase, with one document listing the property as a primary residence and another in the same application identifying it as a vacation home—which, he argued, undercuts any claim of intentional deception.
story continues below
"There is no fraud, no intent to deceive, nothing whatsoever criminal or remotely a basis to allege mortgage fraud," Lowell wrote. The New York Times reports that Lowell accused Pulte of using his position to "investigate and target the President's designated political enemies." Lowell said Pulte had ignored reports that administration officials and "Trump-aligned Republicans" including Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy had also identified multiple properties as primary residences.
,
uBlock 
,
and
Ghostery 
)
