President Trump has named a committee to recommend whether there is cause to remove the governor; her lawyer has asked to delay a Nov. 5 hearing until December.
When the Federal Reserve’s policy committee convenes in Washington on Tuesday for its Oct. 27-28 meeting, one of the 12 voters at the table will be a governor whose possible removal is under formal review at the White House.
Lisa D. Cook, who earned her doctorate in economics at the University of California, Berkeley, in 1997, has served on the Fed’s Board of Governors since May 2022. On Oct. 7, President Trump created a three-member “committee of inquiry” to investigate allegations that she made false statements on mortgage documents and to recommend whether there is legal cause to remove her. Ms. Cook has denied the allegations, and no criminal charges have been filed.
The outcome matters in the Bay Area, where home prices make mortgage rates a household concern and where the region’s technology companies are among the most sensitive to borrowing costs. It also tests, for the first time, how a president may remove a Fed governor under the standard the Supreme Court set this summer.
The administration’s case
The president’s Oct. 7 memorandum, published in the Federal Register on Oct. 14, grounds the inquiry in his constitutional duty to see that the laws are faithfully executed. “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,” the memo says, citing Article II, Section 3.
The memo names the assistant to the president for economic policy, the chairman of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the director of the Office of Government Ethics as the committee’s members. It directs them to report whether there is “cause” for removal under 12 U.S.C. 242, the Federal Reserve Act’s removal provision, as the Supreme Court construed it in Trump v. Cook.
The process it lays out is detailed. The committee must give Ms. Cook the evidence it is considering before a closed, transcribed hearing at the White House on Nov. 5, limited to four hours. She may submit a written statement three days in advance, present argument, written evidence and witness statements, and be represented by counsel. She may file a post-hearing statement by Nov. 10, after which the committee is to send the president written findings of fact and conclusions of law and a recommendation. The committee may consult with the Justice Department and may adjust the procedures with adequate notice.
The White House has described that as more than the law requires. “The President is going beyond what the Supreme Court required by offering Lisa Cook an in-person hearing that will be conducted in a fair and open process,” a White House spokesman, Matthew Middleton, told CNBC, adding that the president “is performing his constitutional duty in evaluating Lisa Cook’s conduct and eligibility to continue serving as a governor on the Federal Reserve.” The Constitution, he said, “charges the President with ensuring that the laws are faithfully executed and that the conduct of members of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System is above reproach.”
Mr. Trump has also criticized the governor directly, calling her “dishonest” and an “automatic no vote” in remarks to reporters on Oct. 10, CNBC reported. “She shouldn’t be in an important position,” he said.
What the Supreme Court decided
The committee exists because of the court’s ruling in June. In Trump v. Cook, decided 5 to 4 on June 29, the justices held that the president’s determination of cause is subject to judicial review, that Ms. Cook had not received the notice and hearing the Federal Reserve Act requires, and that the act’s for-cause protection is constitutional, according to a Congressional Research Service analysis. Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. wrote for the majority, joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, Brett M. Kavanaugh and Ketanji Brown Jackson. Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel A. Alito Jr., joined by Justice Neil M. Gorsuch, and Amy Coney Barrett dissented.
The court described cause as a “substantial threshold” but did not decide whether the allegations against Ms. Cook meet it. The government has argued that the president must be able to remove officials to carry out his duty to “take Care” that the laws are faithfully executed.
The case began in August 2025, when Mr. Trump moved to fire Ms. Cook after a referral from William J. Pulte, the director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, concerning mortgages she obtained in 2021, before she joined the board. A federal district judge in Washington blocked the removal that September, and the appeals court there declined to lift the order.
Ms. Cook’s response
Ms. Cook’s lawyer, Abbe Lowell, wrote to the White House counsel, William Scharf, on Oct. 13 that she could not attend the Nov. 5 hearing because she “will be executing her official duties as Governor at financial and monetary policy meetings in Europe,” The Associated Press reported. The earliest she could appear, he wrote, would be after the Fed’s Dec. 8-9 meeting.
Mr. Lowell also questioned the panel itself. “A hearing with demonstrably biased members, unspecified additional allegations, and an unclear schedule for the disclosure of any additional evidence – with no explanation for why it was not previously produced – is not a process that respects the appearance or history of independence,” he wrote. He pointed to an earlier public comment by Kevin Hassett, the president’s top economic adviser and a committee member, that the president has cause to remove her. The letter did not rule out an appearance; Mr. Lowell wrote that Ms. Cook “welcomes the opportunity to present the facts so she can clear her name,” according to CNBC.
As of the most recent public reporting, the White House had not said whether it would move the date.
A Berkeley economist at the table
Ms. Cook came to Berkeley after degrees from Spelman College and, as a Marshall Scholar, Oxford. Her Berkeley dissertation examined how property rights shaped banking in czarist and post-Soviet Russia, under the economist Barry Eichengreen. She went on to teach at Harvard’s Kennedy School and Michigan State University, and served on the White House Council of Economic Advisers under President Barack Obama, according to her official biography. In 2022 she became the first Black woman to serve on the Fed’s board, Berkeley noted at the time. Her current term runs to January 2038.
Her record on rates has moved with the committee. She last voted for a rate cut in December 2025, siding with the majority, and in September the Fed voted unanimously to raise rates, CNBC reported. This week’s decision, due Wednesday afternoon, will be her first since the president named the committee.
For now, Ms. Cook remains in office. Under the Supreme Court’s ruling, any removal must rest on cause and is subject to review by the courts. The committee’s schedule, and whether the White House accepts a December date, will determine how soon that question returns to court.
Marcus Thibodeaux covers UC Berkeley alumni in business, startups, venture capital, industry and government, from Sand Hill Road boardrooms to Sacramento and Washington, for the Inquirer’s Berkeley Alumni desk. More from Marcus Thibodeaux
