Like Fed official Trump wants to fire, 3 Cabinet members claimed multiple ‘primary’ residences on mortgage documents
In the fight for control of the nation’s central bank, President Donald Trump took aim at Lisa Cook, a Biden-nominated Federal Reserve governor, alleging she committed mortgage fraud by claiming more than one of her homes as her primary residence. Trump is trying to fire Cook from the Fed, and his Justice Department opened a criminal investigation.
But a new report by the nonprofit news organization ProPublica said multiple members of Trump’s cabinet have also submitted mortgage applications claiming more than one property as their primary residence. The revelation raises questions about the legitimacy of the Trump administration’s pursuit of Cook, and of other perceived enemies of the president accused of the same violation.
ProPublica quoted real estate experts who said the Trump administration has mischaracterized mortgage rules to take control of the Fed and to punish other political enemies.
“Its justification for launching criminal investigations, they said, could also apply to the Trump Cabinet members,” Robert Faturechi, Justin Elliott and Alex Mierjeski wrote.
Cook has denied wrongdoing and filed a lawsuit against Trump, saying her termination was unlawful. She contends Trump’s actions undermine the central bank’s longstanding autonomy from political influence.
Lisa Cook’s mortgages
In general, when a borrower claims a home as aprimary residence, the mortgage interest rate tends to be lower than it would be with a second home or a rental property.
In 2021, the year before she was appointed to the Fed’s Board of Governors, Cook secured two mortgages for homes, one in Georgia and the other in Michigan. She signed documents that claimed each was her primary residence.
Those mortgage documents came to Trump’s attention as he pressured the Fed to aggressively lower interest rates. He publicly weighed firing Fed Chair Jerome Powell in July, but backed off after turbulence in the stock markets.
On Aug. 25, however, Trump fired Cook, citing a criminal referral from Bill Pulte, whom he appointed as director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency.
“You are hereby removed from your position on the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve, effectively immediately,” Trump wrote. “…There is sufficient reason to believe you may have made false statements on one or more mortgage agreements.”
Trump said the criminal referral detailed how Cook signed a document saying her Michigan property would be her primary home for the next year, then two weeks later signed another document saying that her Georgia home would be her primary residence for the same period.
“It is inconceivable that you were not aware of your first commitment when making the second,” he wrote. “It is impossible that you intended to honor both.”
The Department of Justice is investigating Cook for mortgage fraud, though she has not been charged.
“I will not resign,” Cook said in a statement her attorneys shared with CNN on Monday. “I will continue to carry out my duties to help the American economy as I have been doing since 2022.”
Trump’s cabinet members allegedly doing the same
Cook is the most recent official Trump and his administration have accused of mortgage fraud. They also targeted Sen. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., who led the first impeachment proceedings against Trump during his first term, and New York Attorney General Letitia James, whose office secured a nearly $500 million civil fraud verdict against Trump in 2024. The verdict was recently overturned, but James said her office will appeal.
But at least three members of Trump’s cabinet — Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy and Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin — have also claimed more than one home as primary residences, according to the report in ProPublica. Its reporters discovered the multiple mortgages by examining financial disclosure forms, real estate records and publicly available mortgage data.
All three cabinet members denied any wrongdoing.
Is this common practice?
According to ProPublica, real estate experts said claiming primary residences for different mortgages concurrently is often legal. It’s also rarely prosecuted, ProPublica said.
In 2021, according to the United States Sentencing Commission, a total of 58 people were sentenced in federal court on mortgage fraud charges.
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Ella Rae Greene, Editor In Chief
