The allegations, referred to the Justice Department by Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) director Bill Pulte, center on Cook’s declarations of “primary residence” on multiple properties in Michigan, Georgia, and Massachusetts.
Pulte, a Trump appointee, asserted on social media, “Mortgage fraud is a serious crime and must be prosecuted as such.”
Cook’s legal team countered that her mortgage filings reflected her career moves, stating, “Governor Cook had different principal residences over the years because her distinguished career had taken her to academic posts at Harvard University and Michigan State University, a postdoctoral fellowship at Stanford’s Hoover Institution, and a government post at the White House Council of Economic Advisers in Washington, D.C.”
Lowell flagged what he described as “an inadvertent notation” in a 2021 Atlanta condo application, clarifying that the property was also described as a “vacation home” in other documents.
“It would be impossible to conclude that she intended to defraud the lender by inadvertently listing the property as her ‘Primary Residence’ elsewhere,” Lowell said.