WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump opened another chapter in his effort to fire Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook Friday by establishing a “committee of inquiry” to investigate allegations that she made false statements in mortgage applications.
The inquiry will include a hearing at the White House Nov. 5, Trump said in a written memo, that Cook “shall” attend to answer questions from the committee. The hearing wouldn’t be public but a transcript would be published, the memo said.
Trump’s extraordinary demand that Cook testify before the committee will likely renew concerns about threats to the Federal Reserve’s independence. The president has repeatedly called for the central bank to cut its key interest rate, but just last month, the Fed raised it instead, led by Chairman Kevin Warsh, whom Trump appointed earlier this year.
Trump’s attempts to fire Cook from the Fed’s seven-member board of governors represent the first time in the central bank’s 113-year history that a president has sought to remove a Fed governor. Cook was appointed by former President Joe Biden and is the first Black woman on the Fed’s board. Trump’s attacks on her followed other efforts to oust or indict Black officials, such as New York Attorney General Letitia James and Gen. Charles Q. Brown, the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
“As President, it is my job to ensure the laws are faithfully executed, including by firing subordinates who cannot be trusted to tell the truth and follow the law,” Trump wrote in the memorandum.