President Donald Trump established a committee of inquiry on Friday to investigate Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook, whose vote helped produce the central bank’s unanimous decision to raise interest rates on Sept. 16. The inquiry marks another step in Trump’s effort to remove her from the seven-member board.
The White House’s inquiry
Trump’s written memo says the committee will hold a hearing at the White House on Nov. 5. Cook “shall” attend and answer questions. The hearing won’t be public, but officials will publish a transcript, the memo says.
“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,” Trump wrote. The inquiry will determine whether there is “cause” to fire Cook under the law governing the Fed.
The committee includes Kevin Hassett, the president’s top economic adviser, who has frequently echoed Trump’s criticisms of the Fed. It also includes Keith Sonderling, the acting director of the Office of Government Ethics, whom Trump appointed to lead the Labor Department, and Andrea Lucas, chair of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, whom Trump appointed in November 2025.
Cook’s attorneys, Abbe Lowell and Norman Eisen, said they were weighing whether she would 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. “Governor 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 rate dispute and the allegations
Trump has repeatedly urged the central bank to cut its key interest rate. The Fed raised it the previous 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 committee has 19 officials in total. The Sept. 16 vote was unanimous.
Trump first tried to fire Cook in August 2025, alleging she committed mortgage fraud by listing two different properties as her “primary” residence on mortgage applications in 2021. Mortgages on primary homes can often carry lower interest rates or other beneficial terms. Cook has denied wrongdoing and hasn’t been charged with a crime.
Lowell and Eisen previously 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.
The legal test for removal
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 stopped 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 Fed’s chief counsel, 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.
Jaret Seiberg, managing director of TD Cowen’s Washington Research Group, said in a note to clients: “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.” Trump’s effort marks the first time a president has sought to remove a Fed governor. Cook was appointed by former President Joe Biden and is the first Black woman on the Fed’s 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.