Trump Forms Three-Member Committee to Investigate Fed Governor Lisa Cook

The White House announced Oct. 9, 2026, that Trump formed a three-member committee, including his assistant for economic policy, the EEOC chair and the Office of Government Ethics director, to review whether he has cause to remove Fed Governor Lisa Cook. The panel will weigh Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Bill Pulte's allegation that Cook misrepresented two properties on a 2021 mortgage application made before she joined the Fed; a Nov. 5 hearing has been set at which Cook must answer questions.

This is Trump's latest attempt to remove Cook since August 2025, after a federal judge blocked an earlier firing and the Supreme Court declined to let the removal take effect while litigation continued, ruling instead that a president cannot remove a Fed governor without adequate cause and a clear process laying out reasons and evidence. A president assembling his own committee to build a removal case against a central bank governor, mid-litigation over that question, bears on the Fed's independence from White House pressure, a check on political control of monetary policy.

Cook remains in her Fed seat, which runs through 2038, while the case continues in district court; the Nov. 5 hearing is the next step.