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Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook won’t resign, and she’s fighting back against President Donald Trump’s attempts to fire her. Trump wrote a letter to Cook posted on Truth Social on Thursday in which he claimed he had “removed her from office “effective immediately.”

In the letter, Trump claimed he had the authority under the U.S. Constitution to fire a Federal Reserve Board of Governors without cause, and cited a 1913 statute that allows him to fire members of the Fed’s Board “for cause.” “After due consideration, I find that there is sufficient reason to believe you have made false statements on one or more mortgage agreements,” Trump wrote.

“I have determined that faithfully enacting the law requires your immediate removal from office,” he continued.

The president first called on Cook to resign on Truth Social five days before the letter. The allegations against Cook were first levied by Trump appointee Bill Pulte, who was tapped to serve on the agency that oversees Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The mortgage documents in question are from 2021 and allege that Cook listed two primary homes – one in Ann Arbor, where she serves as a professor at Michigan State University, and one in Atlanta – to secure favorable mortgage rates on both homes.

Pulte also spoke with Fox Business’s “Mornings with Maria” and painted the allegations in simple terms.

“It’s very odd to see people try to twist back way sideways and upside down to justify mortgage fraud,” Pulte said. “This is a very serious crime. Mortgage fraud carries up to 30 years in prison. I believe the president has ample cause to fire Lisa Cook. Whether he wants to do that or not is entirely up to the president. However, we will go where mortgage fraud is. If mortgage fraud is with a Republican or a Democrat, it doesn’t matter—if you commit mortgage fraud in President Trump’s America, we’re going to come after you. And Lisa Cook is no exception to that.”

On August 15, Pulte also wrote a criminal referral to the Justice Department, in which he accused Cook of falsifying “bank documents and real property records.”

Cook, who was appointed to the Fed Board by President Joe Biden in 2022, was quick to respond to Trump’s letter, which she said “purported to fire me ‘for cause’ when no cause exists under the law and he has no authority to do so.” “I will not resign. I will continue to carry out my duties to help the American economy as I have been doing since 2022,” Cook said in a statement obtained by Fox News Digital.

Cook’s legal counsel, Abbe Lowell, who has previously represented Hunter Biden, New York Attorney General Letitia James, as well as Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump, was even more direct in a statement to Fox News Digital. “President Trump has taken to social media to once again ‘fire by tweet,’ and once again his reflex to bully is flawed and his demands lack any proper process, basis, or legal authority. We will take whatever actions are needed to prevent his attempted illegal action,” Lowell said.

FOX Business reached out to the Fed for comment, but was told there would be no immediate response.

Lowell later told Fox News Digital that he would be filing a lawsuit on Cook’s behalf to challenge Trump’s removal. “President Trump has no authority to remove Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook. His attempt to fire her, based solely on a referral letter, lacks any factual or legal basis. We will be filing a lawsuit challenging this illegal action,” he said.

Democrats Slam Trump’s Move as ‘Power Grab’

Leading Democrats, including House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., all issued statements in support of Cook and slamming Trump’s “power grab.”

“The President has absolutely no legal authority to fire Dr. Lisa Cook from the Federal Reserve, and there is no legitimate reason for him to do so. His action today is a despicable, unconstitutional power grab,” Raskin told Axios. “What an outrage and a scandal. This is the big one constitutionally.”

Warren was equally harsh, labeling the move “an authoritarian power grab” and claiming “Trump is desperately looking for a scapegoat to cover for his own failure to lower costs for Americans, and firing Lisa Cook is his latest move.”

Jeffries said Trump’s move was without merit. “We’ve seen this show before from this president. There’s not a shred of credible evidence that she has done anything wrong,” he said. “To the extent anyone is unfit to serve in a position of responsibility because of deceitful and potentially criminal conduct, it is the current occupant of the White House. The American people are not buying your phony projection and slander of a distinguished public servant.”