President Donald Trump created a “committee of inquiry” on Friday to investigate whether Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook made false statements on mortgage applications. It’s his latest effort to remove her from the central bank’s board. Cook has denied wrongdoing, and she hasn’t been charged with a crime.
The committee will hold a hearing at the White House on Nov. 5, according to Trump’s written memo, and Cook “shall” attend to answer questions. The session won’t be public. Officials will publish a transcript afterward.
A Process Run From the White House
Three administration figures will sit on the panel. Kevin Hassett, described as the president’s top economic adviser, has frequently echoed Trump’s criticisms of the Fed. Keith Sonderling serves as acting director of the Office of Government Ethics, and Trump also appointed him to lead the Labor Department. Andrea Lucas chairs the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, a post Trump appointed her to in November 2025.
In other words, the people weighing Cook’s fate answer to the president who wants her gone.
Trump framed the move as law enforcement. “As President, it is my job to ensure the laws are faithfully executed, including by firing subordinates who cannot be trusted to tell the truth and follow the law,” he wrote in the memorandum.
Cook’s attorneys, Abbe Lowell and Norman Eisen, are weighing whether she should appear. “We have engaged with the White House to evaluate whether the process proposed has a possibility of being a genuine one and not simply a box checking exercise,” they said. They added that Cook “welcomes the opportunity to present the facts so she can clear her name and demonstrate there is no legal basis to fire her.”
The Allegations and the History
Trump first tried to fire Cook in August 2025. He alleged she committed mortgage fraud by listing two different properties as her “primary” residence on 2021 mortgage applications. Mortgages on primary homes can often carry lower interest rates or other beneficial terms.
Lowell and Eisen have called the matter an “inadvertent error” and said Cook referred to one property as a vacation home in other documents. “An inadvertent error is not fraud, as the President and a third of his cabinet should know because they reportedly did the same thing,” they said in August.
No president has tried this before. Trump’s attempts to remove Cook from the Fed’s seven-member board of governors mark the first time in the central bank’s 113-year history that a president has sought to remove a Fed governor. Former President Joe Biden appointed Cook, the first Black woman on the board. Trump’s attacks on her followed other efforts to oust or indict Black officials, including New York Attorney General Letitia James and Gen. Charles Q. Brown, the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
What the Courts and Experts Say
A Supreme Court ruling in June said Cook could keep her job after Trump sought to fire her the previous year. A footnote said nothing prevented Trump from “trying again” if Cook received proper notice and an opportunity to respond. The court said a for-cause firing required an alleged offense that was serious and related to an official’s job.
Scott Alvarez, formerly the chief counsel for the Fed, said President William Howard Taft established a similar commission in 1912 to remove two officials from an independent agency. Alvarez said Trump’s commission goes beyond the process the Supreme Court said was needed. “It’s an attempt to show that he’s really giving Cook as much process as possible,” he said. He also said the allegations against Cook don’t appear to meet the court’s “for cause” standard.
Other analysts expect the process to end in a firing. “We do not see why the White House would start this process if it were not trying to create a way to justify removing Cook from her job,” Jaret Seiberg, managing director of TD Cowen’s Washington Research Group, said in a note to clients.
The Rate Dispute Behind It
Trump has repeatedly called for the central bank to cut its key interest rate. Instead, the Fed raised it last month under Chairman Kevin Warsh, whom Trump appointed earlier in 2026. Trump and some of his economic advisers blamed the Fed’s broader rate-setting committee for forcing the increase. Cook is one of its 12 voting members. The Sept. 16 vote was unanimous, and it followed comments Warsh made in August that signaled higher rates were likely. The Federal Reserve declined to comment on Trump’s announcement.
Why This Matters: The Fed sets borrowing costs for mortgages, car loans and credit cards, so its decisions reach nearly every household. Its independence from day-to-day politics is meant to keep those decisions grounded in economic evidence rather than a president’s preferences. Here, a president who wants lower rates is pursuing the removal of a voting member through a panel stocked with his own appointees, after a unanimous vote went against his wishes. The Supreme Court has said a firing needs a serious offense tied to the job, and a former Fed chief counsel says the allegations don’t appear to meet that bar. Whether Cook gets a fair hearing on Nov. 5 or a formality will show how much protection independent institutions have against political pressure. Cook’s history as the board’s first Black woman, and the pattern of actions against other Black officials, adds to concerns about how the rules are being applied.