I’ve said it over and over again since Donald Trump’s autocratic inclinations became clear a few months into his first term: Autocracies differ from dictatorships in that the methods employed to pressure perceived political opponents tend towards bureaucratic pestering more so than outright coercion.
Although Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s by now a borderline dictator, he still resorts to the sort of transparently farcical, petty harassment that typifies autocratic regimes seeking to dissuade dissidents. In March, for example, Erdogan had his chief political rival’s college degree revoked, claiming it was illegitimately obtained. If you don’t have a degree in Turkey, you can’t run for president.
Days later, Erdogan simply arrested Ekrem Imamoglu, but prior to his detention, he was subjected to an escalating series of legal probes all of which had one thing in common: There was little to no merit in the implicit accusations, which were for all intents and purposes fabricated by Erdogan.
That sort of thing’s distinct from what you see in places like Vladimir Putin’s Russia and Xi Jinping’s China, where dissidents are simply murdered or disappeared or accused and tried without even the pretense to due process.
It’s with that in mind that Donald Trump’s attempting to open up yet another seat on the Fed Board. You might recall that it was FHFA chief Bill Pulte who laid the original groundwork for the effort to fire Jerome Powell in connection with cost overruns for renovations at the Marriner Eccles building. Pulte’s accusations set the stage for Russ Vought’s infamous letter to Powell and then, ultimately, for Trump to step up his own attacks. Now, Pulte’s after Lisa Cook.
Pulte, acting in his capacity as FHFA director, appears to have gone looking for dirt on Cook and, according to a criminal referral sent to Pam Bondi, he found potential evidence of mortgage fraud. Long story short, Pulte accused Cook of claiming primary residence at two separate properties and then renting one of them out shortly after purchasing it.
Pulte published the letter to Pam Bondi on social media, along with the silly “slides” shown below.
Note the propaganda tactics: Pulte included a picture of Powell saying something to Cook and placed a big red “fraud” stamp over top. As if to suggest to America the two of them are scheming all the time, whispering about mortgage fraud and God only knows what else in the Fed board room.
“FHFA, alleges in a Criminal Referral to the Department of Justice that Federal Reserve Governor, Lisa D. Cook, committed mortgage fraud by designating her out of state condo as her primary residence, just two weeks after taking a loan on her Michigan home where she also declared it as her primary residence,” Pulte declared. “The DOJ should go wherever the facts may lead them.”
Naturally, Trump said Cook should resign. And “now!!!” as he put it on social media. According to officials who spoke to The Wall Street Journal, “Trump is discussing trying to fire her for cause.”
With Stephen Miran stepping into Adriana Kugler’s vacant seat and Chris Waller and Miki Bowman already toeing the party line, ousting Cook would give Trump a de facto majority on the Fed Board.
I’m not sure how much evidence everyone needs to see to come around to the reality of where we are as a country in America, but suffice to say if you don’t get it by now, you never will. And frankly, I don’t blame you: Ignorance is bliss and on most days, I wish I was content to be ignorant.
Fully agree with the article. But also: rookie move from Cook and if true, doesn’t belong on the board of such an important institution.
Hilarious caveat you add. I don’t even know where to begin, so I won’t bother. Let’s just fire everyone and make Trump head of everything. Oh, wait: We’re already doing that. That’s my last comment on this article.
If people in important positions were fired for “rookie moves”, how come Trump is still president and in his second term?
Everyone has made a rookie move or three in their lives. That doesn’t mean they’re not qualified to do their jobs or shouldn’t have them. You say you fully agree with the article, but I don’t think you understood the article.
The point is that this is about more than Lisa Cook. This is about more than the FOMC. This is about every single person who might someday find themselves standing in the way of Trump’s agenda who, at some point in their lives, made a rookie mistake. It’s about that bureaucrat who might once have been willing to say, “No.” To become a whistle blower. To risk getting fired knowing there would be a rough battle ahead.
Before they might have told themselves, “Well, I’ll have no problem getting another job, I’ll be a hero. I can probably get pro bono representation or launch a go-fund-me to pay the legal bills. It’s worth paying that price for doing what’s right.” Only now, they’re thinking about that home office deduction they’ve been taking on their taxes for the last twelve years after their accountant friend told them they should do it because the IRS has no way of knowing that it isn’t true unless they actually come to your house and you know they’re never going to do that becuase let’s face it you are just not in that tax bracket and if you’re not taking the deduction then you’re a sucker.
So now the person who would have stood in the way of something unlawful that POTUS had ordered, depending on the person, now either meekly complyies or quietly resigns. What they don’t do is draw attention to themselves because they’re terrified of getting Lisa Cooked for that one rookie mistake they made. It’s like that Air Force general who just resigned two years into a four year post as the AF Chief of Staff. No one gets to the rank of 4 star general without wanting that more than anything else in the world. Can you imagine the grind? But then he just resigns. Sorry, “Announces his early retirement.” He got the message.
Some people will still stand up to Trump, but they’ll be people like Jerome Powell. At his age, I have to imagine Powell has been assuming for a while that this will be his last job ever, and he has nine figures in the bank. He can afford to be a major pain in the ass. But for every Jerome Powell, there are a hundred Lisa Cooks (and ten thousand Lisa Nobodies) who will step aside rather than do something stupid like defend democracy.
Bingo – notice how many people Trump has pardoned that have committed far worse fraud and gotten rewarded for it. Meanwhile, he is specifically targeting people and digging into their past to gain compliance. For once, the slippery slope argument does apply except we’ve already slid to the bottom of the hill and down the steep chasm to our doom.
This isn’t trying to rationalize Lisa Cook’s actions. It’s recognizing the one-sided nature of the standards being applied and how that’s transformed us into an autocracy. Imagine if police officers started pulling everyone over for speeding then checking their voter registration before deciding if they should get a ticket. That’s effectively what’s happening now.
Bingo
Judging by these reactions I should be comfortable with one of the most senior members of the Fed, if true, having willingly lied on her mortgage application to the same banks that are under the supervision of the Fed. Only with the aim to gain a personal, monetary advantage. Surely there is no conflict here, an undermining of authority or lack of respect to the banks or citizens who do have to play by the rules in their interactions with the government.
I’m not daft and as noted, agree with the article. But goal posts on integrity are being moved here as well.
Surely there must be a few smart people that are willing and capable of being a Fed board member, who do have impeccable reputations.
Active trading before Fed intervention during Covid and these types of, allegedly, small minded actions of fraud undermine public authority and affect voting patterns over time.
You might give me hell for the above but I stand by it.
Last words from me: if in a few years (big if), things have normalised and decency has returned in politics and government, I would hope people are content with the Fed chair or future president (republican or democrat) removing board members for similar infractions if those were to occur.
J. I am actually very sympathetic to your perspective. Fraud is wrong, and in some circumstances might be significant enough to disqualify a person from their current role. It is unclear to me if that is the case here, but it’s possible. That said, the more pertinent question remains: What is this Criminal Referral actually about? As H. observes in the daily: “If Pulte’s truly interested, as he claimed on Wednesday, in even-handed justice, then I suppose we should expect all 22,431 people identified by the Fed’s research on owner-occupancy fraud to be charged by the Justice Department, right?” I think it’s safe to say, that’s not gonna happen.
WMD in his comments above articulated the central issue eloquently and clearly. “This is about more than Lisa Cook…This is about every single person who might someday find themselves standing in the way of Trump’s agenda…” Whether or not Ms. Cook acted inappropriately–and she may have–the primary question is why was she singled out? The obvious answer is that she was singled out because the President wants to consolidate his power everywhere, and is more than comfortable using intimidation to achieve that end. Period.
We live in a country where the conservative Christian majority on the Supreme Court, procured with no expense spared by the Federalist Society, can’t possibly soil their panties defending equal protection under the law for voters by ruling on the merits of gerrymandering–it’s an icky political issue they can’t possibly wade into (which disproportionately benefits states already gerrymandered by conservative Christians)–but that same group has given the president a get-out-of-jail-free card while in office (which disproportionately benefits authoritarians propped up by conservative Christian supporters) as the penultimate insult to the founders by a cabal of partisan hacks. If you think they’re gonna defend the Constitution, think again. That matters, because it demonstrates that the only recourse for the actual PEOPLE is to fire their existing state and Federal legislatures–in droves, and in spite of gerrymandering. That will be difficult, to say the least. So I would ask you to direct your anger effectively. I would encourage you to use your voice, your pen and your wallet to support any adult, Democratic or Republican, who will uphold the rule of law and the active participation of the legislative branch in governing for the benefit of the people writ large, not just the favored few. That’s what matters now.
“I wish I was content to be ignorant.” – it’s sad but true. You can’t help but shake your head knowing this type of fraud was a typical Tuesday in the Trump org.
Pulte’s letter is cartoonish and would get me laughed out of my job if I presented anything like that. How is it possible for so many people to be this dumb (or evil)?
More propaganda tactics: pictures of her actual home where she actually lives. Talk about intimidation. He might as well just tweet, “We know who you are. We know where you live. And we know where your children play.”
I’m sure right now there’s a back-channel to Cook saying, “Listen, we know you can drag this out in the court for months, maybe years. Heck, you might even win. But we’re going to make things absolute hell for you. And I don’t just mean the legal expenses and the bad press. We’ll have MAGA protesting outside your house. If, on the other hand, you resign now, we promise Pam won’t press charges. Ball’s in your court Lisa, what’s it going to be?”
We have Capo Donald running the show with the FBI and Justice Dept as his enforcers instead of Willie the Hammer and Tony 2 Fingers.
Between homes, in late 2023, I rented from a landlord of a college town. The place was expensive, under construction, had radon/asbestos issues.
My landlord was very wealthy. She wouldn’t let us get out of our lease until we discovered some technicality on the way she filed some paperwork. At the same time, I realized that she had declared our unit and a unit across the street she rented as her primary residence. Back of the envelop math was that she was saving ~30k a month on taxes by doing this.
I didn’t realize this is what everyone with money does until today.
Trump would be an expert on lying to lenders
Oh my, no. Look at the woman’s picture. She is a BLACK woman. The MAGA base will be dlighted to see her pushed out on any pretense.
A real twofor for the undead crowd.
Sadly for the administration and the base, the Quota Queen does not appear to be a lesbian, so not a trifecta.
+1. Agree 100% the real reason she is being pushed out for her color and gender. Everything else is pretense.
Yeah, rethinking my earlier comment about someone back-channeling to tell her to resign, that might not actually be happening. After all, for your threats to be effective, people have to know you’ll follow through on them. That means making an example out of someone every now and then. Keeps the other rowers pulling hard at the oars. And what better person to make an example out of than a black woman? How long until Trump calls her a DEI hire? I have zero doubt that lesser flapping jaws have already said it.
H-Man, the only thing that will stop this nonsense is the economy tanking which is where it is going when the “new board” finds that real rate needs to be 2.5%.
Ironically, Trump is most likely guilty of this very same “crime”. IIRC as part of the agreemen turning Mar-A-Lago into a private club he was not allowed to ever claim it as a personal residence. And yet he did.
Moreover, one of the things Letitia James was looking into was his improperly claim of a NY property as a personal residence. And of course who could forget that his double bookeeping (ie: mortgage fraud) in relation to financing his NYC properties was the heart of her case.
Between the desire
And the spasm
Between the potency
And the existence
Between the essence
And the descent
Falls the Shadow
This should be of interest…
Trump buys more than $100 million in bonds since inauguration, disclosure shows – https://www.reuters.com/business/finance/trump-buys-more-than-100-million-bonds-since-inauguration-disclosure-shows-2025-08-20/
Gee, think that might give Agent Orange additional incentive (personal…beyond all the Family RE/Development business interests…) to push for lower rates?
Here’s hoping Fed buckles to pressure, cuts big…and Vigilantes jack up long bonds a couple hundred BP…
Pulte’s Pogrom, as I’ll call it, is just another variation of the Epstein files. A list of 22,000 folks possibly committing mortgage fraud who can be selectively leveraged. I believe that was the plan with the Epstein files as well, and still may be, although I believe the hold up is due to other possible stakeholders, most likely located in Israel and Russia, warning Mar-A-Lardo that they might not stand idly by while he blows up their 30+ year effort gathering those files just for Trump’s selective partisan gain.
The man who marries illegal immigrants can’t stand them. The man who said lying on his taxes was smart and that it was the lenders’ responsibility to catch phony property valuations, which they didn’t really care about anyway since they all made lots of money. And the man actively committing election fraud on an industrial scale is going to root out all the preexisting fraud he can’t seem to document even a little bit. And the best friend Jeffrey Epstein might have ever had, along with Epstein’s longtime next door neighbor, are going to produce those Epstein files, or what’s left of the government’s copy of them after 1,000 FBI monkeys mashed the delete key any time the name of Donald J. Trump appeared. Thank you for your attention to this matter.
Nah, they’ll just have Ghislaine clear Donald’s name and start naming Trump’s enemies. No need for the files when you have an honest and upstanding citizen like Ghislaine repenting and pointing fingers at the real perpetrators.
I don’t think any of the other stakeholders are going to allow either Trump or Maxwell (or anyone else) to slay their golden Epstein goose for their strictly personal gains. I expect to see Steven Cheung put on his Bill Barr hat and de-Muellerize any smoking gun with anodyne yet confusing language detailing the “principal conclusions” that Trump never set foot on that island, let alone participated in sex trafficking and assault. Followed, of course, by a Mar-A-Lardo trumpet: “TOTAL EXONERATION!”
That gets Trump out of the hot water he recently put himself in promising to reveal the files, while keeping him in the hot water he originally put himself in back in the 80s and 90s, and the golden goose alive and well for future exploitation by all stakeholders alike.