Donald Trump has called on a Governor of the Federal Reserve to immediately resign and to renew his extraordinary attack on the independence of the central bank, while civil servants think the following steps about the interest rates.
A closest ally of Trump accused Lisa Cook, an appointed by Joe Biden, of “potentially committing mortgage fraud” and insisted on the US Department of Justice to investigate. The claims are not confirmed.
In recent months, the US president has repeatedly broken a precedent to demand the Fed -reduced rates and to detect his chairman, Jerome Powell, after ignoring such calls.
On Wednesday, Trump jumped over the allegations about Cook. The Governor “Must resign, now !!!” He wrote on Truth Social, his social media platform.
Cook and the Fed did not respond to requests for comments.
Cook, whose current term in the board of the Fed extends until 2038, has previously served with the Council of Economic Advisors under Barack Obama. When she took office in May 2022, she became the first black woman to be on the board of the central bank.
This morning, Bill Pulte, head of the American federal housing financing agency, who has become – outside the president himself – published one of the most vocal critics of Powell and the Fed of the Trump government, accusations against Cook.
In June 2021, Cook concluded a 15-year mortgage agreement on a property in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and declared her intention to use it as her main residence, according to Pulte. In July 2021, Cook bought a home in Atlanta, Georgia, and also strived to use that real estate as her primary home when taking a 30-year mortgage, according to Pulte.
Pulte referred Cook to the Ministry of Justice for a criminal investigation and immediately called on her to resign.
“How can this woman be in charge of interest rates if she is said to be lying to help her own interest rates?” He wrote on X, formerly Twitter.
Cook, who has not commented on the allegations, is the last figure that is the target of mortgage fraud claims by Trump officials. Pulte has made similar allegations about the attorney general of New York, Letitia James, and the California Senator Adam Schiff, both Democrats. The Ministry of Justice is reportedly investigating. James has rejected the claims as “unfounded”.
Schiff has strongly denied the allegations and accused the administration of arming the American legal system.
While Trump and his officials continue to put the FED under pressure to lower the rates, new minutes of the last meeting of the Central Bank underlined how most policy makers are planning to investigate data in the coming weeks to gauge the economic impact of the administration policy.
While FED policy makers again chose to leave his benchmark interest unchanged in July, two of its governors resist the decision – the first time that several governors have voted against the majority since 1993.
FED officials “assessed that the effects of higher rates had become clearer in the prices of some goods, but that their general effects on economic activity and inflation could still be viewed,” said the minutes. “They also noticed that it would take time to have more clarity about the size and persistence of the effects of higher rates on inflation.”
After the meeting, official labor data showed that the growth of the jobs got stuck this summer – as a result of which Trump fired the officer of the federal government responsible for work statistics – while inflation continued to rise.
The two governors who called for tariff reductions, Christopher Waller and Michelle Bowman, were each appointed by Trump during his first term. Both are driven as potential replacements for Powell, whose term will end as a chair next May.
Powell will give a long -awaited speech on Friday during the annual Jackson Hole Economic Policy Symposium in Wyoming, which will be closely investigated for signs of where the FED is planning to take the rates in the coming months.
