by Eric Salzman at Racket News
Contrary to news reports, recent disclosures produced by Lisa Cook don’t aid in her defense.
The Financial Times reported September 12, 2025, that:
The documents, seen by the Financial Times, appear to contradict allegations by Federal Housing Finance Agency director Bill Pulte, a Trump ally and frequent critic of the central bank, that Cook had claimed the Atlanta condo and another property in Michigan were both her principal residences. The first document, a letter from the Bank-Fund Staff Federal Credit Union dated May 28 2021, shows estimates of costs associated with the purchase of a $625,000 property in Atlanta, Georgia. The loan estimate states the property would be used as a vacation home. The second document, an SF-86 supplemental questionnaire dated December 3 2021, shows that, when asked to list all of her interests in real property, Cook listed the Atlanta address as her second home. The government uses the SF-86 to conduct background checks for positions deemed important for national security.
Vindication? I don’t think so.
Pulte alleges that she represented in her mortgage agreement for both houses, within two weeks of each other, that she would move into them within 60 days as her primary residence for at least one year. If that’s true, the documents referenced above don’t necessarily override those representations.
CNBC also threw its hat into the ring of dumb reporting with a different angle on the “vindication of Lisa Cook” when it reported:
The rates on Cook’s two mortgages show Cook didn’t enjoy discounts compared with prevailing rates available to borrowers when she negotiated the loans in 2021.
Her rate on the 15-year loan on the Michigan property was 2.875%, versus a prevailing national rate in that period ranging from 2.23% to 2.45%, according to Freddie Mac data. And her rate on the 30-year loan on her Atlanta property was 3.25%, versus a prevailing rate at the time ranging from 2.93% to 3.04%, according to Freddie Mac data.
This take is meaningless. The Freddie Mac data comes from their Primary Mortgage Market Survey Rate (PMMS). Here is Freddie’s description of the PMMS:…
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