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The legal team for Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook sent a letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi disputed allegations made by Bill Pulte, the director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, that she engaged in mortgage fraud.

The Associated Press reports the letter is the first response made by Cook’s counsel to the criminal referral submitted by Pulte in August. The referral was used by President Trump in an attempt to fire Cook from the Fed’s Board of Governors, which was blocked by the Supreme Court last month with the provision that Cook could continue fighting the administration’s actions in court.

In the letter, attorney Abbe Lowell argued the case against Cook was predicated over “one stray reference” in a 2021 mortgage document that was “plainly innocuous in light of the several other truthful and more specific disclosures” regarding her residential properties. Pulte accused Cook of falsely declaring two homes – one in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and one in Atlanta – as her “primary residence.”

Lowell stated Cook has mostly lived in the Ann Arbor property since first buying it in 2005; she referred to it as her “primary residence” in a June 2021 refinancing application. One month later, she acquired a condominium in Atlanta, and while an earlier mortgage application from May 2021 referred to it as a “vacation home,” a July 2021 document referred to it as her “primary residence.” Lowell insisted that was an “isolated notation” that was not an intentional act of fraud, pointing out that she referred to the Atlanta property as a second home in federal filings during her confirmation process to become a Fed governor.

“It would be impossible to conclude that she intended to defraud the lender by inadvertently listing the property as her ‘Primary Residence,’” the letter said, adding “There is no fraud, no intent to deceive, nothing whatsoever criminal or remotely a basis to allege mortgage fraud.”

Pulte also accused Cook in another criminal referral of citing a property in Cambridge, Massachusetts, even though she rented it out.

“Once again, Director Pulte offers no evidence indicating that Governor Cook had the ‘required specific intent to defraud’ in relation to the Cambridge property,” Lowell wrote. “On the contrary, when Governor Cook refinanced the Cambridge property, she updated the mortgage to reflect that it was no longer her primary residence.”

Lowell also accused Pulte of using similar mortgage fraud accusations against Democratic opponents of President Trump while refusing to act on fraud allegations made against Republican politicians, including members of the Trump administration. He also noted reports of mortgage misconduct by Pulte’s father did not stir criminal referrals.

“One would expect that he would have made referrals to you based on the same types of documents about others,” Lowell wrote to Bondi.

Pulte did not respond immediately to Lowell’s comments.