Trump-appointed government official Bill Pulte fired off a second criminal referral letter targeting Federal Reserve System board of governors member Lisa Cook less than a month after his initial referral letter against her.
“As Director of the U.S. Federal Housing Finance Agency,” Pulte wrote in an Aug. 28 letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi and Special Attorney Edward Martin, “I reiterate the referral on August 15, 2025, and provide new information concerning a 3rd property for Lisa D. Cook (‘Cook’) and what appears to be multiple false representations to the United States Government by Cook while she was a Governor of the Federal Reserve.”
Fox News Digital reached out to the Justice Department for comment on Friday but did not receive a response by the time of publication.
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In a statement obtained by Fox News Digital on Friday, counsel for Cook, attorney Abbe David Lowell of Lowell & Associates, pushed back against what he characterized as a “smear campaign.”
“This is an obvious smear campaign aimed at discrediting Gov. Cook by a political operative who has taken to social media more than 30 times in the last two days and demanded her removal before any review of the facts or evidence,” the attorney asserted in the statement. “Nothing in these vague, unsubstantiated allegations has any relevance to Gov Cook’s role at the Federal Reserve, and they in no way justify her removal from the Board.”
The Fed did not provide Fox News Digital with a comment on the matter.
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Pulte’s first criminal referral letter earlier this month alleged, in part, that Cook indicated in a 2021 mortgage agreement for a Michigan property that the property would be her principal residence, but then two weeks later indicated in a mortgage agreement for a Georgia condominium that it would be her primary residence.
Pulte’s second criminal referral letter alleges, in part, that in April 2021, Cook entered into a mortgage agreement for a Massachusetts condominium, representing it as her second home, but then later in 2021 and subsequent years indicated to the U.S. government that the property was an investment/rental.
Earlier this week, in between Pulte’s Aug. 15 and Aug. 28 criminal referral letters, President Donald Trump posted a letter on Truth Social in which he indicated that he was removing Cook from her Fed post.
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“The Federal Reserve Act provides that you may be removed, at my discretion, for cause,” he asserted in the letter. “I have determined that there is sufficient cause to remove you from your position.”
Cook has not accepted Trump’s attempt to fire her, but has instead responded by waging a legal challenge.
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