WASHINGTON (AP) — In a letter to Attorney General Pam Biondi on Monday, lawyers for Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook disputed allegations by a Trump administration official that she committed mortgage fraud.
President Donald Trump used the accusation as a basis to seek her firing, the first time a president has sought to remove a Fed governor in the central bank’s 112-year history.
The letter is the first response by Cook to a criminal referral in August by Bill Pulte, director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency. Pulte has made several other mortgage fraud accusations, including against leading Democrats such as New York Attorney General Letitia James, Sen. Adam Schiff of California, and California Rep. Eric Swalwell.
The attempted firing occurred as Trump has repeatedly attacked the Fed for not cutting its key interest rate quickly enough. If Cook is ultimately removed from her position, it would give the president the opportunity to appoint a fourth member to the Fed’s seven-member board, securing a majority.
Cook sued to keep her job, and the Supreme Court ruled last month that she could remain in the position while she fights the administration in court. The Supreme Court has said it would hear arguments in the case in January.
In the letter Monday, Cook’s attorney, Abbe Lowell, wrote that the case against her largely rests on “one stray reference” in a 2021 mortgage document that was “plainly innocuous in light of the several other truthful and more specific disclosures” about the homes she has purchased.
“There is no fraud, no intent to deceive, nothing whatsoever criminal or remotely a basis to allege mortgage fraud,” the letter said.
Cook is the first Black woman to serve on the Fed’s governing board, and was appointed in 2022 by President Joe Biden.
A Justice Department spokeswoman said the department “does not comment on current or prospective litigation including matters that may be under investigation.” The FHFA did not respond to a request for comment.
In August, Pulte accused Cook of committing mortgage fraud by declaring two different homes — one in Ann Arbor, Michigan, the other in Atlanta — as her “primary residence.” Such declarations can result in lower mortgage rates or a smaller down payment requirement than if a property is declared to be a second or vacation home.
“Do not declare two principal residences in President Trump’s America,” Pulte said Aug. 20 on social media platform X. “Mortgage fraud is a serious crime and must be prosecuted as such.”
Yet Lowell said Monday that Pulte has pursued mortgage fraud on a partisan basis, focusing on Democrats and refusing to pursue similar allegations against Republicans.
Pulte made a criminal referral to the Justice Department in August, and followed up with a second referral on a third property in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Pulte alleged that Cook also classified that property as a primary residence, even though she rented it out.
Lowell argued that Cook has mostly lived in the Ann Arbor property since first purchasing it in 2005. As a result, it was accurate for her to refer to it as her “primary residence” in a June 2021 application to refinance its mortgage, the letter said.
A month later she purchased a condominium in Atlanta, and in a July 2021 document also referred to it as her “primary residence.” Lowell said that it was an “isolated notation” that did not reflect an intent to defraud. An earlier mortgage application to the same lender in May 2021 had referred to the Atlanta condo as a “vacation home,” Lowell said. Cook also referred to it as a second home in federal filings during her confirmation process to become a Fed governor.
“It would be impossible to conclude that she intended to defraud the lender by inadvertently listing the property as her ‘Primary Residence,’” the letter said.
Lowell wrote that there was similarly no fraud involved in the Cambridge home, which she obtained while working as an economist for Harvard University.
Cook worked for the school for roughly five years when she bought the home in 2002 and obtained a mortgage that listed it as her primary residence. It remained her primary residence until she was hired as a tenure-track academic by Michigan State University and moved, Lowell said. She refinanced the Cambridge property in 2021 and redesignated it as a second-home, according to mortgage documents provided by Lowell.
On financial filings submitted to the government in connection with her nomination to the Fed, Cook also disclosed the home as a rental property and second home, the letter said.
“Once again, Director Pulte offers no evidence indicating that Governor Cook had the ‘required specific intent to defraud’ in relation to the Cambridge property,” Lowell wrote. “On the contrary, when Governor Cook refinanced the Cambridge property, she updated the mortgage to reflect that it was no longer her primary residence.”
Pulte has shown little appetite to investigate similar allegations of mortgage misconduct by members of Trump’s administration, allies of the president and even Pulte’s own father, which Cook’s attorney noted.
“One would expect that he would have made referrals to you based on the same types of documents about others,” Lowell wrote.
Though the White House has repeatedly defended Pulte, over the past month he also found himself the subject of unwanted scrutiny – and has angered other members of the administration. Earlier this month, he persuaded Trump about the allure of a 50-year mortgage as a way to increase home buying and building — a proposal that was widely criticized because it would drastically increase the overall price of a loan.
Pulte, who appointed himself chairman of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, has also rattled the housing industry by purging ethics officials and top leaders of the two government-sponsored mortgage giants, which hold trillions of dollars in assets.
Other top executives at Fannie Mae were forced out last month after they voiced alarm that a Pulte confidant had shared confidential pricing data with Freddie Mac, a top competitor.
The data sharing exposed the company to claims that it was colluding with a rival to fix mortgage rates, the AP reported last week.
Separately on Monday, Lowell, who also represents Letitia James, the New York attorney general charged by the Justice Department in a mortgage fraud investigation, asked a judge to dismiss a case that had also been pushed by Pulte.
Lowell cited what he said was “outrageous” conduct by Pulte and other officials and said that since his appointment to lead the FHFA, he had transformed the “little-known agency into a weapon to be brandished against President Trump’s political enemies.”
Pulte sought to press the investigation forward, the defense filing states, even as internal Fannie Mae investigators did not find clear and convincing evidence of fraud.
Associated Press Writer Eric Tucker contributed to this report.
