Fed’s Cook spent US$1.2 million on legal services fighting firing by Trump

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U.S. Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook, who is fighting an effort by U.S. President Donald Trump to fire her over mortgage fraud allegations she says are untrue, disclosed on Thursday extensive payments associated with her legal case as well as payments made on her behalf for security work.

Cook reported almost US$1.2 million in legal services payments as her case has made its way up to the Supreme Court, in a filing made public by the U.S. Office of Government Ethics.

The filing listed legal services payments on Cook’s behalf totaling $696,346 from the State Democracy Defenders Fund and $477,951 from Contina Impact. The filing also noted that Contina Impact paid $143,908 for “security services,” and that three personal friends of Cook also made contributions on the Fed governor’s behalf for security work.

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According to Candid’s Guidestar, State Democracy Defenders Fund gets its money from a number of donors, including the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and the Open Society Action Fund. The State Democracy Defenders Fund counts as a director Norm Eisen, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.

The State Democracy Defenders Fund is currently being targeted by Republicans in Congress over whether it is using funds in a manner consistent with its publicly stated purpose.

The Supreme Court is expected by the end of this month to rule in Cook’s case, which is seen as pivotal to the U.S. central bank’s retaining the ability to make monetary policy free of political pressures.

A representative for Cook did not immediately respond to a request for comment about her legal and security bills.

Trump attempted to fire Cook from the central bank in August over unsubstantiated claims of impropriety involving mortgage borrowing. Cook contested her firing, which has thus far been blocked by courts.

The legal wranglings Cook is facing come as part of broader challenges faced by the central bank in Trump’s second term in office. The president has severely criticized the Fed for its reluctance to cut interest rates and his Department of Justice targeted Fed Chair Jerome Powell over cost overruns of the central bank headquarters.

Powell fought back and argued the legal actions were in effect punishment for not cutting interest rates, as the president had attempted to command. That attack has essentially ended and the renovations issue is now in the hands of the Fed’s Inspector General, its in-house watchdog.

The de facto end of the probe into Powell cleared the way for the Senate to confirm Kevin Warsh as chair of the central bank. He led the interest-rate-setting Federal Open Market Committee meeting this week for the first time.

Over recent years the Fed has faced a range of troubles due to officials’ trading activities, spanning a number of critical reports from the Fed IG as well as early exits by some officials. The Fed’s IG is slated to weigh in at some point over a series of trades done by the husband of Adriana Kugler, a Fed governor who retired abruptly last year.

In early 2022 the Fed sharply tightened its ethics code to limit what Fed officials, their families and top staff could invest in and when they could trade.

(Reporting by Ann Saphir and Michael S. Derby; Editing by Bill Berkrot and Andrea Ricci)