The Justice Department has reportedly launched a criminal mortgage fraud investigation into Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook and has issued grand jury subpoenas in both Georgia and Michigan. A grand jury in Atlanta is examining Cook’s actions regarding her properties in Atlanta and Ann Arbor, with an indictment considered likely.
The investigation is being conducted by special assistant U.S. attorney Ed Martin, along with the U.S. Attorneys’ offices in the Northern District of Georgia and the Eastern District of Michigan, according to Reuters.
The alleged fraud was first made public by Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Bill Pulte last month in a criminal referral to Attorney General Pam Bondi’s office, accusing Cook of misrepresenting her residency status on her Michigan and Georgia residences.
The housing director has also referred a case regarding a third property in Cambridge, Massachusetts, to the Department of Justice. The Cambridge house was initially declared as a “second home,” and then as a rental property, documents show.
Pulte posted on X Thursday that investigators are also looking into potential insurance fraud, wire fraud, bank fraud, mail fraud, tax fraud and false statements to a financial institution.
President Donald Trump fired Cook last month on the basis that she made “false statements” on two mortgages in 2021, about a year before she was confirmed to her position to the Fed.
On Tuesday, Pulte shared “video proof” confirming that Cook’s house in Ann Arbor, Michigan—listed as a “primary residence” in her mortgage paperwork—is currently being rented out to tenants.
Cook has refused to step down and sued Trump, saying the claim she engaged in mortgage fraud did not give the president legal authority to fire her.
Within the documents filed in her suit, she acknowledges that mistakes were made in her paperwork for the home loans, but claims they were due to a “clerical error” on her part that don’t rise to a level that would justify removing her from office.
She is suspected of listing the properties as primary residences when she applied for mortgages in order to secure lower interest rates.
Cook’s lawyer, Abbe Lowell, a prominent Democrat attorney, accused the Justice Department of inventing a justification for Trump’s firing of Cook.
“He wants cover, and they are providing it. The questions over how Governor Cook described her properties from time to time, which we have started to address in the pending case and will continue to do so, are not fraud, but it takes nothing for this DOJ to undertake a new politicized investigation, and they appear to have just done it again,” Lowell said.
In recent legal filings challenging Trump’s actions, Cook claimed she listed the three mortgages on forms submitted to the White House and U.S. Senate in the vetting process for her appointment to the Fed in 2022, arguing that any irregularities were known when she was confirmed and don’t give Trump grounds to fire her now.
Independent journalist Megyn Kelly, a lawyer herself, called that explanation “a bunch of horseshit” on her YouTube show, yesterday.
“That’s just listing your residences,” Kelly said, going on to explain that no one in the Biden administration would have known she committed mortgage fraud in other paperwork by listing the properties as primary and secondary residences and then renting them out.
Cook is the third public official to be targeted in a criminal investigation over mortgage fraud allegations.
Martin is also pursuing criminal probes into Senator Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) and New York Attorney General Letitia James.
Grand juries have been convened in those two cases, as well.
On CNBC’s Squawk Box earlier this week, Pulte denied that the investigations were in any way political.
He argued that “a big reason” the 2008 housing crash happened was because people were engaging in mortgage fraud.
“I swore an oath before the Senate and otherwise that I would root out mortgage fraud and ensure that there is safety and soundness in the mortgage market,” Pulte told host Joe Kernen. “So I’m not going to be intimidated from pursuing mortgage fraud just because somebody has the special title of being a Fed Governor.”