Embattled Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook might have bigger problems than losing her job.
Sources told The Megyn Kelly Show Thursday there is now a federal grand jury proceeding underway in Atlanta, Georgia, looking into whether Cook committed criminal fraud by submitting fraudulent information on mortgage applications.
On Thursday’s show, Megyn was joined by Glenn Greenwald, host of Rumble’s System Update, to discuss the probe and what kind of legal trouble Cook could find herself in.
The Investigation
President Donald Trump fired Cook last month over allegations of mortgage fraud after evidence emerged that she has listed more than one property as her primary residence. She is now suing to keep her job, insisting the president had “no authority” to prematurely terminate her 14-year term. But she may also soon have a criminal indictment to contend with.
The Wall Street Journal reported the Department of Justice has opened a criminal investigation into Cook, issuing subpoenas in both Georgia and Michigan as part of a probe into mortgage fraud. The decision came after the DOJ received two criminal referrals from Bill Pulte, the Trump-appointed director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency.
Cook owns properties in Ann Arbor, Michigan, Atlanta, Georgia, and Cambridge, Massachusetts, and Pulte has publicly accused her of engaging in mortgage fraud before she joined the Fed in 2022. The allegations include improperly listing both an Atlanta condo and a Michigan home as her primary residence to receive more favorable home loan terms and putting her Massachusetts condo down as a rental property on government ethics forms while calling it a “second home” on mortgage papers. Trump cited the accusations in his decision to fire Cook on August 25.
Megyn called the latest developments “very interesting” because of what they could signal. “Just because… Bill Pulte refers it… does not mean the DOJ is actually going to run with it or actually pursue an indictment with a grand jury,” she noted. “But our information is that’s exactly what is happening.”
“We’re told that this grand jury has been opened in Atlanta, although we’re told that the FBI is on the case in at least two out of those three instances,” she added. “We are told that the possible charges they’re looking at include mortgage fraud and wire fraud, and it could go beyond that.”
Cook’s Defense
In the wake of her firing, Cook retained the services of former Hunter Biden attorney Abbe Lowell. As The New York Post reported, he argued in a court filing that these alleged offenses were not worthy of termination because she disclosed the discrepancies while being vetted by the Biden administration ahead of her 2022 confirmation process.
“[T]he Government has long known about the alleged facial inconsistencies in Governor Cook’s financial documents,” Lowell said. He also confirmed that Cook stated on a background check form that the Michigan house was her primary residence and her Georgia condo was her “2nd home.”
The Post reported that, on another document, Cook listed both homes, as well as her Massachusetts condo, as her “present residence,” while specifying the Michigan property was her “current permanent residence” and the Cambridge condo was both a second home and a rental property.
“During her Senate confirmation process, Governor Cook submitted questionnaires and provided reports that would have revealed the same purported ‘facial’ contradictions the Government now claims are ’cause’ to fire her,” Lowell wrote. “If those are facial contradictions, as the Government and President claim… senators or White House advisors could have inquired of her about any alleged ‘facial inconsistencies.’”
Greenwald wasn’t buying it. “The fact that she listed addresses and claimed that she lived in some and not others during her appointment process or vetting process isn’t even remotely related to the question of whether the Biden administration knew or had reason to know that she lied to the banks if, in fact, that’s… what she’s done,” he said. “I don’t even understand how this is even remotely a defense.”
But that’s not the only pitfall with the strategy. “You can’t disclose away crimes… If it’s a crime, it’s a crime,” Megyn added. “Just because Biden may have given you a pass on it, you’re not going to turn around later and say the new administration has no right to fire me… That is not going to fly if it rises to the level of criminality, in my view.”
Lack of Credentials?
News of the DOJ investigation follows damning reports that cast doubt on Cook’s qualifications to serve as Federal Reserve governor to begin with. As Megyn and Ben Shapiro discussed on Tuesday’s show, investigative journalist Chris Brunet obtained Cook’s 85-page tenure packet from Michigan State University, which revealed the economics department likely voted against her tenure but were overruled by the dean.
Brunet concluded Cook “got tenure despite her research record, not because of it,” and that tracks with reporting from Christopher Rufo and Luke Rosiak. They dug into Cook’s academic record and found her publication history to be “remarkably thin for a tenured professor.”
They also discovered instances of “copied language from other scholars without proper quotation” and “duplicat[ion of] her own work and that of coauthors in multiple academic journals without proper attribution.” They said “both practices appear to violate Michigan State University’s own written academic standards.”
The Left’s New Heroes
Despite the mounting evidence and concerns about her credentials, the left and media have chosen to make Cook the latest face of their Trump ‘resistance’ movement. “They don’t care what the evidence against her is,” Greenwald noted. “What they know is that she’s black, that Trump doesn’t like her, and, therefore, any attempt to remove her is basically akin to lynching, which, lo and behold, she studied and wrote about.”
He believes that is in line with how the left views the Trump administration in general. “There’s this bizarre pattern in our discourse where even though the Democrats spent eight years dreaming and trying to imprison Donald Trump for everything from the Russiagate hoax to payments to Stormy Daniels to everything in between, suddenly now any attempt by the Trump Justice Department to prosecute anybody is immediately depicted as political persecution,” Greenwald continued. “They even defended John Bolton, even though it turns out that his case was considered very grave by the Biden Justice Department.”
Regardless of the motive, Megyn said Cook could soon have her hands full legally. “If she’s really going to go with ‘this was all disclosed and handled’ as an effort to keep her job… she’s got much bigger problems now than keeping her job,” she concluded. “She would like to keep her freedom, but, if she’s going to be looking at potentially multiple counts of wire fraud, mortgage fraud, and whatever else, she really could be headed to jail.”
You can check out Megyn’s full interview with Greenwald by tuning in to episode 1,141 on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you like to listen. And don’t forget that you can catch The Megyn Kelly Show live on SiriusXM’s Triumph (channel 111) weekdays from 12pm to 2pm ET.