Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook accused the Trump administration on Monday of “cherry-picking” evidence alleging she committed mortgage fraud.
In a letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi, Cook’s legal team expressed concern that the two criminal referrals Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Bill Pulte sent to the Justice Department, alleging fraud, lack a proper basis.
“Director Pulte’s referrals clearly omit numerous key records … that refute the allegations of impropriety. The full record makes clear that what he claims to be contradictions in loan applications were not contradictions at all, but were cherry-picked, incomplete snippets of the full documents submitted at the time and in subsequent filings by Governor Cook consistent with her applications,” lawyers wrote on Cook’s behalf.
The letter slammed President Donald Trump for attempting to remove Cook from her role after the allegations went public. Cook swiftly challenged Trump’s move to fire her in court, leading the Supreme Court to rule on Oct. 1 that she could at least temporarily stay in her role until January, when the justices will review the case.
“The referrals [from Pulte] are baseless and should not have been made in the first place; they should not have been the basis for President Trump to seek Governor Cook’s removal from the Board; and they should not warrant any further investigation,” the letter read.
Pulte, who oversees the government-sponsored enterprises Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, alleged in August that Cook violated the law by listing two homes, one in Michigan and one in Georgia, as her primary residence concurrently, months before she was nominated to the Fed board.
It appears Cook “falsified bank documents and property records to acquire more favorable loan terms, potentially committing mortgage fraud under the criminal statute,” Pulte wrote in a letter to Bondi.
“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,” he added.
Cook’s legal team conceded this week that “one line on the mortgage application for her Atlanta apartment listed the property as her ‘Primary Residence.’” However, the Fed governor argued the context proves that the “listing was an isolated notation—not an intentional scheme to defraud.”
“The listing of the Atlanta property as a ‘Primary Residence’ was at most an inadvertent notation. A separate, contemporaneous May 28, 2021 loan document provided to the same lender clearly states the Atlanta condo’s ‘Property Use’ as a ‘Vacation Home,’” the letter to Bondi reads. “Because Governor Cook submitted that document to the lender as well, it would be impossible to conclude that she intended to defraud the lender by inadvertently listing the property as her ‘Primary Residence’ elsewhere.”