Furious Trump's Firing of Fed's Lisa Cook May Be About to Backfire

[LetMyPeopleVote]

The fired Fed governor has filed suit against Trump—and the discovery process may allow her celebrated lawyer to find out if the White House ordered a Trump loyalist to move against her.

With Lisa Cook suing to challenge Trump's firing of her, experts in mortgage law tell me her lawyer can now use discovery to dig into the role Trump loyalist William Pulte played in singling out mortgages of her, Schiff and Letitia James for scrutiny:

newrepublic.com/article/1996...

— Greg Sargent (@gregsargent.bsky.social) 2025-08-26T17:28:38.714Z

https://newrepublic.com/article/199612/furious-trump-firing-fed-lisa-cook-may-backfire

Case in point: Trump’s appalling new effort to fire Lisa Cook from the Federal Reserve’s board of governors. On Monday night his anger at Cook peaked as he announced that he’s removing Cook—who has infuriated him for months by helping to keep interest rates higher than he wants—essentially declaring Fed independence a dead letter.

Yet this maneuver may yet backfire on Trump—in part because the accomplices helping carry it out have grown almost absurdly brazen in doing so.

The move appears to be illegal, though Trump may still get away with it. The law allows a president to remove a Fed board member “for cause,” which has generally meant something like a real reason grounded in actual misconduct, not a fake reason that the president pulled out of his rear end.

But Trump’s letter firing Cook claims he can do this for cause “at my discretion,” meaning he gets to declare something “cause” by simply saying so, as The New York Times’s Charlie Savage notes. The courts will decide whether the executive power includes this nearly limitless authority, and while Supreme Court precedent here is complex, a win for Trump is not at all assured.

Enter Trump’s accomplices. The “cause” he cited is the charge that Cook committed mortgage fraud, a claim manufactured for him by William Pulte, a staunch Trump loyalist who heads the Federal Housing Finance Agency, which oversees mortgage markets. Pulte tweeted “findings” that Cook has fraudulently declared several principal or primary residences for mortgage purposes.......

Pulte is apparently manipulating agency processes for the express purpose of creating a pretext for referring matters involving Trump’s designated enemies to DOJ. As Georgetown law professor Adam Levitin points out, it’s probable that the only way the mortgages of three leading Trump foes could all face scrutiny is if Pulte personally ordered it. That’s an “abuse of office,” Levitin writes, and a “far greater offense” than anything Cook, Schiff, or James might have done.......

Democrats should be making it absolutely clear, right now, that anyone who carries out corrupt or illegal orders for Trump cannot count on bureaucratic obscurity to shield them from political or legal accountability later. Yes, Trump might preemptively pardon top officials who are legally vulnerable. But Democrats should pointedly pose the question: Do you really think it’s wise to count on Donald Trump to secure you from jeopardy later?

[Turbineguy]

1. Trump may have found the Epstein diversion he's been looking for.

[Volaris]

9. Mortgage Fraud?! Lol naaa, hes just accusing others of the crimes he knows hes comitted.

Congress is back week after next, and we get to START with a committee appearance of Alex Acosta.

Epstein Files aint goin NOWHERE. Trump is fucked in ways he can't even imagine yet

[RockRaven]

2. That potential exposure is all well and good, but what are the consequences?

:crickets:

[Midnight Writer]

3. Glad to see she is fighting this and garnering support.

I know it will be a tough and unpleasant experience for her, and I applaud her for standing up instead of standing down as too many are doing.

To paraphrase our President, if you don't fight for your country then you may find you don't have a country anymore.

[moniss]

4. Crumb The 1st will say it is

for cause. But we know his goal is to jam his choices into the Fed and we also know that the reason this particular Fed governor was targeted is because if they were honest (yes I know) they would say " It's 'cause not only is she a woman but she is a black woman."

[multigraincracker]

5. Not a lawyer. But doesn't accepting a pardon

amount to a confession of guilt?
Does that leave one open to civil liability?

[LetMyPeopleVote]

10. Yes it does mean that you are in effect confessing to the crime being pardoned

[Karasu]

6. Fucking sick and tired of these fascists getting away with firing people they have never historically had the authority

to fire.

This needs to fucking end.

[Fil1957]

7. I hope it does backfire, but so far they've gotten away with pretty much everything.

[Vinca]

8. The premise of the "fraud" is really, really dumb. Say you buy a house in East Overshoe where you

live and work, apply for a mortgage and put down "primary residence." Then you get elected to Congress or otherwise take an appointment in the government and purchase a condo in DC which will now be your main residence. You probably put down "primary residence" again because it's not a vacation home by any stretch. So, what do you call 2 residences if you split your time between them and they are both used for the same purpose on a 50/50 basis? The whole thing sounds made up anyway. Hard to imagine the local bank sending your mortgage application to a federal agency in Washington if they aren't involved in funding it.

[Cha]

11. I Hope "maybe" Turns into... "It Happened"!

And, of course, they're "absurdly brazen"... they think Nothing can touch them

[Chasstev365]

12. Powell should NOT cave and lower interest rates over this!

I don't think he would; he's been streadfast, but I'd really hate to see Trump’s bullying win yet again.

[Johonny]

13. No he should drop them to zero again

And cause ten percent inflation and watch how happy that makes everyone.