The White House has sent Federal Reserve governor Lisa Cook a letter notifying her that President Donald Trump is "considering removing" her from the central bank's board over allegations of mortgage fraud, reviving a push that the Supreme Court blocked in June. The letter, dated August 5 and first reported by ABC News, was signed by White House Deputy Chief of Staff Dan Scavino and gives Cook three weeks to respond in writing, according to [The Guardian](https://www.theguardian.com/business/2026/aug/07/trump-lisa-cook-fed-firing-scotus-ruling) and [Al Jazeera](https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/8/7/donald-trump-renews-effort-to-fire-federal-reserve-governor-lisa-cook).
According to The Guardian, the letter accused Cook of falling "well short of the standard" required of a sitting Fed governor. Al Jazeera reported that it also warned the alleged crime is punishable by up to 30 years in prison and that her conduct "constituted negligence that calls into question her trustworthiness as a Federal Reserve governor."
Trump first leveled the claims in August 2025, when he fired Cook in what Al Jazeera called the first attempt by a president to remove a Fed governor since the central bank's founding in 1913. The White House accused her of wrongly designating two properties — one in Georgia and one in Michigan — as her primary residence and of failing to report rental income on her Atlanta property for two years. Cook denied the allegations, saying they were based on "inadvertent" paperwork errors and that the administration was "cherrypicking" facts, and she sued the Trump administration, The Guardian reported. Al Jazeera noted that there is no conclusive evidence so far that Cook sought to deceive lenders, making a successful fraud prosecution unlikely.
In June, the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that Cook was entitled to stay on as Fed governor while she fights the allegations, writing that Trump "failed to afford Cook the procedural protections to which she was entitled by statute." The ruling nonetheless cleared the way for the president to fire the heads of other independent agencies, Al Jazeera noted.
Cook's lawyer, Abbe D. Lowell, called the new allegations "as baseless now as they were a year ago when President Trump tried to remove Governor Cook and interfere with the independence of the Federal Reserve." "No matter what President Trump tries to do next, this much is clear under the facts and Supreme Court precedent – there is no valid cause for removing Governor Cook," he said, adding: "As we did before, we will challenge this latest pretext and preserve her position and the historic role of the Fed."
Cook, the first Black woman to serve as a Fed governor, was appointed by Joe Biden in 2022 to a 14-year term ending in 2038. Before joining the Fed she served on Barack Obama's Council of Economic Advisers and taught at Harvard University and Stanford University.
The renewed attack on the Fed's independence comes as the central bank holds its benchmark rate at 3.50%-3.75%, where it has stayed for five consecutive meetings. On August 5, the day the letter was dated, Cook said at an economic luncheon in Alaska that inflation is "too high" and that she is "prepared to act" by raising interest rates, a position shared by others at the Federal Reserve. Trump, who has pressed for lower rates, said after the Fed's latest decision: "We should have the lowest interest rate in the world." Fed Chair Kevin Warsh, a Trump appointee who took over in May, has said he will base decisions on economic data: "We're an independent central bank," he told lawmakers in July. "We're honored to be independent."
Sources
- The Guardian — [Trump renews bid to fire Fed governor Lisa Cook despite supreme court ruling](https://www.theguardian.com/business/2026/aug/07/trump-lisa-cook-fed-firing-scotus-ruling) (primary)
- Al Jazeera — [Donald Trump renews effort to fire Federal Reserve governor Lisa Cook](https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/8/7/donald-trump-renews-effort-to-fire-federal-reserve-governor-lisa-cook)
