A live hearing will be held at the White House on November 5.

U.S. President Donald Trump is launching a new push to remove Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook. The White House announced on Friday that the administration will form a committee to investigate allegations that Cook made false statements in mortgage matters involving two properties, and will hold a live hearing at the White House on Nov. 5.

Committee members are all Trump nominees. Observers say the creation of the committee and the setting of a hearing date indicate the Trump administration is filling in the procedural gaps mentioned in the Supreme Court's ruling in June.

That Supreme Court ruling had blocked the administration from directly removing Cook. The committee's three members are all officials appointed by Trump: newly installed Labor Secretary Keith Sonderling, who also serves as acting director of the Office of Government Ethics; National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett, a firm supporter of Trump's economic agenda whom the president had considered nominating to chair the Fed; and Equal Employment Opportunity Commission Chair Andrea Lucas.

Cook's attorneys, Abbe Lowell and Norm Eisen, said they had contacted the White House to "assess whether this proposed process has substance, rather than being a mere formality to satisfy procedural requirements." In a statement, the two said: "Cook is willing to use this opportunity to state the facts, clear her name, and show there is no legal basis for her removal."

Tim Mahedy, a former official at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco and CEO of research firm Access/Macro, said: "This arrangement appears tailored to the biggest criticism raised when the Supreme Court rejected the previous attempt: Governor Cook had not been given an opportunity to defend herself." Mahedy also said that, given the composition of the committee, the outcome of this investigation "is already set." He expressed surprise that White House economist Hassett is taking part in a committee examining documentary legal issues.

For a long time, Trump has publicly attacked the politically independent Federal Reserve, unhappy that it has not cut rates as he wants, and has repeatedly criticized Cook and former Fed Chair Jerome Powell. However, Trump has not targeted current Chair Kevin Warsh; Warsh was appointed by Trump himself earlier this year after Powell's term ended. Instead, Trump insists that Warsh is constrained by a "politically motivated" board.

The Fed's Board of Governors has eight members, who vote alongside regional Fed presidents to decide rates. Although the Fed chair usually exerts significant influence over policy discussions, rate decisions are ultimately made collectively by the 12-member Federal Open Market Committee. At the September policy meeting, all 12 members, including Warsh, voted to raise rates, the first hike in three years, in order to curb inflation pushed up by the U.S. war with Iran.

The Trump-Fed dispute is also Trump's latest attempt to strengthen his influence over the central bank's policy committee. Cook was appointed by former President Biden in 2022 and is the first Black woman governor in the Fed's history, with a term running to 2038. Previously, Trump had tried to fire Cook over unproven mortgage fraud allegations. Earlier this year, the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that Trump cannot remove her directly.

Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in the June majority opinion that Cook is entitled to adequate notice and time to respond to the removal proposal; when Trump first tried to replace her last year, Cook did not get a fair chance to defend herself. But the opinion also noted that this does not mean the president cannot lawfully remove her.

The law allows the president to remove Fed governors "for cause," a clause generally interpreted as neglect of duty or misconduct. "Whether the president can remove Cook for cause depends in part on the facts of the case itself. We have not made a determination on the facts, and the relevant facts have not yet been investigated and analyzed under the legal standard," Roberts wrote.

Kurt Lewis, a former special adviser to Powell who now leads central bank policy at Piper Sandler, said the key issue in the whole matter is how much the Supreme Court will defer to the president's judgment of "cause" as long as Trump broadly completes the statutory process.

Ed Mills, a Washington policy analyst at Raymond James, commented: "The Supreme Court's ruling did not prohibit President Trump from removing a Fed governor; it only showed him a path to complete the removal. Cook now faces a very clear risk of being fired, and it is hard to tell whether the Supreme Court will step in to stop Trump in a second round." He added that two other colleagues of Cook, Powell and Governor Michael Barr, have also been placed on a potential "for-cause removal" list.

In addition, Fed Vice Chair Philip Jefferson will face the same choice next year that Powell once faced: after his term as vice chair expires, whether to leave or remain as a governor, with his governor term running to 2036. By convention, Fed vice chairs often leave the central bank after their leadership term ends, sometimes even earlier. Jefferson was also appointed by Biden and has not publicly revealed his plans. As a relatively low-profile member of the Fed's policymakers, he has not faced the same public and political pressure as Cook. His choice is crucial to Trump's ambition to nominate more Fed governors.

If Jefferson chooses to stay on the board, Trump can only pick a new vice chair from the existing governors. Apart from Warsh, Trump has only two of his own nominees to choose from: Michelle Bowman, already vice chair for supervision, and Governor Christopher Waller. Waller was once a candidate to succeed Powell, and his policy stance has recently shifted toward a firm data-driven approach and support for policy independence.

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