President Donald Trump says he's "always" prepared for a legal fight on Tuesday, as Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook intends to sue over him trying to fire her. Trump has accused the Fed official of mortgage fraud.
"Fed Governor Lisa Cook — her lawyer has said that they're going to be filing a lawsuit challenging this legal action. What is your response?" a reporter asked the president during a meeting of Trump's Cabinet. "Are you prepared for a legal fight?"
"Always," Trump said. "Look, I had a legal fight that went on for years with crooked people, with very horrible people, people that have been found out now between John Ratcliffe and Tulsi and Pam."
"She seems to have had an infraction and she can't have an infraction, especially that infraction, because she's in charge of, if you think about it, mortgages," Trump continued.
The Trump administration alleges that Cook engaged in mortgage fraud prior to 2022 when she became the first Black female member of the Fed board. Cook has never been charged or convicted of a crime.Trump announced his decision to fire Cook in a note posted on social media Monday. She is the first Fed governor that a president has tried to fire. He cited a provision in the Fed's founding statute that grants him the ability to dismiss a board members for sufficient cause, which is typically understood as negligence or malfeasance. Cook's lawyer asserts that the president has "no authority" to conduct the firing.
"We need people that are 100 percent above board," Trump said. "And it doesn't seem like she was."
While some legal experts argue that Trump’s move is a longshot, the president has not hid one of his motivating factors in the firing: Trump desires control over the Fed.
Trump later mused that he would have a "majority very shortly" at the Fed.
