Trump’s Fed Lisa Cook committee explained: What happens next

President Donald Trump on Friday announced an unusual legal step: He created a committee to help him decide whether to fire Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook.

Trump has accused Cook of mortgage fraud, and in 2025 ordered her to be fired. The Supreme Court blocked that effort on procedural grounds but said he could try again. Trump in August informed Cook that he was considering another attempt to fire her. Her attorneys responded later that month, denying the allegations of fraud and saying Trump had no cause to remove her. 

The decision to form what Trump is calling a “committee of inquiry” raises a number of questions about the path forward for Trump and Cook. 

According to the president’s memo, Cook is expected to attend a hearing at the White House on Nov. 5. She can bring an attorney. The committee will weigh the evidence against her and her response. She will have until Nov. 10 to follow up after the proceedings.

Then the committee will make a recommendation to the president as to whether there is cause to fire her from the Fed. The final call is up to the president. There is no set deadline for that final decision.

Trump appointed three people to hear the evidence against Cook: Kevin Hassett, director of the National Economic Council; Keith Sonderling, acting director of the Office of Government Ethics and Labor secretary; and Andrea R. Lucas, chair of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. All three are Trump appointees.

Yes, at least once. The Supreme Court’s majority opinion in Trump v. Cook, written by Chief Justice John Roberts, mentions a precedent.

President William Howard Taft in 1912 convened a similar “committee of inquiry” to consider the removal of two members of the Board of General Appraisers, a precursor to what is now the U.S. Court of International Trade. The committee ultimately recommended their removal. Roberts describes the committee as “a prime example of the view that Taft was our ‘most judicial president,’ as he was our most ‘presidential chief justice.’ ”

But notably, the Supreme Court didn’t require Trump or other presidents to follow that example. The court says Cook was entitled to notice of the president’s decision, an explanation of the evidence, and an opportunity to present her defense. That process could take place entirely in writing, Roberts notes.

A Fed governor is not “entitled to an audience with the President or a full-blown judicial trial,” Roberts writes.