Late Thursday night Bill Pulte, director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, marched a second criminal referral to the Justice Department—this one aimed squarely at Fed governor Lisa Cook. Donald Trump, not coincidentally, is now trying to fire her.
The official charge? On government ethics forms Cook allegedly low-balled the value of three properties and—here comes the hook—secured a mortgage under what the White House is calling “fraudulent terms.”
A paperwork squabble over a house? Hardly. Trump has discovered that the fastest path to the Fed’s printing press runs straight through America’s front doors and backyards.
The backstory is simple: once Trump 2.0 took shape, the president-elect’s inner circle concluded that the single most lucrative lever in the United States is still the power to create dollars. That lever, however, sits inside the Federal Reserve—an institution arm-in-arm with Wall Street. A frontal assault would ignite a market meltdown. So Trump is waging a proxy war, and he has chosen the one issue every voter with a mailbox full of mortgage coupons understands: the roof over his head.
First he tried Chairman Powell. The gambit was “Look how lavishly the Fed is renovating its own headquarters!” But marble lobbies in a public building are a tough sell to suburban swing voters. The attack stalled.
Then came Governor Cook’s real-estate filings—private residences, personal mortgages, the stuff of kitchen-table outrage. Suddenly the Fed’s refusal to slash rates is no longer an abstract policy debate; it is being framed as a conspiracy to keep Main Street’s monthly payment sky-high while insiders cut themselves sweetheart deals.
Why housing? Trace the timeline:
- February 2022: Russia invades Ukraine.
- March 2022: Powell and then-Treasury Secretary Yellen—who had spent months insisting inflation was “transitory”—pivot overnight. Rates rocket from near-zero to 5.25–5.5 %, the steepest ascent since the early 2000s.
The federal-funds rate is only the baseline. By the time a 30-year mortgage reaches a borrower’s closing table, the sticker price is 6.6–7 %. Homeowners are furious, and Trump knows it.
So the messaging writes itself: “Powell and his board won’t cut rates—won’t even let me take the steering wheel—because they’re bleeding you dry. And while you’re sweating your mortgage, one of their own is gaming the system for a cheaper loan.”
Never mind that the alleged infraction is microscopic or that America’s financial regulations are a maze even JD-holders struggle to parse. In the era of TikTok explainers and cable-news chyrons, complexity is a feature, not a bug. The louder the allegation, the softer the rebuttal lands.
Bottom line: this is not about a governor’s disclosure form. It is about who controls America’s currency spigot. Trump, blocked from a direct takeover of the Fed, is waging law-fare by anecdote—weaponizing America’s housing angst to pry open the monetary fortress. After all, if you want to make money fast, nothing beats owning the printing press.
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