Lawyers for Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook mentioned allegations she dedicated mortgage fraud are “baseless” and urged the Justice Department to drop its inquiry.
The Justice Department indicated this summer it will assessment Cook’s mortgages after receiving a referral from Bill Pulte, the director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, alleging she engaged in mortgage fraud by claiming a number of properties have been major residences. President Donald Trump used the allegations as a foundation to attempt to fireplace Cook. She sued to hold her job and the Supreme Court is expected to decide the case subsequent 12 months.
In a letter sent Monday to Attorney General Pam Bondi and Ed Martin, particular lawyer for mortgage fraud, and obtained by NCS, Cook’s lawyer Abbe Lowell mentioned the information point out Cook’s purposes have been correct.
“The full record makes clear that what he claims to be contradictions in loan applications were not contradictions at all but were cherry-picked, incomplete snippets of the full documents submitted at the time and in subsequent filings by Governor Cook consistent with her applications. The referrals are baseless and should not have been made in the first place,” Lowell wrote.
Pulte, who has made referrals to DOJ involving allegations of mortgage fraud towards distinguished Democrats, highlighted three properties Cook owns in Massachusetts, Georgia and Michigan. He alleged Cook improperly claimed they have been major residences in paperwork looking for mortgages, which her lawyer denied.
In the 54-page letter, together with dozens of pages of displays, Lowell wrote that Cook took out mortgages on houses as major residences as a result of that’s the place she lived on the time.
“Governor Cook had different principal residences over the years because her distinguished career had taken her to academic posts at Harvard University and Michigan State University, a postdoctoral fellowship at Stanford’s Hoover Institution, and a government post at the White House Council of Economic Advisers in Washington, D.C. This reflects why different mortgage applications accurately reported different properties as her primary residence at different periods of time,” Lowell wrote.
Lowell conceded “an inadvertent notation” in a doc associated to a rental she bought in Atlanta in 2021 that mentioned the rental is a major residence. Lowell mentioned one other mortgage doc within the software acknowledged the rental is a “vacation home.”
“Because Governor Cook submitted that document to the lender as well, it would be impossible to conclude that she intended to defraud the lender by inadvertently listing the property as her ‘Primary Residence’ elsewhere,” Lowell wrote.
Lowell mentioned Cook purchased her first house in 2002 in Cambridge and it was her major residence till she accepted an assistant professor place at Michigan State University and purchased the property there in 2005. When Cook later refinanced the Cambridge house, Lowell mentioned, she up to date the paperwork to mirror it was now not her major residence.
Cook has lived on and off on the Ann Arbor, Michigan, house since 2005, Lowell mentioned. When she refinanced the mortgage in 2021, he mentioned, it was nonetheless her major residence as a result of she was nonetheless employed on the faculty.
Cook turned a Federal Reserve governor in 2022. Lowell mentioned she obtained permits to hire the property in Michigan till she returns when her time period in Washington, DC, is up. He cites a metropolis official as stating that residing elsewhere on a brief foundation “does not necessarily make an owner ineligible for a principal residence exemption.”
“There is no fraud, no intent to deceive, nothing whatsoever criminal or remotely a basis to allege mortgage fraud,” Lowell wrote within the letter.
Lowell additionally represents New York Attorney General Letitia James in a prison case on related mortgage fraud claims initiated by Pulte.