\n<\/p>\n
A loan estimate for an Atlanta home purchased by Lisa Cook, the Federal Reserve governor accused of mortgage fraud by the Trump administration, shows that Cook had declared the property as a \u201cvacation home\u201d, according to a document reviewed by Reuters.<\/p>\n
The document, dated 28 May 2021, was issued to Cook by her credit union in the weeks before she completed the purchase and shows that she had told the lender that the Atlanta property would not be her primary residence. The document appears to counter other documentation that Cook\u2019s critics have cited in support of their claims that she committed mortgage fraud by reporting two different homes as her primary residence, two independent real-estate experts said.<\/p>\n
Reuters was unable to reach Cook for comment. She has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing regarding her properties, which also include a home in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and an investment property in Massachusetts.<\/p>\n
Administration officials led by Bill Pulte, director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, have used mortgage documents from her Atlanta and Michigan properties to accuse Cook of claiming both as her \u201cprimary residence\u201d. The allegedly false claims of residence, which could improve mortgage and tax implications for a homeowner, led Pulte to refer the matter to the Department of Justice, prompting a federal investigation and an order by Donald Trump to dismiss her.<\/p>\n
Cook, who remains at the Federal Reserve, has sued the president to resist her dismissal. Reuters was unable to determine whether Pulte or administration officials are aware of Cook\u2019s Atlanta loan estimate. Spokespeople at the FHFA, the agency led by Pulte, did not respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n
The documents cited by Pulte include standardized federal mortgage paperwork which stipulates that each loan obtained by Cook for the Atlanta and Michigan properties is meant for a \u201cprimary residence\u201d. But documentation reviewed by Reuters for the Atlanta home, filed with a court in Georgia\u2019s Fulton county, clearly says the stipulation exists \u201cunless Lender otherwise agrees in writing\u201d. The loan estimate, a document prepared by the credit union, states \u201cProperty Use: Vacation Home\u201d.<\/p>\n
The document appears to help Cook\u2019s case, said two real-estate experts who aren\u2019t involved in representing her. That\u2019s because it indicates that during the loan-application process, she told the lender she intended to use the property as a vacation home.<\/p>\n
The lender, Washington-based Bank-Fund Staff Federal Credit Union, did not respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n
In another point that could help Cook\u2019s case, she never requested a tax exemption for the Georgia home as a primary residence, according to property records and a Fulton county tax official.<\/p>\n
A separate document reviewed by Reuters, related to a federal form completed by Cook as she obtained security clearance for her role at the Federal Reserve, shows that in December 2021 she also declared the Atlanta property as a \u201csecond home.\u201d Though unrelated to the mortgage, the declaration on that document, a supplement to a US government national security form known as SF-86, is consistent with the claim on her Atlanta loan summary.<\/p>\n
Surrounding the accusations against Cook is a battle over Trump\u2019s effort to wield more control over the Federal Reserve, the central bank of the United States and an independent institution meant to be free of political meddling. Trump has often criticized Fed governors because of their reluctance to cut interest rates since he returned to the White House earlier this year.<\/p>\n
Amid the controversy, the personal finances of other government officials and their families have also come into question by rival politicians, the media and others.<\/p>\n
Last week, Reuters reported that Pulte\u2019s own father and stepmother had declared two homes in two different states as their primary residence, prompting a town in Michigan to remove a tax exemption for their home there and charge the couple for back taxes. Pulte and his parents didn\u2019t respond to requests for comment about the matter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A loan estimate for an Atlanta home purchased by Lisa Cook, the Federal Reserve governor accused of mortgage fraud by the Trump administration, shows that Cook had declared the property as a \u201cvacation home\u201d, according to a document reviewed by Reuters. The document, dated 28 May 2021, was issued to Cook by her credit union<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":21063,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[7442,3439,4437,3093,7055,456,788,10089,150,2682,241,4810],"class_list":{"0":"post-21062","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-cook","9":"tag-declared","10":"tag-fed","11":"tag-files","12":"tag-governor","13":"tag-home","14":"tag-key","15":"tag-lisa","16":"tag-news","17":"tag-property","18":"tag-show","19":"tag-vacation"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21062","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=21062"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21062\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/21063"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21062"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21062"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21062"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}