Peru’s General Óscar Benavides
“For my friends, everything; for my enemies, the law.”
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Lying about your intent to reside is ridiculously common. I can’t imagine doing that in a high profile public trust job though.
screwing around with the independence of the Fed is pretty shady though. He’s playing with fire.
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Sad thing is, most of that used to be seen as perks of the job and no one thought twice about it on either side. It’s why government work has always paid less than the private sector. It’s only seen as corruption because some busybodies got fixated on the notion that someone was getting something that they werent able to get. This is a little different because it involves lying and signing false statements and not a perk, but still, if the lender shose to look the other way that’s their prerogative.
My question is, how did this even come to light? Because it doesnt sound like anything the lender(s) are pursuing. I’d expect her to be fired in reaction to being charged, but this looks like they went out digging for dirt themselves and no one really cares otherwise.
Aren’t laws pesky? Those envious people! Just because they can’t milk the system, they don’t want others to do it either! /s
My main concern is what will happen, if anything, when the markets decide the Fed has lost independence. How bad could be the impact on the treasury market? Any guesses?
It’s always been beneficial to have an ‘in’‘. I had privileges at our highschool as a student, that I feel I’d be prosecuted for these days.
My driveway is the only one on the street with no seam with the road, I’m pretty sure the driveway was paved when they paved the road decades ago. The house was also built/owned by the founding Director of the County Health Department before we bought it. That isnt a coincidence. And I’m pretty sure at the time no one considered it controversial. Today, it would land people in prison.
I just think it’s petty, how people are more worried about what others may be benefitting. And focus more on destroying other’s relationships instead of building their own.
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When Trump was talking about firing J Powell, he got a lot of pushback due to concerns just like those you cite, and backed off talk of firing him to just criticizing him for not lowering rates like he’d be doing before. I think the markets would take that loss of independence quite badly and he cares a lot about market reactions (which impact his popularity) so this isn’t likely to happen.
I also doubt that the lenders care much about whether these were primary or secondary residence loans now after 4 years of her repaying the loans. Not that it’s totally a victimless crime but it seems extremely unlikely to me that these concerns were brought to the attention of the FHFA by anyone actually affected by these transactions.
Firing for cause option was clearly explored when trying to fire Powell for his alleged mismanagement of the Fed renovation. From there, Trump likely tasked his administration to extend the dirt digging to all board members nominated by Biden (and possibly all those not supporting aggressive rate cuts). Pulte has been pretty happy to oblige such requests in the past and I also assume that her being at the beginning of her 14 year term, and her affirmative action focus in publications did make her a prime target for the dirt digging efforts.
Overall, to me, this smells very close to the politics version of a traffic stop. If you look hard enough and go back far enough, you’ll probably find some infraction, no matter how consequential or unrelated to the job.
I don’t think she had been appointed to the Fed board at the time she took out these loans. And I don’t think her public profile was too high before that. Surely the scrutiny comes with the job. Although none of this came up during her Senate confirmation so either it was not found out or it was not deemed important enough (I assume the former).
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Cook won’t leave, presumably she next gets charged with mortgage fraud and then the courts let Trump fire her.
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Wouldn’t she need to not only be charged but also convicted? Would she get her job back if fired for cause but later found not guilty of the charge?
Otherwise, why simply not charge anyone you want removed of whatever you can think of, and then regardless of how solid your case is, remove them for cause? Might as well remove the for cause language if it’s guilty until proven innocent.
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It’s a bit more complicated than that. If you’ve got a regulator with serious public concerns about their suitability or integrity, the appearance of impropriety may alone be enough to make them ineffective at their job. Notably, she’s asking a court in her defense claims to stop J Powell from firing over the same thing, which I guess means maybe he has the power to fire her based on other factors than “cause”?
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/08/28/lisa-cook-federal-reserve-lawsuit-00533253
Not that Powell is any friend of Trump to rid him of this turbulent diversity hire, but if Powell decided he could fire her over the issues her fraud allegations were causing for Fed credibility, maybe then she doesn’t have as much protection as if Trump tries to do it himself.
But an allegation must be proven, no? Otherwise it’s a slippery slope.
Also it doesn’t seem like anybody gives a shit about anyone’s credibility. The Fed, BLS, NIH, CDC are all under an unprecedented attack.
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That argument is still fishy, especially for this case (criminal behavior from prior to her confirmation and unrelated to her current position). First, from what I’ve read on this type of cases, it’s not certain that she’s going to be found guilty of whatever charge they’ll eventually file, especially if the lender does not consider having suffered losses.
But beyond that, if the “removal for cause only” bar is actually “appearance of impropriety” instead of conviction, that opens the door to frivolously purging whoever you don’t like for any reason. Overall, I find it hard to defend allowing the accuser to also be judge and executioner for positions that are subject only to removal for cause. Now if Powell and/or maybe a majority of her peers at the Fed agreed that this is improper behavior that made her job untenable, then to me, that’d be a more reasonable standard.
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Certainly credibility of CDC did not improve recently LOL.
And honestly I don’t see how keeping or removing Cook would improve that of the Fed either. The fact that a (relatively easy to find) behavior likely indicative of her character and/or competence as potential Fed governor only surfaced 3 years after her Senate confirmation by a party line vote tells you much about the actual vetting process from both sides (posturing >>>> fact finding).
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