Lisa Cook has been hit with a second criminal referral, adding new pressure on the embattled Federal Reserve Governor as she defies President Trump's decision to fire her for mortgage fraud.
The complaint, from federal housing regulator Bill Pulte, flags a third home that Cook owns in Massachusetts, while raising new questions about her properties in Georgia and Michigan.
“3 strikes and you’re out. Today, US Federal Housing sent a 2nd Criminal Referral in the matter of Lisa D. Cook, related to a mortgage on a 3rd property and alleged misrepresentations about her properties to the United States Government during her time as Governor of the Federal Reserve,” Pulte wrote on X.
According to Pulte, Cook got a 15-year mortgage in 2021 for a condo in Massachusetts priced at $361,000, listing it as her "second home."
Eight months later, Cook declared the home as an investment property and reported $15,000-50,000 in rental income.
“Second homes receive lower mortgage costs than investment properties, because investment properties are inherently riskier,” Pulte noted in his complaint.
“This is extremely troubling because, in addition to other reasons, by potentially falsely representing the property as a second home, Cook may have received savings by not declaring it as an investment property.”
Earlier this month, Pulte filed a complaint with the Justice Department that accused Cook of claiming her Michigan and Georgia homes as her primary residences at the same time. The complaint triggered Trump to fire Cook, a Biden appointee, who filed a lawsuit Thursday to keep her job.
Her lawyers blamed the discrepancies in her mortgage statements on a "clerical error" that occurred before she joined the central bank, but the new criminal referral alleges Cook made "multiple false representations" to the government while working at the Federal Reserve.
For instance, Pulte alleges that there is reason to believe that Cook is currently renting out her Ann Arbor, Michigan property, despite listing it as a primary residence.
Furthermore, Pulte says that Cook has in the past or is currently renting out her Atlanta, Georgia property, which she declared a primary residence in government disclosures from 2022 through 2025; Cook joined the Fed in 2023.
Pulte is asking the DOJ to probe "further potential criminal violations as well as material misrepresentations to the United States Senate and the United States Government in order to, amongst other things, acquire and retain her position as Governor.”
Cook's lawyer, former Hunter Biden attorney Abbe Lowell, dismissed the fresh allegations as a "smear."
“This is an obvious smear campaign aimed at discrediting Gov. Cook by a political operative who has taken to social media more than 30 times in the last two days and demanded her removal before any review of the facts or evidence,” Lowell said.
