Trump vs Lisa Cook won’t be resolved in a timeframe that matters. 
Story Background
President Donald Trump announced his intent to fire Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook on August 25, 2025, stating in a letter posted on Truth Social that her removal from the Federal Reserve Board of Governors was “effective immediately.”
Trump cited allegations of mortgage fraud as the reason for attempting to fire Cook. Specifically, he referenced claims by Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Bill Pulte, a Trump ally, who accused Cook of falsifying mortgage applications by claiming two properties (one in Atlanta, Georgia, and one in Ann Arbor, Michigan) as her primary residence in 2021, before she joined the Fed, potentially to secure lower interest rates.
If Trump could get rid of Cook, he would have four of seven voting Fed governors in his pocket.
Those governors could then block any regional Fed President appointments who were not to Trump’s liking on a February 2026 vote.
“We’ll have a majority very shortly,” said Trump at an August cabinet meeting. “So that’ll be great.”
Regional Fed Presidents
The terms for all 12 regional Federal Reserve Bank presidents expire in February 2026, and they will need to be approved for reappointment by the Board of Governors.
There are seven Fed governors.
Trump has 3 loyalists governors and needs either Fed Chair Jerome Powell to resign or Lisa Cook to be removed.
Neither is likely.
No Mortgage Fraud
There is no proof of mortgage fraud and strong evidence the claim is a fabrication.
I discussed the charge on September 14, in Hello President Trump, Have any Further Comments on the Fed’s Lisa Cook?
But Trump persisted and the Supreme Court decided to hear the case. For now, the Court let Cook stay on on the Fed.
Supreme Court Oral Arguments on Lisa Cook
On October 7, JDSupra reported Supreme Court Orders Oral Argument on President’s Decision to Remove Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook
In an order issued on October 1, the Supreme Court allowed Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook to remain in office—leaving in place for now the lower court orders putting on hold President Trump’s decision to remove her. The President had sought to remove Governor Cook “for cause” under the Federal Reserve Act’s for-cause removal provision. The Supreme Court scheduled oral argument on the issue for January 2026, indicating that it—and not the lower federal courts—will decide the legal issues that govern whether President Trump’s dismissal may take effect.
Trump v. Cook
Bloomberg chimes in on Trump v. Cook.
The Supreme Court is in session hearing disputes on emotive social issues. Its most financially consequential intervention came in a two-sentence ruling last Friday: The administration can’t fire Lisa Cook from her Federal Reserve governorship until the justices have ruled, and they won’t hear the case until January. It’s highly unlikely there will be a decision until next summer.
That’s critical, as engineering a reliable Trump majority on the FOMC requires Cook to be fired and replaced in time to vote on nominees for the Fed’s regional presidencies at the end of February. Those presidents will then serve for five years, making February the only chance to overhaul the FOMC in the Trump term.
This garnered little attention, possibly because it came after revelations first published by Reuters that showed the case against Cook was far weaker than its original presentation. She is alleged to have claimed two separate homes as her primary residence in mortgage documents — but forms show that she described the second as a vacation home.
Bloomberg found that Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent once made the same error of describing different houses as his primary residence in mortgage applications.
To fill in the final piece of the story, the FOMC consists of 12 voting members. The voting members include the 7 governors, the New York Fed president, and 4 regional presidents on a rotating basis.
The current Fed governors are very unlikely to vote for any Trumpian parrots for the regional offices.
If this plays out as outlined ,Trump’s claim “We’ll have a majority very shortly,” just blew up. Trump will only have 3 of the 12 votes he needs to control the Fed.
Related Posts
On September 1, I noted A Complete Trump Take Over of the Fed is Easier than Most Believe
There are 12 voting members on the FOMC. How does Trump get a majority?
I explained how, but it required removal of Lisa Cook. Oops.
June 25, 2025: Trump Says Powell Has “Low IQ”, Mentions 3 or 4 Possible Replacements
Trump is on a very foolish mission to “Pack the Fed”.
March 29, 2025: Fed Chair Jerome Powell Revives the Words “Transitory Inflation”
Please note Powell revived from the dead, the word “Transitory”.
August 22, 2025: Powell Admits Prior Monetary Framework Was Hugely Flawed
The Fed just announced a new monetary framework. Is it any better?
The Powell Fed is no better than the Yellen Fed, the Bernanke Fed, or the Greenspan Fed.
They are a pack of groupthink charlatans.
However, the one thing worse than a clueless independent Fed is a Fed under total control of clueless politicians.
Even if you mistakenly believe Trump is not economically clueless, do you want an Elizabeth Warren clone running the next Fed?
That’s the risk if a president can fire Fed governors at will.
And all the globalists cry Joo hoo hoo hoo
“Even if you mistakenly believe Trump is not economically clueless, do you want an Elizabeth Warren clone running the next Fed?”
No, and this points to a much more worrisome truth which is that the curent administrations is not planning on turning over power or being held accountable. All that’s happened, all the corruption, the self-dealing, the naked power-grab– these are not th actions of people who think they’ll be out of power in in a couple of years. They know the accountability will be ferocious, and the only way to avoid it is to maintain power.
You are describing what the Democrats were doing with their lawfare against Trump.
No.
the Jan 6 and documents case were good cases, which arose not from a pre-determined witch hunt but from real world evidence. The Russia investigation was also justifed — and the conclusion of that investigatipoln was Trump did not collude w Russia. Contrast that with Trump who Replaced his own appointees when their investigations conclude that no charges should be brought agains this enemies.
the NY cases were crap. But those were not federal cases. In fact, Biden’s DOJ passed on the stupid case Alvin Bragg brought in NY (the stormy daniels payoff case).
What AG James and DA Bragg did was wrong. What Trump is doing doesn’t make it right or better, it makes things much worse.
Perhaps the US Treasury can set interest rates by conducting its own repo/reverse repo operations with banks at lower rates than those set by the Fed? It sounds less of a legal headache than trying to fire Fed governors, and the mere threat of wanting to do so might make the Fed yield to Trump’s will anyway
With slightly over one million less containers of goods arriving in US ports in 2025 we have a significantly slowing economy.
The Fed needs to stay as independent as possible so it can react appropriately to whatever craziness Trump creates.
One thing we do know is that the Fed will drop interest rates quickly and inject huge amounts of liquidity very quickly to blow the next bubble!
We live in interesting times!
Banksters in America post 1913 and from Greenspan through Powell get their way more often than the president or Congress.
Memo to Trump from Wall Street, TBTF banksters, Worldwide Central Banksters:
Stay in your lane. This isn’t ICE, the FBI, NLRB, CPB, DOGE,Homeland Security, et al. Money manipulation, credit, repo, reverse repo etc., is too important to be left to a bunch of Trump sycophants. We want our own sycophants to ensure we run this economy as it has been with a minor pause during WW II till the early 50s.
Memo to Supreme Court: Thank you for your attention to this matter. Your monies have been transferred to your Swiss, Jersey, Grand Cayman accounts per our earlier discussion. We recommend the law firm Dewey, Cheetum & Howe for legal advice how to shelter transferred funds into a multi-layer shell trust masquerading as a bribe.
The Fed doesn’t have any control anymore either, it’s a Yuan world now.
The dual mandate is wrong. Inflation only. No politicians invited.
The Federal Reserve mandate as practiced since 1913 is to protect the banksters at all costs since the banksters literally own it, sit on its boards at the district level and the FED also regulates its owners.
Nice gig the banksters have,
Where can I sign up to own a regulator then pass all their audits of importance then when my business fails, I get bailed out.
So, dump the Fed.
Geely and Mercedes produce a smart car: Smart 5 ev.
“There is no proof of mortgage fraud and strong evidence the claim is a fabrication.”
On her actual mortgage application, she listed the home as a primary residence. And this was after she listed it as a second home, when she applied to find out financing terms. This means she changed her mind, when it counted, on the actual mortgage application.
I seriously doubt this goes to trial, but I’m sure her side is going to do everything they can to slow this down.
You ever notice every Federal government official of any Fed government agency owns 3 homes?
And some on 1 income.
I must be doing something wrong.
No, but what I have noticed is a S-ton of lawfare by the Dems over the last 10 years. I know James campaigned on “getting Trump” on a similarly bogus situation, and I know that a sitting Fed Chair should NOT commit mortgage fraud.
It’s Trump’s turn at payback. MAGA!
Except basically his entire defense was a confession of guilt.
Fraud requires a victim. There was no victim, as the bank testified that it didn’t matter what Trump thought the value was, because it, like all banks, did its own assessment and provided the loan on its own assessment. Do you not understand how stupid the “fraud’ claim is? Under the charges against Trump, where any property that does not sell for the exact listed price, a fraud has been committed.
Trump is mostly only capable of revenge so I understand your payback remark. His spirit and soul are in a constant struggle with each other with the more materialistic soul winning due to his emotional selfishness combined with his childhood rearing that you are not good enough.
Do you see zero or more than zero lawfare by the Trump admin? Asking for a friend.
you’ve heard of “ready, aim, fire !”
how about “fire, aim, ready !” ?
15 hours ago — The Pentagon has sought to procure up to $1bn worth of critical minerals as part of a global stockpiling spree to counter Chinese dominance …
AI: where is the Monogolehan River. A; In Mongolia. AI: does the Monongahela River
that connects W.VA and PHG has rare earth minerals. A: the Mongolia River has REE essential for electronics, renewable energy and defense. Mining operations raise concern about environmental pollution. AI: does the Ohio river and other rivers have REE that mfg and mining co dump bc their half life is 2-4 billions (infinity). A: Ohio and Monongahela have REE, which are essential to electronics, renewable and the military, but REE can release radioactive materials. AI: bc of radiation concerns we import REE from China ???
The US imported $170 million of rare earths in 2024 so $1 billion can buy a lot of rare earths. China will try to buy them up too. Now how much has the US already stockpiled? We don’t know because rare earth numbers are consolidated in the overall strategic metals stockpile. We do know that the DOD (DOW now?) has spent over $400 million since 2020 to buy the stuff for the stockpile but that is all we know. This would be hard to trade.
What about the Dept of Energy, Health, other dept and the private sector.
No idea but maybe they put some here, there and everywhere for a rainy day. They tend to do that. Also manufacturers of military equipment have their own stockpiles and recuperating REEs and magnets from old equipment is on a fast track. There is a French company startup that has already recuperated old REE magnets turning them into new ones fairly easily and now have increased the world supply by 20%. We used to be 100% dependent on China in 2020. That’s down now to 80% and dropping fast.
thanks.
Welcome
Are you crazy. China does not buy rare earth, it sells them.
And if the US had stockpiles, there would be no panic,
You didn’t think it through. To keep the US from increasing its stockpile of REEs the Chinese government would buy up all the available supplies available outside China in the world. FDR did this leading up the WW II to keep Germany from stockpiling strategic metals for its war machine and it was a success. South America We outbid Germany on every offer that came on the market and kept those metals out of Germany’s hands. China wants to do the same so you see I am not crazy. I just know history as do others. If you try to find information of the level of US stockpiles you would nothing and that too is not unplanned.
China separates and processes 90% of rare earth minerals.Stockpiling unprocessed minerals is not the answer till an ally or the US can do both. To build out the infrastructure takes approximately 10 years.
Get rid of the Fed and let the pols print all they want….that’s what happens anyway
In Jasa single women have to sell their bodies to feed their children. In 2020 JP
and Trump sent $10K to shingle mums. Trump and JP are partners. They tried to
steal dems votes before the Nov 2020 election.
Can you translate that for me Michael. Dumb it down if you have to
In 2020 when the US econ was comatose the Fed sent checks in the mail to small businesses, the poor, the middle class and to ==> “inelastic dems” voters: to shingle mums. It was done in repetition. The Fed Directly sent checks to independent voters, reps and dems. Obama thought that Trump is buying dems votes. He was infuriated. In May 2020 George Floyd killed. The regime change king used this opportunity to destroy Trump.
Okay it was funny at first but I genuinely think you need help Michael.
He is farming downvotes, I am his free labor
I’m not sure what you’re worried about with Elizabeth Warren in charge of the Fed that the Fed hasn’t already been doing for the last 30 years. What I’m worried about is Trump deciding he can use the Fed’s balance sheet to prop up his friends’ crypto investments, and then we would see trillions of dollars evaporate overnight.
– do you want an Elizabeth Warren clone running the next Fed?
> No! I don’t want any President running the Fed!
>> However, it must be made a tad easier to replace a Fed Member with an Equal Fed Member if you will. Use a Panel if required, but have some mechanism…
Any news that indicates a blockage of taco’s reign of terror on the US economy is excellent.
San Francisco is running out of mansions
https://www.sfchronicle.com/realestate/article/san-francisco-mansions-demand-21081820.php
Mish, you’d better catch up on the news. Lisa has been indicted on Mortgage fraud.
Are you nuts – Can you even read?
I covered all of that?
I suspect he is conflating Lisa Cook and Letitia James 😉