President Donald Trump said Friday he would remove Lisa Cook from her role at the U.S. central bank if she doesn’t leave voluntarily — days after she made clear that she wouldn’t be “bullied” into leaving her job as a Federal Reserve governor.
“I’ll fire her if she doesn’t resign,” Trump told reporters.
The president’s call for Cook’s resignation stems from a criminal referral to the Justice Department from Bill Pulte, the director of the U.S. Federal Housing Finance Agency, accusing Cook of committing mortgage fraud in 2021, before she joined the Fed.
Pulte claimed his agency has obtained documents that appear to show Cook falsified “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.”
If Cook is removed from her job, that would give Trump the chance to nominate another one of his allies to join the Fed, which has traditionally been shielded from politics. Earlier this month, Trump picked Stephen Miran, the chair of the White House’s Council of Economic Advisers and a fierce backer of his tariffs, to replace Adriana Kugler, who abruptly resigned her position as Fed governor.
However, in a statement issued Wednesday, Cook made clear she had no plans to resign.
“I have no intention of being bullied to step down from my position because of some questions raised in a tweet,” she wrote. “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.”
Cook, a nominee of former President Joe Biden, assumed her role at the Fed in 2022, becoming the first Black woman to serve on the U.S. central bank’s seven-member board of governors. Her term is set to expire in 2038.
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Under the Federal Reserve Act of 1913, Fed governors, including the chair, can only be removed for cause by the president. However, no president has done so before.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), the ranking member on the Senate Banking Committee, contested Trump’s authority to fire Cook, claiming his motivation for taking the unprecedented step would be politically motivated.
“President Trump cannot illegally fire independent Fed Board members,” she wrote on X, formerly Twitter. “Anyone can see he is trying to find a scapegoat for his failure to lower costs for Americans.”
Trump, however, has relentlessly attacked the Fed and its chief, Jerome Powell, over its reluctance to cede to his demand for lower interest rates.
In a speech before the Fed’s annual economic symposium in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, on Friday, Powell left the door open to a rate cut but did not specify when it could occur.