President Donald Trump has created a White House committee to investigate Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook, adding a formal step to his effort to remove her from the central bank’s seven-member board. The inquiry will test whether the allegations against Cook meet the legal standard for firing a Fed governor, while putting Trump’s effort to reshape the board under renewed scrutiny.
A White House hearing
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 memo says. The hearing won’t be public. The committee will publish a transcript.
Trump said in the memorandum: “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.”
Cook’s attorneys, Abbe Lowell and Norman Eisen, said they were considering whether she would appear. They said they had “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 added: “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 committee will include Kevin Hassett, described as the president’s top economic adviser, who has frequently echoed Trump’s criticisms of the Fed. Its other members are Keith Sonderling, the acting director of the Office of Government Ethics, whom Trump also appointed to lead the Labor Department, and Andrea Lucas, chair of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, whom Trump appointed in November 2025.
The legal test and the Fed’s independence
The committee’s inquiry will seek to establish whether there is “cause” to fire Cook, as required under the law governing the Fed. In June, the Supreme Court 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 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 to fire Cook. “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.
Mortgage allegations and rate dispute
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,” saying 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 effort marks the first time in the central bank’s 113-year history that a president has sought to remove a Fed governor. Cook, appointed by former President Joe Biden, 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.
Trump has repeatedly called for the central bank to cut its key interest rate. The Fed raised it the previous month, led by Chairman Kevin Warsh, whom Trump appointed earlier in 2026. The vote to raise rates on Sept. 16 was unanimous. Cook is one of 12 voting members on the Fed’s rate-setting committee, which has 19 officials in total. The Federal Reserve declined to comment on Trump’s announcement.
Other analysts said Trump would likely use the process to remove Cook. “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.