Admin Renews Push to Fire Fed Gov Cook 09/15 06:18

   

   (AP) -- President Donald Trump's administration renewed its request Sunday 
for a federal appeals court to let him fire Lisa Cook from the Federal 
Reserve's board of governors, a move the president is seeking ahead of the 
central bank's vote on interest rates.

   The Trump administration filed a response just ahead of a 3 p.m. Eastern 
deadline Sunday to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, 
arguing that Cook's legal arguments for why she should stay on the job were 
meritless. Lawyers for Cook argued in a Saturday filing that the Trump 
administration has not shown sufficient cause to fire her, and stressed the 
risks to the economy and country if the president were allowed to fire a Fed 
governor without proper cause.

   Sunday's filing is the latest step in an unprecedented effort by the White 
House to shape the historically independent Fed. Cook's firing marks the first 
time in the central bank's 112-year history that a president has tried to fire 
a governor.

   "The public and the executive share an interest in ensuring the integrity of 
the Federal Reserve," Trump's lawyers argued in Sunday's filing. "And that 
requires respecting the president's statutory authority to remove governors 
'for cause' when such cause arises."

   Bill Pulte, a Trump appointee to the agency that regulates mortgage giants 
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, has accused Cook of signing separate documents in 
which she allegedly said that both the Atlanta property and a home in Ann 
Arbor, Michigan, also purchased in June 2021, were both "primary residences." 
Pulte submitted a criminal referral to the Justice Department, which has opened 
an investigation.

   Trump relied on those allegations to fire Cook "for cause."

   Cook, the first Black woman to serve as a Fed governor, referred to the 
condominium as a "vacation home" in a loan estimate, a characterization that 
could undermine claims by the Trump administration that she committed mortgage 
fraud. Documents obtained by The Associated Press also showed that on a second 
form submitted by Cook to gain a security clearance, she described the property 
as a "second home."

   Cook sued the Trump administration to block her firing and a federal judge 
ruled Tuesday that the removal was illegal and reinstated her to the Fed's 
board.

   The administration appealed and asked for an emergency ruling just before 
the Fed is set to meet this week and decide whether to reduce its key interest 
rate. Most economists expect they will cut the rate by a quarter point.