Cook argues Trump administration has no legal basis to remove her from Federal Reserve board

Federal Reserve board member Lisa Cook on Wednesday pushed back against the Trump administration’s renewed attempt to fire her from the central bank’s board of governors, despite a Supreme Court ruling preventing her removal.

Cook’s lawyers, Abbe Lowell and Norm Eisen, said President Trump has “no legal basis” to remove their client. The Fed governor, who was accused of committing mortgage fraud, said she erroneously referred to one of two properties as a “vacation home,” which she asserted did not rise to the level of justifying her firing.

“An inadvertent error is not fraud, as the President and a third of his cabinet should know because they reportedly did the same thing,” Lowell and Eisen said in a statement. “These attacks on Governor Cook are not about real estate paperwork; they are an attempt by President Trump to force the Federal Reserve to bend to his will.”

Lowell defended Cook in a letter to the White House, insisting there “is no legally cognizable cause for removing her from the Federal Reserve Board,” Reuters........

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