President Donald Trump has demanded that the U.S. Central Bank force Lisa D. Cook, to step down as a Governor of the Federal Reserve Board, after Trumpofficials alleged that Cook was involved in a case involving mortgage fraud. Cook has not been charged with a crime. Cook angrily told Trump she is not leaving and that he has no right to force her out of her job. She also said she may sue Trump, according to her lawyer.

Cook was appointed in 2022 by Democratic President Joe Biden, becoming the first African American woman to serve as a Governor on the Federal Reserve Board. Her term is due to end in 2038.

Cook has an impressive resume. She was a professor of Economics and International Relations at Michigan State University. In addition, she is a Marshall Scholar from Spelman College, and she earned a second B.A. in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics from Oxford University. A Marshall Scholar allows students to study at any college in the U.K.

But a paper written by Cook may have inadvertently pissed off Trump. Who knows?

In the paper. discussed slavery and its racist aftermath, and how it negatively affected patents. Trump is loath to talk about slavery. He recently told the Smithsonian Institution to stop discussing how bad slavery was.

Cook wrote a 2014 paper titled “Violence and economic activity: evidence from African American patents, 1870–1940.” The paper addresses the issue of political conflict and how outcomes affected African American inventors during the period. Valuable patents declined in response to major riots and segregation laws.

Inventions by both Whites and Blacks declined, but there was a much sharper drop among African American inventors. Patenting responds positively to declines in violence. These findings imply that ethnic and political conflict may affect the level, direction, and quality of invention and economic growth over time, Cook wrote.

She mentioned her cousin, chemist Percy Julian, who lived in the Chicago suburb of Oak Park, and how violence affected work. 

Julian’s home was firebombed twice by Whites who didn’t want his family to change the all-White neighborhood. Julian was a pioneer in the chemical synthesis of medical drugs from plants. 

After the house was firebombed, his son said his father sat on the porch with a shotgun. 

Trump, however, continues to shout Cook must go.

“Cook must resign, now!!!” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform, sharing a Bloomberg news report on how the Federal Housing Finance Agency’s director has called for greater scrutiny of Cook over a set of two mortgages.

Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Bill Pulte alleged in a letter that Cook claimed two properties — a home in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and a condo in Atlanta — as her primary home addresses within two weeks of purchasing each with financing.

Pulte accused Cook of having “falsified bank documents and property records.” The Justice Department said it plans to investigate the allegations, but it hasn’t formally announced any charges as of Monday.

Cook said she has no intention to quit. On Monday, the axe fell and Trump fired her.

It is not clear if Trump can fire a FED governor.

Cook responded like the fighter that she is. She took courses towards a master’s degree in philosophy at Cheikh Anta Diop University in Senegal. She also climbed Mount Kilimanjaro, the highest mountain in Africa at 19,341 feet. And she still has scars from integrating a previous all-White high school in Georgia. She is also an authority on the Russian economy.

“I have no intention of being bullied to step down from my position because of some questions raised in a tweet,” she said in a statement.

But she said she would take questions about her financial history “seriously” and was “gathering the accurate information to answer any legitimate questions and provide the facts.”

Cook said she had learned about the accusations against her in a post on social media, stating that the mortgage application was filed “before I joined the Federal Reserve.”

The Trump administration has pursued allegations of mortgage fraud against high-profile Democrats who are seen as political adversaries of the president.