Trump official's social media posts used as evidence against government in court

The attorney for Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook – whom President Donald Trump declared fired this week over allegations of mortgage fraud – ripped into the president Friday during a court hearing, and pointed to social media posts from a Trump official as evidence of the president lacking proper cause for the firing.

“The court has to make a choice,” said Abbe Lowell, Cook’s attorney, speaking at a court hearing on the governor’s firing, according to Politico reporter Kyle Cheney. “Either it means nothing, in which the president decided what ‘cause’ means when he says it, like Humpty Dumpty deciding what a word means when he says it.”

Cook, one of seven governors at the Federal Reserve, was declared to be “hereby removed,” “for cause,” from her role earlier this week, Trump announced in a social media post, alleging her to have committed mortgage fraud, allegations that have yet to be vetted in court. Cook has refused to leave her role, and has since filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration, naming both Trump and Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell in the suit.

The case’s first hearing kicked off Friday morning in the courtroom of District Judge Jia Cobb, who said that she understood Lowell’s concerns about “acting on mere allegations” when “a finding” of misconduct hadn’t been definitively found, Cheney reported.

Lowell also pointed to social media posts from Director of Federal Housing Bill Pulte, who before Trump announced Cook’s firing, had shared the allegations of mortgage fraud against Cook to his more than three million followers on the social media platform X.

“Lowell says Pulte’s overnight barrage of tweets is evidence that there wasn't ‘cause’ to begin with for her firing and he's trying to ‘backfill’ allegations,” Cheney wrote in a social media post, reporting from the courtroom.