On another timeline, all eyes might be trained on Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell in the days before his final keynote speech at Jackson Hole. But in this reality, the spotlight seems to favor his central bank colleagues.

Not that Fed Gov. Lisa Cook is seeking it out.

President Donald Trump, in a Wednesday post on Truth Social, said Cook “must resign, now!!!”

The demand came hours after Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Bill Pulte posted on X a criminal referral he made Friday to Attorney General Pam Bondi, alleging Cook committed mortgage fraud.

Cook obtained a 15-year, $203,000 mortgage loan on a home in Ann Arbor, Michigan, according to the referral. The mortgage document, dated June 18, 2021, indicated Cook would use the property as her primary residence “within 60 days” and “for at least one year.” At the time, she was a professor at Michigan State University.

However, according to the referral, Cook took out another mortgage two weeks later – this time for 30 years and $540,000 – on a property in Georgia, her home state. That loan paperwork also included a clause stipulating that it would be her primary residence. 

Pulte alleges Cook “falsified bank documents and property records to acquire more favorable loan terms, potentially committing mortgage fraud under the criminal statute.”

He cited four criminal statutes for Bondi to investigate, adding, in a post on X, that the Justice Department “should go wherever the facts may lead them.”

Ed Martin, a DOJ official, told Powell in a letter Thursday that the case “requires further examination.”

“At this time, I encourage you to remove Ms. Cook from your Board,” Martin wrote in the letter, seen by Bloomberg and CNBC. “Do it today before it is too late! After all, no American thinks it is appropriate that she serve during this time with a cloud hanging over her.” 

Powell does not have the authority to remove Cook, a Senate-confirmed appointee. Trump, however, does, if for cause.

“I believe the President has cause to fire Lisa Cook,” Pulte wrote in a post.

Trump told aides he is considering firing Cook, a senior White House official and another person familiar with the matter told The Wall Street Journal.

Cook’s response

Cook late Wednesday said she had learned of Pulte’s allegations from media reports but was direct about the presumed objective of the Republican sting.

“I have no intention of being bullied to step down from my position because of some questions raised in a tweet,” Cook said in a statement. “I do intend to take any questions about my financial history seriously as a member of the Federal Reserve, and so I am gathering the accurate information to answer any legitimate questions and provide the facts.”

Cook noted that the mortgages were obtained before she joined the central bank in 2022.

Trump has made no secret of his distaste for Powell’s reluctance to lower interest rates, badgering the Fed chair at seemingly every opportunity. Anti-Powell rhetoric within the Trump administration spiked in June and July, when Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought seized on an over-budget renovation at the Fed as a potential opening to force Powell out.

Throughout that time frame, though, Pulte could be seen as the administration’s chief Powell antagonist. The FHFA chief posted or reposted about Powell 114 times on X in the first 20 days of July, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-MA, noted in a letter to Pulte.

And, in fact, Pulte on Thursday pinned at the top of his X account a photo of Cook and Powell shaking hands (at Cook’s 2022 swearing-in).

“Powell must look into it or he is complicit,” Pulte wrote Wednesday on X.

Pulling levers

Claudia Sahm, chief economist at New Century Advisors and a former Fed economist, called the Cook allegations “a new attempt [by] the administration to gain more control over the Fed.”

“They’re pulling as many different levers as they can find to get that control,” Sahm told Bloomberg.

Warren issued a statement Wednesday warning that the Trump team “should not weaponize the federal government to illegally fire independent Fed Board members.”

“Anyone can see that for months now, President Trump has been scrambling for a pretext to intimidate or fire Chair Powell and Members of the Federal Reserve Board while blaming anyone but himself for how his failed economic policies are hurting Americans,” she said.

Democrats on the House Financial Services Committee, on their X account, spoke even more bluntly on the racial implication of the Cook allegations.

“Donald Trump is making up blatant lies in an effort to oust the first Black woman to serve on the Federal Reserve Board, so he can replace her with another unqualified loyalist who will do his bidding. … We can’t let this happen.”

‘Running the same standards’?

Powell, for his part, has remained steadfast amid the pressure. But another Fed governor, Adriana Kugler, resigned this month, ahead of her term’s end, to return to teaching at Georgetown University.

The resignation came after the Federal Open Market Committee, composed of all seven Fed governors and five rotating regional Fed presidents, voted to keep interest rates steady. However, two Fed governors, Republicans Christopher Waller and Michelle Bowman – the Fed’s vice chair for supervision – dissented.

Kugler’s resignation, meanwhile, allowed Trump to announce his intention to nominate Stephen Miran, the chair of the Council of Economic Advisors, to the vacant Fed seat.

“Maybe Trump’s idea is he gets four governors who are completely loyal,” Derek Tang, an economist at LH Meyer, told Bloomberg of the effort against Cook. “But we don’t know that the current governors are going to be.”

In targeting Cook, though, the Trump administration has its eyes on a Fed governor whose term lasts through 2038.

“Write anything you or your attorneys want Miss Cook, you’ve been caught based on mortgage documents, not a tweet,” Pulte wrote Wednesday in reaction to the Fed governor’s statement. “We go after people who commit mortgage fraud, and you signed the mortgage documents, no one else. And you did it within 14 days of each other.”

Aaron Klein, a senior fellow at Brookings Institute, told American Banker a pivotal question is “whether Pulte is running the same standards for everybody.”

A judge in New York last year found Trump liable for lying to lenders to secure more favorable interest rates. The judge fined Trump roughly $464 million after finding the now-president inflated his net worth on loan applications. An appeals court voided that judgment Thursday.