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Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook is refusing to step down from her post after President Donald Trump wrote in a letter Friday that he was removing her “effective immediately.” The president’s letter was a clear escalation of the conflict and has sparked constitutional questions about presidential power, along with the independence of the nation’s central bank.

The letter to Cook, in which Trump said he was firing the governor, was posted to Truth Social five days after the president first called for her to step down on the social media platform. Citing the U.S. Constitution and the Federal Reserve Act of 1913, Trump, who has the power to remove governors from the Fed’s Board “for cause,” said there was “sufficient reason to believe that Lisa Cook made false statements on one or more mortgage agreements” and therefore “for cause” to be removed.

“I have determined that faithfully enacting the law requires your immediate removal from office,” Trump said in the letter to Cook.

The allegations that Cook, who was confirmed by the Senate last year, made false statements on mortgage agreements first emerged earlier in the week and were the basis for Trump’s call for her removal. In a letter to the Justice Department, Bill Pulte, a Trump appointee to an agency that oversees Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, accused Cook of falsely claiming two primary residences in 2021 in Ann Arbor and Atlanta to get better terms on her mortgage. Pulte, speaking on Fox Business’ “Mornings with Maria,” outlined the allegations.

“This is a very serious crime. Mortgage fraud carries 30-year prison sentences. I believe the president has ample cause to fire Lisa Cook. Whether he wants to do that or not is entirely up to the president. However, we will go where mortgage fraud is. If mortgage fraud is with Republican or Democrat, it doesn’t matter – if you commit mortgage fraud in President Trump’s America, we’re going to come after you, and Lisa Cook is no exception to that,” he said.

Pulte sent the criminal referral to the Justice Department on Aug. 15, in which he accuses Cook of falsifying bank documents and property records. It is not clear if the Justice Department has opened a formal investigation into Cook based on the referral.

Cook was appointed to the Federal Reserve Board by former President Joe Biden in 2022 and quickly responded to Trump’s letter by calling the move an abuse of power and saying that Trump had no right to fire her. “President Trump purported to fire me ‘for cause’ when no cause exists under the law, and he has no authority to do so. I will not resign. I will continue to carry out my duties to help the American economy as I have been doing since 2022,” Cook said in a statement shared with Fox News Digital.

Cook is being represented by lawyer Abbe Lowell, who also represents Hunter Biden, New York Attorney General Letitia James, and Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump. In a letter to Trump, Lowell told the president that his move to fire Cook was illegal.

“President Trump has taken to social media to once again ‘fire by tweet,’ and once again his reflex to bully is flawed and his demands lack any proper process, basis, or legal authority. We will take whatever actions are needed to prevent his attempted illegal action,” Lowell said.

FOX Business has contacted the Federal Reserve for comment, and an official did not immediately respond.

In a subsequent letter, Lowell said that he would be filing a lawsuit on Cook’s behalf to block Trump’s attempted removal. “President Trump has no authority to remove Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook. His attempt to fire her, based solely on a referral letter, lacks any factual or legal basis. We will be filing a lawsuit challenging this illegal action,” Lowell said.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., were among the Democrats who called on Trump not to fire Cook and to rescind his order. All three sent statements to Axios.

“What an outrage and a scandal. This is the big one constitutionally,” Raskin said.

Warren called it “an authoritarian power grab,” adding, “Trump is desperately looking for a scapegoat to cover for his own failure to lower costs for Americans, and firing Lisa Cook is his latest move.”

Jeffries said there was “not a shred of credible evidence that she has done anything wrong,” before taking a shot at Trump. “To the extent anyone is unfit to serve in a position of responsibility because of deceitful and potentially criminal conduct, it is the current occupant of the White House. The American people are not buying your phony projection and slander of a distinguished public servant,” he said.

Trump, who has made several recent public attacks on Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, also over interest rates, has repeatedly railed against the central bank to slash rates to help the economy and lower the cost of the country’s more than $37 trillion national debt.