The Trump administration has formally restarted the process to remove Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook from her post, sending her a written notice and a three-week deadline to respond, months after the Supreme Court blocked the president's first attempt.

White House Deputy Chief of Staff Dan Scavino sent Cook a letter this week telling her that President Trump was "considering removing you from your position," the Daily Mail reported. The letter gave Cook until August 26 to challenge the potential removal and cited the Supreme Court's requirement that proper notice be provided before a sitting Fed governor can be fired for cause.

The letter alleged "gross negligence" and referenced mortgage fraud accusations that carry possible prison sentences of up to 30 years, Newsmax reported. Those accusations stem from a criminal referral filed last August by Bill Pulte, director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, who accused Cook of declaring two different homes, one in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and one in Atlanta, as her "primary residence" on mortgage documents filed two weeks apart in 2021.

No charges have been brought against Cook to date.

A second try after the Supreme Court said no the first time

Trump's original attempt to fire Cook last August made him the first president in the Federal Reserve's nearly 112-year history to try to remove a sitting governor. Cook, who was nominated by Joe Biden, sued to block her removal. A lower court ruled in her favor, and the Supreme Court upheld that result in June with a narrow 5-4 decision.

Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Brett Kavanaugh, Trump's own nominee, joined the three liberal justices, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson, in the majority. The ruling allowed Cook to remain in her post at least as long as her lawsuit challenging the firing continues. But Roberts left a door open. In a footnote, the Chief Justice noted that Trump was not forbidden from "trying again" to fire Cook, provided she receives proper notice and a chance to contest it, Breitbart reported.

That footnote is now the legal foundation for the White House's second attempt.

During oral arguments earlier this year, the administration's top lawyer, John Sauer, struggled to find sympathy on the bench. Justice Kavanaugh pressed Sauer on what an unchecked presidential removal power would mean for the central bank. Kavanaugh told Sauer:

"There's a very low bar for cause, and one that the President alone determines. And that would weaken, if not shatter, the independence of the Federal Reserve that we just discussed."

Even Justice Samuel Alito, who dissented from the 5-4 ruling blocking Cook's removal, expressed concern about the process. Alito noted that "no court has ever explored those facts" regarding the allegations against Cook and cited the "very hurried manner" in which Trump went about calling for her removal.

Cook's attorney says the timing points to retaliation

Cook's attorney, Abbe Lowell, told CNN that the renewed effort was expected. Trump's pattern of aggressive personnel moves, from demanding the removal of the Senate parliamentarian to reshuffling nominees, has defined his approach to institutional resistance.

Lowell framed the move as predictable, telling CNN:

"If you know anything about President Trump... he doesn't take no for an answer whether the no is an advisor or the Supreme Court, so this is not a shock."

But Lowell also raised a more pointed accusation. Cook had recently signaled publicly that she would support raising interest rates if inflation fails to ease, the New York Post reported. That public statement preceded the renewed firing effort. Lowell called the timing "a little suspicious" and argued that Cook's real offense was doing her job as an independent central banker.

"All Lisa Cook has been doing is her job, that the Supreme Court said, that the Federal Reserve should remain an independent economic entity, that does not sit well with President Trump."

Lowell also flatly denied the mortgage fraud allegations, stating: "Not withstanding their allegation, I can unequivocally state that there is not a chance Governor Cook committed mortgage fraud."

Cook herself has said the president attempted to oust her "on a manufactured pretext because I refused to bow to political pressure and continued to set interest rates based only on what would best serve the American people."

A broader shift in presidential power over federal agencies

The Cook case does not exist in isolation. On the same day the Supreme Court blocked Cook's immediate removal in June, the justices issued a separate 6-3 ruling that gave the president far more authority over independent agencies. That ruling green-lit Trump's effort to fire Federal Trade Commissioner Rebecca Slaughter and overturned more than 90 years of high court precedent established by a case known as Humphrey's Executor, a 1935 decision that had shielded leaders of independent agencies from presidential firing without cause.

Chief Justice Roberts, writing for the majority in the FTC case, was blunt: "If anything more is left of Humphrey's, we overrule it." The decision gives Trump, and every future president, significantly more power to reshape the boards of dozens of multimember federal agencies, including the National Labor Relations Board and the Consumer Product Safety Commission.

Justice Sotomayor read a lengthy dissent from the bench, warning that the court had "discards [the] democratic regime created by the Constitution... in favor of one that distorts the structure of Government to fit the majority's theory of unitary, total executive control." She concluded: "The result is a President who emerges with far greater power than ever before."

The administration has not limited its willingness to confront institutional resistance to the Fed. Trump has pressured holdout senators on nominations and pushed back against federal judges who have blocked executive actions on other fronts.

Cook's background and what comes next

Cook was appointed by Biden in 2022 as the first Black woman to serve as a Fed governor and was reappointed in 2023 for a term running through January 2038, Fox News reported. Members of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors are, by law, shielded from being fired without cause, a protection designed to insulate monetary policy from short-term political pressure.

The Trump administration is simultaneously appealing the lower-court ruling that sided with Cook. If the appeal succeeds, or if the White House's new procedural approach satisfies the Supreme Court's requirements, Cook could face removal even as her lawsuit continues. Her legal team has vowed to fight, with Lowell declaring: "No matter what President Trump tries to do next, this much is clear under the facts and Supreme Court precedent, there is no valid cause for removing Governor Cook."

The August 26 deadline will force the issue into the open. Cook must decide whether to respond to the allegations in writing or let the clock run. The administration, meanwhile, has raced to fill key posts across the federal government, and a vacancy on the Fed board would give Trump a chance to reshape the institution that sets interest rates for every American borrower and saver.

Bill Pulte, the official who filed the criminal referral against Cook, has himself drawn scrutiny on Capitol Hill. Republican senators questioned Pulte's qualifications when Trump nominated him for a separate intelligence post, a reminder that personnel fights in this administration cut in more than one direction.

Whether Lisa Cook committed mortgage fraud or simply ran afoul of a president who wants more control over the Fed, the facts will have to speak in a proceeding now, not in a late-night firing. The Supreme Court made sure of that. What matters is whether the process the White House is following this time actually holds up, or whether this round ends the same way the last one did.