特朗普拟设委员会调查美联储理事Cook

This is [music] Bloomberg Law with June Graasso from Bloomberg Radio. In August of 2025, President Trump took the unprecedented step of firing Lisa Cook from the Federal Reserve's Board of Governors, claiming there was evidence she made false statements on mortgage agreements. she uh seems to have had an infraction and she can't have an infraction, especially that infraction because she's in charge of, if you think about it, mortgages, and we need people that are 100% above board.

But Cook litigated the case and the Supreme Court refused to let Trump immediately fire her, finding in June that he'd failed to provide her with enough advanced notice and an opportunity to respond to accusations of wrongdoing. So now Trump appears to be setting the groundwork to fire Cook again. He's announced the formation of a committee to investigate the mortgage fraud allegations against her. A committee that consists of Trump appointees.

David Trump announced this committee of inquiry to look into claims that Cook had made false statements in connection with past mortgages and said she'd be required to appear at a White House hearing on November 5th to defend herself. Now, you have to go back to 1912 to find something similar where President William Howard Taft set up a commission to remove two officials from an independent agency. And it seems that's the only similar commission.

Well, they do this in Australia all the time. It's called a kangaroo court. Obviously, the committee is completely stacked with people who are subject to the president's will and will do exactly what he wants. And what he wants is to get rid of Lisa Cook. But I find it particularly remarkable that they put Kevin Hasset on the committee who might well get her job if she's removed. If that isn't a conflict of interest to top all conflicts of interest, I don't know what is.

He said Cook shall attend to answer questions from the committee. Are there any rules and regulations here about what's going to be admitted here? Say I mean it just seems so unstructured.

It is because this doesn't happen. It's been understood since the Federal Reserve was created that it is supposed to be independent and that its effectiveness depends on it being independent of the president. The charges against her have been explored at great length, have been found to be completely vacuous. There's simply leverage for him to get her off of the Fed and to intimidate a couple of other members that he doesn't like either.

So, there's no precedent for this because this is a foolish and improper thing to do. It seems like they're trying to comply with what the Supreme Court said in its decision that she should have advanced notice and an opportunity to respond to accusations of wrongdoing. Cook's attorneys have said they have grave doubts that this hearing is a legitimate one that would conform to the law. What is the law on this?

Well, there's law provided by the due process clause and that's what the Supreme Court was getting at. And one of the requirements of the due process clause is a decision maker who has not previously made up their mind. This committee looks like it's about as dependent on Trump's preferences as it can get. It's I suppose collecting information on behalf of President Trump, but it's not doing it with any open-mindedness.

And it's very obvious that whatever facts are presented that he will go forward with the action he's already said he wanted to do. And then as soon as he's gotten rid of her, he'll go after Jerome Powell.

Yes, he has recently started talking about Jerome Powell again. We'll get to that in a minute. Does Cook have to attend this hearing? I mean, it seems like her lawyers are talking like she will attend the hearing. I think it's very very risky to say this hearing is so bad I won't attend it. A lot of people are going to say we can't really tell in advance. So I think her better course would be to attend the hearing to present the facts which are not harmful to her at all and then to see what they do.

This administration is so determined to adhere to any brainstorm the president may have uh that they will surely throw her out and if they do so in a way that ignores the facts she's presented then she will have a very strong procedural case.

So she was first accused of mortgage fraud more than a year ago and she hasn't been charged with any crime yet. So that says something. The Supreme Court in its decision didn't say specifically what for cause would be. It suggested it must imply unfitness for office and not simply represent an effort to secure a friendlier replacement. They said whether cause for removal exists in any given situation will depend on the seriousness of the alleged conduct and the extent of any nexus to the governor's professional duties.

I mean, these charges appear to have no nexus to her professional duties.

Yeah. The problem here is that she's not accused of misconduct in office. She's accused of checking a box that maybe she shouldn't have checked long before she was on the board. There's no indication that she received any benefits from this as opposed to President Trump who has been found to have misrepresented property values to get very substantial benefits from insurers and banks. So this is largely irrelevant even if it was true and there's pretty good reason to think it's not true.

The broader picture here is that the Supreme Court both in uh Dr. Cook's case and in the accompanying slaughter case made very clear that the president is not entitled to the Federal Reserve Board of his choosing. that this part of the statute is legal, is constitutional, and any sensible president would take the message and drop it, just as any sensible president would read what the Supreme Court said about tariffs and drop it or would read what the Supreme Court said about birthright citizenship and drop it.

This president won't drop it. This president won't take a hint. And the Supreme Court, I think, is going to learn rapidly that if they want the president to do something, they need to put it in black and white in unmistakable terms. There's no subtlety with this president.

So, we can anticipate after this hearing, she'll be fired and then she'll appeal. It'll go up to the Supreme Court again.

Oh, yes, absolutely. And I think what could very well happen is the Supreme Court will again set aside her firing, but for specific reasons rather than saying globally, leave Dr. Cook alone. You've got plenty of appointees on the board and your economic stewardship is not so great that you should have complete control. But that's what they should do. They should say enough's enough. We've heard a second case now. We don't want to hear a third. just drop it.

But unless they say it in almost those words, he's going to keep at this thing.

And you know, you mentioned Jerome Powell and he has renewed his attacks recently on Jerome Powell, saying he should resign from the board of governors over those findings in September that the Fed mismanaged the renovation of its headquarters, although he was cleared of any wrongdoing. Well, do you think he's going to try anyway to fire Powell? I think he's going to go after Dr. Cook first because he's farther down the road on that.

But yes, he will absolutely try to fire Jerome Powell. If he wants to talk about people that are mismanaging buildings, I suggest that he go after the chair of the board of the Kennedy Center who seems to have uh done a terrible job with a quarter of a billion dollars of renovation money. Uh he should definitely get that guy investigated.

I'll reserve comment on that. Let's turn now to another of Trump's perceived enemies who may be the next one to be indicted by the Justice Department. I first noticed there was ketchup dripping down the wall and there's a shattered porcelain plate on the floor. The valet had articulated that the president was extremely angry at the attorney gener