US Fed Governor Lisa Cook sues Trump over attempt to fire her
Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook sued President Donald Trump for an attempt to expel a potential legal war on the autonomy of the US Federal Reserve.
Cook asked the court to declare Trump’s ignition order as “illegal and invalid”, and also called the FED President Jerome Powell and the Governor’s Board as the defendant.
Trump said the constitutional forces he said was “enough reason” to believe that Cook made false statements on the mortgage and that he allowed him to remove it.
The President raised increased pressure on what he saw as the reluctance of reducing interest rates. Cook is part of the Board responsible for determining interest rates in the USA.
The trial on Thursday will bring a number of legal difficulties in the US Supreme Court.
Cook’s lawyer Abbe Lowell said, “This case is unseen and illegal attempt to dismiss the governor of the President Trump for the first time in the history of the organization.”
“The Federal Reserve Act will clearly require a ‘reason’ to remove a governor who does not make an unfounded claim about the special mortgage applications submitted by the Governor Cook before the approval of the Senate.”
White House spokesman Kush Desai told the BBC that the President “used the authority to remove the cook.”
“The President has determined that there is a reason to remove a governor accused of lying in financial documents from an extremely sensitive position that controls financial institutions.” He said. “The abolition of a governor for reason, the Federal Reserve Board’s account for both markets and the American people increases the accountability and reliability.”
The allegations against Cook were first made in a public letter from the housing financing regulator Bill Pulte, a Trump ally. In the letter, he accused Cook of falsifying records to get mortgages.
The letter claims that he has signed two documents two weeks apart and proves that two houses in different states have the primary residence. There was no accusation against Cook, and it is unclear whether he was under investigation for these claims.
Cook’s case does not deal with these claims.
It is one of the seven members of the FED’s Board of Directors and is included in the 12 -member committee responsible for setting interest rates in the USA.
Since his return to Washington, Trump has raised increasing pressure on the interest rates on Powell.
