The United States President Donald Trump is facing a lawsuit from Lisa Cook, the Federal Reserve Board Governor, over an attempt to remove her.
Cook, in the lawsuit, is challenging Trump’s attempt to remove her from her position, citing a lack of legal authority and unsubstantiated allegations.
The suit, filed before a federal court in Washington, D.C., also named Fed Chairman Jerome Powell and the Board of Governors itself as defendants.
The announcement that Trump is facing a lawsuit from Cook was made in a press statement issued by her attorney, Abbe Lowell.
Lowell said: “This case challenges President Trump’s unprecedented and illegal attempt to remove Governor Cook from her position, which, if allowed to occur, would be the first of its kind in the Board’s history.
“It would subvert the Federal Reserve Act … which explicitly requires a showing of ’cause’ for a Governor’s removal, which an unsubstantiated allegation about private mortgage applications submitted by Governor Cook before her Senate confirmation is not.”
It was also gathered that Cook is seeking a court order to declare Trump’s firing order “unlawful and void” and affirm that she remains a board member.
She also wants the court to rule that the claims about her mortgages do not constitute “cause,” which the lawsuit defines as “inefficiency, neglect of duty, malfeasance in office, or comparable misconduct.”
Meanwhile, the White House has officially reacted to the lawsuit.
The White House claimed that Trump’s firing of Cook was lawful.
“The President determined there was cause to remove a governor who was credibly accused of lying in financial documents from a highly sensitive position overseeing financial institutions,” White House spokesman Kush Desai said in a statement on Thursday.
“The removal of a governor for cause improves the Federal Reserve Board’s accountability and credibility for both the markets and American people.”
Recall that Trump’s effort to fire Cook came after months of him complaining that she, Powell, and other board members were not cutting interest rates, as he wanted.
Trump, in a letter posted on his official account on the Truth Social app, said that his administration had found a “sufficient reason” to believe Cook had made alleged false statements on mortgage agreements.
“Two weeks later, you signed another document for a property in Georgia stating that it would be your primary residence for the next year.
“It is inconceivable that you were not aware of your first commitment when making the second,” he wrote.
However, Cook, the first African American woman to serve as a Fed governor, swiftly rejected that Trump’s attempt to oust her.
In a statement released by Lowell, she declared: “President Trump purported to fire me ‘for cause’ when no cause exists under the law, and he has no authority to do so.
“I will not resign. I will continue to carry out my duties to help the American economy as I have been doing since 2022.”
