President Donald Trump announced this week that Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook will be fired if she does not resign following serious allegations of mortgage fraud. The statement comes as questions mount over Cook’s financial disclosures and potential misrepresentations to the federal government.
“So I’ll fire her if she doesn’t resign,” Trump declared, showing the same no-nonsense leadership that helped define both his first term and his current administration.
The controversy centers around a property in Atlanta that Cook claimed as her personal residence in a document submitted to the U.S. government on February 28, 2023. However, just six months earlier, on September 1, 2022, Cook had listed the same property for rent—casting doubt on whether her claim was truthful.
Bill Pulte, Chairman of the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), confirmed the timeline and raised concerns that Cook may have misrepresented the property’s status to obtain more favorable loan terms. That kind of action could amount to mortgage fraud, a federal crime with serious consequences.
“We’re not talking about a mistake here,” a senior Trump official said. “If you or I submitted misleading documents to a bank or the government, we’d be prosecuted. There should not be one set of rules for elites and another for everyone else.”
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The seriousness of the allegations has drawn in officials from across the federal government. Ed Martin, the U.S. Pardon Attorney at the Department of Justice, wrote in a letter to Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, urging Cook to step down immediately. The implication is clear: Cook’s continued presence on the Federal Reserve Board threatens the credibility of the very institution she’s meant to serve.
But Cook isn’t backing down. Rather than addressing the discrepancies in her filings, she’s chosen to play defense and lean into political victimhood.
“I have no intention of being bullied to step down from my position because of some questions raised in a tweet,” Cook said. “I do intend to take any questions about my financial history seriously as a member of the Federal Reserve and so I am gathering the accurate information to answer any legitimate questions and provide the facts.”
This isn’t the first time Cook has shown more interest in progressive activism than financial stewardship. In past public comments, she’s blamed everything from the 2008 financial crisis to the COVID-19 pandemic on “systemic racism,” claiming in a 2021 forum that the U.S. economy is “trillions of dollars smaller than it should be because of racism.” She has argued that the lack of diversity—not reckless lending, government policy, or bad economic models—was the root cause of the Great Recession. And during a 2020 podcast, Cook made sweeping claims about racial disparities in health, work, and the environment, again attributing them to deeply embedded racism in American society.
Perhaps most telling was her agreement with the suggestion that “American democracy has survived Donald J. Trump.” For someone in a nonpartisan position of immense influence over the U.S. economy, Cook’s record reflects a clear and troubling ideological bias. That might explain why the mainstream media and Democrats have been so silent in the face of these explosive allegations. If the same evidence had surfaced about a conservative Fed appointee, there would be wall-to-wall coverage, public outrage, and calls for immediate resignation.
Instead, Cook enjoys the quiet protection of the progressive establishment. That double standard is exactly what President Trump is taking aim at. He understands what many Americans feel—that Washington elites believe they can operate by their own rules, immune from the consequences that the rest of us face.
