The US Supreme Court has allowed Lisa Cook to remain a Federal Reserve governor for now, declining to act on the Trump administration’s effort to immediately oust her from the central bank. In a brief unsigned order as per AP, the court said it would hear arguments in January over President Donald Trump’s push to force Cook off the Fed board. Cook, the first Black woman on the Fed’s Board of Governors, was nominated by President Joe Biden in 2022 (and reappointed in 2024) for a term that would run until 2038. She had earlier worked at the US Treasury (similar to India’s Finance Ministry) and in the Barack Obama White House. Cook is accused of making false statements while getting mortgages (loans) on two houses in 2021. In a criminal referral to US Attorney General Pam Bondi on August 15, Director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency William J Pulte alleged that in both loan agreements — signed within weeks of one another for a house each in Michigan and Georgia — Cook had claimed that the property would be her primary residence. In the US, the interest rates charged on loans for houses designated as primary residence is lower. “It is inconceivable that you (Cook) were not aware of your first commitment when making the second. It is impossible that you intended to honor both,” Trump said in the letter dismissing Cook, which he posted on social media.
