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Trump and his cronies are attempting a police state hit job on one of the Federal Reserve governors, Lisa Cook, in a clumsy attempt to force her resignation. If Trump can push her out and replace Cook with a loyalist, his allies will total four seats on the seven-member Fed Board of Governors.
On Wednesday, Bill Pulte, who heads the Federal Housing Finance Agency, put out a post on social media alleging that Cook had submitted fraudulent information on two mortgage applications four years ago. Pulte then said that he was making a criminal referral to the Justice Department. In a well-choreographed play, Trump then called for Cook’s resignation and said that if she didn’t resign he would fire her, something he lacks the authority to do.
Pulte alleges, in a post on social media, that Cook, a former economics professor at the University of Michigan appointed to the Fed by Joe Biden, took out two mortgages in 2021, one in Michigan and the other in Georgia. According to Pulte, she described both as her principal residence.
Even if true, this hardly rises to the level of serious fraud, and it is hard to imagine a jury convicting. Prosecutions for this sort of misstatement are extremely rare unless they are part of a larger material fraud. Young people who get part of the down payment from parents routinely check the box that says none of the down payment is borrowed.
The more important question is where Pulte got this information. The information in mortgage applications is confidential. Pulte presumably had access to it only because he heads an agency that regulates the secondary mortgage market. He or his minions must have gone on a fishing expedition to see what they could get on selected targets.
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