Meddler-in-chief: Trump is up to his old tricks again

August 11, 2026 — 11:55am

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Even with his handpicked man in the chair of the Federal Reserve Board, Donald Trump can’t help himself. He is still trying to gain more influence, even control, of the US central bank and its decision-making.

Last week, he renewed efforts to sack Fed governor Lisa Cook that were thwarted earlier this year by the US Supreme Court, reviving an untested allegation that she had committed mortgage fraud prior to her appointment to the Fed’s board of governors in 2023.

The Supreme Court, while not offering an opinion on the allegations against her, had left Cook in place while litigation to remove her continued, saying that Trump had failed to give her proper notice or an opportunity to respond to the allegations.

A Fed governor can only be removed “for cause,” which is generally thought to mean serious wrongdoing or malfeasance while in office.

Trump has now revived his attempt to oust her from the board and open a vacancy that he could fill with someone more amenable to his desire for lower US interest rates. The White House has served her with a letter giving notice that Trump was considering removing her from the board “due to there being sufficient reason to believe that you made false statements on one or more mortgage agreements”.

The letter said that “even if your conduct does not rise to the level of a felony offence, it appears to demonstrate a level of gross negligence in financial transactions that calls into question your competence and trustworthiness as a financial regulator.”

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Her actions, it said, “may be sufficient to demonstrate that you committed a crime, as you appear to have acquired mortgages that do not meet certain lending requirements and could have received favourable loan terms under fraudulent circumstances.

“Based on these facts, a jury could find that you intended to defraud these institutions for your own benefit, but at a minimum, this conduct was grossly........

© The Age