Donald Trump is threatening to fire Lisa Cook, a member of the Federal Reserve’s Board of Governors, over allegations that she made false claims on mortgage applications before she went to the Fed.
I am not going to lead with a discussion of what Cook may or may not have done. That would be playing Trump’s game. Clearly, he’s just looking for a pretext to fire someone who isn’t a loyalist — and who happens, surprise, to be a black woman. If you write about politics and imagine that Trump cares about mortgage fraud — or for that matter believe anything Trump officials say about the affair without independent confirmation — you should find a different profession. Maybe you should go into agricultural field work, to help offset the labor shortages created by Trump’s deportations.
The real story here isn’t about Cook, or mortgages. It’s about the way the Trump administration is weaponizing government against political opponents, critics, or anyone it finds inconvenient.
You should think about the attack on Cook in the same context as mortgage fraud accusations made against California Senator Adam Schiff and New York Attorney General Letitia James. Or you should look at the attacks on Jerome Powell, the Federal Reserve chair, over the cost of renovations at the Fed’s headquarters. Or the still mysterious raid on the house of John Bolton, who at one time was Trump’s national security adviser.
The message here clearly isn’t “Don’t commit fraud,” which would be laughable coming...
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