CNN's Top Legal Analyst: Trump Might Have Had Cause to Fire Fed Reserve Governor

Matt Vespa | September 01, 2025 7:00 AM

President Donald Trump fired Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook on August 25 for cause concerning alleged questionable mortgage practices. Cook is suing to block her removal from the board, which could cut to interest rates in September. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell has left the door open on that. The DC district court said they wanted to hear more about this last Friday, and that’s not good for Cook.

CNN’s Elie Honig, the top legal analyst and a former assistant US attorney, went line-by-line for why Trump may have cause to fire Cook. Sure, he prefaces Ms. Cook’s mortgage fiasco with ‘Trump appears to have targeted her,’ but added that two things can be true vis-à-vis her mortgage practices. She bought a residence in Michigan and obtained a mortgage, calling it her principal residence. Two weeks later, she received another mortgage for a place in Atlanta, Georgia, claiming that it was her primary residence. And finally, the third property in Cambridge, which she claimed was a secondary residence, but it is actually being rented out.

🚨NEW: CNN's Elie Honig says judge could rule Trump had cause to fire Lisa Cook based on her "SUSPICIOUS" and "REALLY PROBLEMATIC" conduct🚨

"I think that the allegations on their face could be enough for a judge to say, 'Look, I'm going to defer to the president on cause.'"… pic.twitter.com/zYW4e7ltWw
— Jason Cohen 🇺🇸 (@JasonJournoDC) August 29, 2025

You do this to secure better mortgage rates and tax benefits, which could total in the tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars. In the briefs filed, there’s nothing that explains this alleged scheme. Honig added that a clerical error may be what they’re going with; it’s referenced in the filings, but there’s no way Cook can sell that, being supposedly a top-tier economist on the Federal Reserve Board. She didn’t know; a clerical error—please, lady.