White House Announces Nov. 5 Hearing in Trump's Push to Remove Fed Governor Lisa Cook

WASHINGTON — FRIDAY, OCTOBER 9, 2026 — The Supreme Court told the White House last summer that Lisa Cook was entitled to due process before it could remove her from the Federal Reserve's Board of Governors. On Friday, the White House answered: it will hold the hearing itself. President Donald Trump announced the formation of a "committee of inquiry" to investigate alleged false statements by Cook "in connection with one or more mortgage instruments," with an in-person hearing at the White House scheduled for Nov. 5, according to a memorandum dated Oct. 7 and released Friday on the White House's social media accounts.

01 What the White House announced

The memorandum, reported by CNN, Reuters, the New York Post and Barron's on Friday morning, directs a three-person committee to investigate the allegations against Cook and report back to the president on whether there is "cause" for her removal. "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 announcement, according to the New York Post's account of the memo.

The committee's members, according to the White House statement reported by CNN, are National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett — a longtime defender of Trump's economic agenda whom the president had considered for Fed chair — newly installed Labor Secretary Keith Sonderling, who is also serving as acting director of the Office of Government Ethics, and Equal Employment Opportunity Commission chair Andrea Lucas. All three are executive-branch officials appointed by Trump.

Per Barron's reporting on the memorandum, the hearing will take place at the White House and last no longer than four hours. Cook may submit a written position statement to the committee at least three days before the hearing, as well as a post-hearing written statement by Nov. 10.

02 The allegations behind it

The dispute traces to late August 2025, when Trump first moved to fire Cook — a Biden appointee and the first Black woman to serve on the Federal Reserve's Board of Governors — after Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Bill Pulte sent a criminal referral to the Justice Department, according to Mortgage Professional America's account of the timeline. Pulte alleged that Cook had simultaneously designated properties in Michigan and Georgia as her primary residence during a two-week period in 2021, a classification that typically qualifies borrowers for more favorable loan terms than second-home or investment-property designations.

Cook denied wrongdoing and sued to block her removal. Her attorney, Abbe Lowell, responded to the White House on Aug. 26 with a five-page letter and exhibits arguing that the allegations "remain unfounded and untrue," according to MPA. Lowell's letter argued that the paperwork discrepancy was "unintentional, not criminal, and occurred in her private capacity before she took office" — that the lender, which had worked with Cook in the past, knew she worked full time as a tenured professor at Michigan State University, that other documents described the Georgia property as a "second home," and that a mortgage expert hired by Cook found no evidence she had received more favorable loan terms. Lowell also noted that Cook had considered renting out the Georgia property but never did. In an earlier round of the fight, Lowell pointed to press reports that Trump himself, along with several current or former cabinet officials, had listed multiple properties as a primary residence.

03 The Supreme Court set the terms

The June Supreme Court ruling is what made Friday's announcement possible — and what makes it contentious. In a 5-4 decision, the Court ruled that Cook could remain in her post while she fights Trump's removal effort, finding that Trump had not afforded her adequate process to contest the action. Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in his majority opinion that "at minimum, Cook was entitled to some explanation of the evidence at issue, some avenue for a response, and a deadline by which a response would be due," according to Barron's account of the opinion.

But Roberts also wrote that the "ultimate question of whether the president can remove Cook for cause will depend in part on the underlying facts," and noted, in his words quoted by CNN, that "we have not addressed the facts, as they have yet to be found or analyzed under the relevant legal standards." The law allows a president to remove Fed governors for cause, which is generally interpreted to mean negligence or malfeasance in the role.

That is the opening Friday's committee is designed to walk through. "This seems tailor-made to address the Supreme Court's biggest criticism in its last attempt: that Governor Cook didn't have a chance to defend herself," Tim Mahedy, CEO of the research firm Access/Macro and a former official at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, told CNN. In other words: the Court said give her a process, and the White House is now building one — inside the White House, staffed by the president's own people.

04 "A box checking exercise" vs. "an illegitimate show trial"

Cook's legal team is not treating the committee as a neutral tribunal. Attorneys Abbe Lowell and Norm Eisen said Friday that they have been in touch with the White House "to evaluate whether the process proposed has a possibility of being a genuine one and not simply a box checking exercise," according to the statement provided to CNN. "Governor Cook welcomes the opportunity to present the facts so she can clear her name and demonstrate there is no legal basis to fire her," they said.

Democrats went further. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, the top Democrat on the Senate Banking Committee, told Bloomberg Law that "President Trump is convening an illegitimate show trial in his dangerous quest to illegally take over our nation's central bank," adding: "Instead of playing judge in a kangaroo court of his own making, Trump should end the war in Iran and cancel his chaotic tariffs."

The legal fight is on a tight clock. Bloomberg Law reported that the Justice Department and Cook's lawyers are due to file a report on Nov. 6 — the day after the White House hearing — with a federal judge in Washington about how they want to proceed with her original lawsuit contesting Trump's bid to fire her.

05 Why it matters beyond one governor

This is not just a personnel dispute. The committee's work lands weeks before the Fed's next monetary policy meeting, where officials will consider whether interest rate changes are warranted, according to CNN. At its September meeting, all 12 members of the rate-setting committee — including Trump-appointed chair Kevin Warsh, who took over after Jerome Powell's term expired — voted to raise rates for the first time in three years, in an effort to contain inflation that CNN reports has heated up largely due to the U.S. war with Iran.

Trump has long berated the politically independent Fed for not lowering rates to his liking, publicly targeting Cook and Powell. But he has spared Warsh, insisting instead that the chairman is blocked by a "political" Board of Governors. As CNN reported Friday, Trump had earlier told Time Magazine in an interview published this month that he didn't blame Warsh for the hike: "I don't blame Kevin Warsh," Trump said. "I probably would have voted against the Board if I were him." Removing Cook — appointed by Joe Biden in 2022, the first Black woman on the Board, with a term set to run to 2038 — would hand the president another vote on a board he says is standing in his way.

The stakes for markets are real. A Fed whose governors can be removed by a president for policy disagreements is a fundamentally different institution than the independent central bank Congress designed — and the rate outlook has already been whipsawed this week by Friday's selloff and the war-driven inflation underneath it.