Lisa Cook, governor of the US Federal Reserve, speaks at the Peterson Institute For International Economics in Washington, DC, US, on Thursday, Oct. 6, 2022.Ting Shen | Bloomberg | Getty ImagesFederal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook’s lawsuit against Donald Trump challenges his ability to remove her from office, but only briefly addresses the central accusations that she committed mortgage fraud.One part of the documents filed in the suit suggests that the issue at hand regarding documents Cook submitted for home loans may have been caused by a “clerical error” on her part and asserts that even if a mistake was made it does not rise to an offense that would justify removing her from office.The complaint mostly focuses on rules outlined in the Federal Reserve Act that state Fed officials can only be removed for “cause,” a legally nebulous condition that may have to be determined by the Supreme Court.Cook maintains that the fraud allegations do not meet the standard and instead are subterfuge for Trump’s efforts to stack the Fed Board of Governors in his favor so that he can get the interest rate cuts he has been demanding.”It is clear from the circumstances surrounding Governor Cook’s purported removal from the Federal Reserve Board that the mortgage allegations against her are pretextual,” the suit states. “This allegation about conduct that predates Governor Cook’s Senate confirmation has never been investigated, much less proven. This allegation is not grounds for removal under the” act.The document calls the fraud allegation “unsubstantiated and unproven” but does not go into detail about why that is the case.Whether Cook did in fact lie on the applications will be the focus of establishing the legal standard for cause to remove her.Trump and other officials, most notably Bill Pulte, the director of the Federal Housing Finance Agen …
