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The Department of Justice (DOJ) has reportedly opened a criminal investigation into Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook, sparking accusations that the Trump administration is using DOJ to go after the president’s adversaries.
In August, President Donald Trump took the unprecedented move of attempting to fire Cook from the Federal Reserve Board, alleging that she had committed mortgage fraud. Cook, who is the first Black woman to serve on the Board, refused to step down and sued the president, arguing that he does not have the authority to fire her.
No president has ever fired a member of the Federal Reserve Board, which was established more than 100 years ago and is instrumental in setting interest rates. During both his first and second presidential terms, Trump urged the Federal Reserve Board to cut interest rates, which requires a majority vote of the central bank’s rate-setting 12-member committee, of which Cook is a member.
Hours after he attempted to fire Cook, Trump said at a cabinet meeting, “We’ll have a majority very shortly,” adding that it would be “great.”
Critics say the Trump administration is using DOJ and allegations of mortgage fraud to undermine and silence the president’s critics. In August, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi appointed Trump loyalist Ed Martin to lead mortgage fraud investigations into Trump critics New York State Attorney General Letitia James and Senator Adam B. Schiff (D-California). The Times reports that DOJ’s investigation into Cook’s alleged mortgage fraud was “instigated” by Martin, who the paper describes as a “hyperpartisan Trump loyalist with little prosecutorial experience.”
As interim U.S. Attorney for Washington, D.C., Martin fired or demoted attorneys who had worked on prosecutions related to the January 6 insurrection and, at Trump’s behest, dismissed charges against accused insurrectionists, including one person who he was representing.
“Predictably and recognizing the flaws in challenging their illegal firing of Governor Cook, the administration is scrambling to invent new justifications for its overreach,” Cook’s lawyer, Abbe Lowell, said in a statement to ABC News on Thursday.
“This Justice Department — perhaps the most politicized in American history — will do whatever President Trump demands,” Lowell continued. “He wants cover, and they are providing it.”
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