Trump Forms a White House Committee to Investigate Fed Governor Lisa Cook and Force Her Out

Donald Trump could not fire Lisa Cook the first time. Now he has built a process to try again. The White House announced on Friday that Trump has formally set up a "committee of inquiry" to investigate allegations that the Federal Reserve governor made false statements related to "one or more mortgage instruments," CNBC reported.

The goal is to decide whether there is "cause" to remove her. It is the latest move in a fight over whether a president can push out a sitting Fed governor, and with it, how independent the central bank really is.

Three Trump appointees will decide

The committee has three members, and Trump hired all of them. Labor Secretary Keith Sonderling, who is also acting director of the Office of Government Ethics, sits alongside National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett and Equal Employment Opportunity Commission chair Andrea Lucas, according to CNN.

The White House will hold an in-person hearing on November 5. It will be closed to the public, but transcribed and published. Cook may submit a written statement and will face questioning from both White House counsel and her own lawyers.

"As President, it is my job to ensure the laws are faithfully executed, including by firing subordinates who cannot be trusted to tell the truth and follow the law," Trump said in a statement on the White House website, the Guardian reported.

Why a hearing now

The fight started in August 2025, when Trump accused Cook of mortgage fraud. The White House claims she listed two properties, in Georgia and Michigan, as her primary residence and failed to report rental income on an Atlanta property. Cook sued, and the Supreme Court blocked Trump's first attempt to remove her.

The new committee looks designed to clear the hurdle that stopped him. Tim Mahedy, a former San Francisco Fed economist who now runs Access/Macro, told CNN the process "seems tailor-made to address the Supreme Court's biggest criticism," namely that Cook never got a chance to defend herself. Given who sits on the panel, he said, the outcome "is clear." He also said he was surprised Hassett would join a committee investigating a Fed governor.

Cook's lawyers push back

Cook's attorneys, Abbe Lowell and Norm Eisen, say they are in touch with the White House "to evaluate whether the process proposed has a possibility of being a genuine one and not simply a box-checking exercise."

"Governor Cook welcomes the opportunity to present the facts so she can clear her name and demonstrate there is no legal basis to fire her," they said. They have "grave doubts" the hearing will be "a legitimate one that would conform to the law," but argue that any objective review will conclude she did not commit mortgage fraud, leaving no cause to remove her.

Cook is no marginal figure. Joe Biden appointed her in 2022 to a 14-year term, making her the Fed's first Black governor. She taught at Harvard and Stanford and served on Barack Obama's Council of Economic Advisers.

Markets are watching

The timing adds pressure. The committee arrives weeks before the Fed's next monetary policy meeting, at a moment when investors are already tracking every Washington power play that touches markets, from Treasury yields to who shows up at global finance meetings.

A successful removal would hand Trump a precedent for reshaping the Fed board through an inquiry staffed by his own team. Cook's side will make its case behind closed doors on November 5, and the transcript will show the rest of the country how the decision was reached.

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