Lisa Cook fed res
an 9 25
This is a win': Supreme Court issues rare decision to halt Trump’s firing of Lisa Cook
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puhlte nepo
ACCUSED BY CLOWN --> FAIL?
an 9 25
Trump Fed appointee downplays rising grocery prices — even as inflation hits 3-year high
09/16/25 MMA
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AN 8 25
Former federal prosecutor Ankush Khardori tells Politico that President Donald Trump is definitely abusing the Department of Justice to punish his perceived enemies. But he’s not doing it with talent.
“If you want to successfully prosecute your political opponents — on charges that are real or contrived — you should have a competent lawyer in charge,” said Khardori.
Bill Pulte, Trump’s ‘fiercely partisan’ appointee over the Federal Housing Finance Agency made possible Trump’s criminal mortgage fraud investigations into New York Attorney General Letitia James, who brought a successful civil fraud case against the Trump Organization. Khardori said Pulte’s fingerprints are also likely on Trump’s attack on critic Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) as well as his push to oust Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook.
READ MORE: 'Very disrespectful!' Trump delivers late-night screed in response to 'bone spurs' hit
“But it is one thing for a federal official like Pulte to run around making accusations on social media, and another thing entirely for prosecutors to develop a credible and legally sound fraud case that will persuade a jury at a trial,” said Khardori, pointing to “a distinct Keystone Cops vibe” given off by Pulte as well as Ed Martin, who is overseeing both the DOJ investigations into mortgage fraud and the DOJ’s Weaponization Working Group.
Martin “has never actually prosecuted a case in his life,” said Khardori, and he recently made himself infamous over a “bizarre and frankly buffoonish” performance staking out James’ home in Brooklyn in the middle of the day as part of a New York Post photo op.
“That caper alone — political, unprofessional and self-discrediting — could doom any effort by Martin to convict James of anything before a jury, assuming he gets that far,” Khardori said.
A Washington, D.C. grand jury has already dumped the Justice Department’s attempt to prosecute a man for throwing a sandwich at a federal agent — handing U.S. attorney and former Fox News host Jeanine Pirro an embarrassing failure,
.
READ MORE: Trump drops 'atomic bomb' on DOJ: analysis
Trump’s prosecution of former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie over “Bridgegate is also unlikely to keep Christie up at night,” said Khardori since it happened a decade ago and has been previously prosecuted. Trump himself called the prosecution an “Obama DOJ Scam” at the time.
“These are not the makings of a compelling federal criminal case,” said Khardori.
Of course, even “a bad prosecutor can make his targets’ lives miserable,” warned Khardori, who added that this appears to be part of Trump’s effort.
“The people to worry most about are the ones whose names we do not know — the people and the government officials who may unfairly end up in the Trump administration’s crosshairs and have their lives upended for no good reason,” Khardori said.
READ MORE: 'Let me just stop you there': Wallace cuts off guest who calls for 'nuance' on Trump move
Read the full Politico report at this link.
SHE IS SUING; SCOTUS CARVE OUT FOR FED
mma
08/26/25
August 26, 2025, edition of SiriusXM's The Megyn Kelly Show
MEGYN KELLY (HOST): If she [Lisa Cook] committed a felony and we normally wouldn't prosecute it, but the reason we're really prosecuting it is because we're done not -- we're done with the excess exercise of discretion that would have been in their favor, then that's fine by me.
I mean, we didn't prosecute Hillary Clinton. We did not go after her. We did not lock her up. We tried to take the high road. They didn't accept the olive branch. They tried to ruin Trump personally, Trump professionally, Trump's presidency, and many around him.
They're the ones who locked up Steve Bannon for contempt of Congress, Peter Navarro for contempt of Congress. We didn't try to lock up Merrick Garland when he committed it. It's time. I'm fucking done taking the high road. They have to suffer.
They have to have real skin in the game before they will accept reality, which is -- this move by them, repeated, repeated move by them is ruining our foundational basis. So until they know that on a visceral level, like the kind you get when you're looking between bars, they're not going to behave differently. So that's, I mean, in a nutshell, where I am on it.
mma
//
08/15/25 10:44 AM EDT
08/12/25 12:19 PM EDT
07/22/25
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NOT AAF SCALP, CONFIRMED
no lnx pix
Republican group smears reputations of women nominees of color: Follow the dark money.
DEMLABS BLOG
April 19, 2022
Republican Slime Machine targets Biden Nominees - especially women of color.
"The Slime Machine Targeting Dozens of Biden Nominees" - Jane Mayer, New Yorker
"The American Accountability Foundation (A.A.F.), which is run by conservative white men, has particularly focussed on blocking women and people of color.As of last month, more than a third of the twenty-nine candidates it had publicly attacked were people of color, and nearly sixty per cent were women."
Who are the people running the 'slime machine'? Who funds them? How is the AAF treated as a nonprofit? Follow the dark money behind the smear campaign with this network map.
Republican group smears reputations of women nominees of color: Follow the dark money.
Share this Power Map freely with this link or as a GIF
Racist, misogynist attacks
"When Ketanji Jackson Brown defended herself on this point during the hearings, the A.A.F. said, on Twitter, that she was “lying.” The group’s allegation—reminiscent of the QAnon conspiracy, which claims that liberal élites are abusing and trafficking children—rippled through conservative circles. Tucker Carlson repeated the accusation on his Fox News program while a chyron declared “jackson lenient in child sex cases.” Marjorie Taylor Greene, the extremist representative from Georgia, called Jackson “pro-pedophile.” - New Yorker
Desperately pursuing dirt
"The A.A.F. has taken the practice to extremes, repeatedly spinning negligible tidbits or dubious hearsay into damning narratives. The group recently deployed its unorthodox methods, Politico has reported, while “desperately pursuing dirt” on Lisa Cook, the nominee for the Federal Reserve. Cook, who has been a tenured professor of economics and international relations at Michigan State University since 2013, has attracted bipartisan support. Glenn Hubbard, the chair of the Council of Economic Advisers during the George W. Bush Administration, has said, “Cook’s talents as an economic researcher and teacher make her a good nominee for the Fed, adding to diversity of perspectives about policy.”
In college, Cook won a Marshall Scholarship. She subsequently obtained a Ph.D. in economics from the University of California, Berkeley, taught at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, and served as a staff economist on President Barack Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers. She also held appointments at the National Bureau of Economic Research and at various regional Federal Reserve banks. The A.A.F., though, has portrayed her as unqualified, andsuggested that her tenure at Michigan State is undeserved." - New Yorker
Politically active, tax-exempt nonprofit charity
"An explicit purpose of the A.A.F.—a politically active, tax-exempt nonprofit charity that doesn’t disclose its backers—is to prevent the approval of all Biden Administration nominees. When Ketanji Jackson Brown defended herself on this point during the hearings, the A.A.F. said, on Twitter, that she was “lying.” The group’s allegation—reminiscent of the QAnon conspiracy, which claims that liberal élites are abusing and trafficking children—rippled through conservative circles. Tucker Carlson repeated the accusation on his Fox News program while a chyron declared “jackson lenient in child sex cases.” Marjorie Taylor Greene, the extremist representative from Georgia, called Jackson “pro-pedophile.” - New Yorker
Follow the dark money - Relationship map: https://embed.kumu.io/be295fbf0ae354739c97174ddb255144#untitled-map/political-character-assassination
All in the family
"Meadows’s son, Blake, an associate attorney at the Georgia law firm Foster, Foster, & Smith, appears to be involved with C.P.I., too: his name appears in a lawsuit filed last month on behalf of the A.A.F. against the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. Matthew Buckham, the A.A.F. co-founder, also has a Trump connection: he worked at the White House during his Administration, in the personnel office. (His father, Ed Buckham, is chief of staff to Marjorie Taylor Greene.) New Yorker
Russian connection
"Ed Buckham, the recently appointed chief of staff for Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene. Today, Buckham handles a congresswoman who proudly attends “white supremacist, antisemitic, pro-Putin” rallies, as Congresswoman Liz Cheney characterized them, and has become renowned for touting conspiracy theories about how the California wildfires were started by Jewish space lasers. On Thursday, when the House of Representatives voted to suspend normal trade relations with Russia and Belarus, Greene, not surprisingly, was one of eight Republicans who voted against it.
Buckham’s ties to Russian interests date back 25 years to 1997—before Putin came to power—when he served as an aide to House Majority Whip Tom DeLay. This was the heyday of “Casino Jack” Abramoff, the lobbyist-conman who took on pay-for-play clients ranging from the Choctaw Indian tribe of Mississippi to the Kremlin with a panache made for Hollywood. At the time, Buckham, in addition to his job with DeLay, oversaw a lobbying outfit called the U.S. Family Network, which presented itself as a public advocacy group but was really a vehicle funded largely by clients of Jack Abramoff." - New Republic
TakeAway: Follow the dark money funding Republican smears on highly qualified Biden nominees based on their race and gender. Does such a group deserve nonprofit exempt status?
Deepak
DemLabs
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News and Controversies
AAF Attack on Federal Reserve Nominee Lisa Cook
Following Biden's nomination of Michigan State University professor Lisa Cook to the Federal Reserve, AAF group sought to discredit Cook's tenure at the school and further qualifications for the position, Politico reported. Cook's nomination garnered bipartisan support and she was endorsed by both conservative and liberal economists.[5] The New Yorker reported thatJones fished for information from about 50 of her colleagues at MSU, asking in an email, "Are any of you concerned that... she's not good enough to sit on the Federal Reserve Board?"[6] He also posted about Cook on "Economics Job Market Rumors", an online forum that the New York Times reports as "a cesspool of misogyny".[7]
AAF Spread Misleading Claims about SCOTUS Nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson
In alignment with a widespread misconception[8] popularized by Republicans, AAF released a statement saying Biden's nominee for Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson "argued that America's judicial system is 'unfair' to sexual predators".[9]
AAF Attack on the Raskin Family
AAF launched an attack on Sarah Bloom Raskin and her husband Jamie Raskin following Bloom Raskin's nomination to the Vice Chair for Supervision of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve. Due to her stance on the fossil fuel industry's hand in climate change, AAF pushed the narrative that "Sarah and Jamie Raskin are career politicians who have used the system to enrich themselves"[10] The AAF filed an ethics complaint against Jamie Raskin due to his late disclosure of a stock sale by Sarah Bloom Raskin.[11] While Bloom Raskin told the New Yorker that she did not expect special treatment, she did explain that their son had committed suicide two weeks after the sale and that they "were comatose, barely functioning, so of course Jamie didn't remember to file".[6]
AAF Attack on Comptroller of the Currency Nominee Saule Omarova
AAF bullied President Biden's nominee for Comptroller of the Currency Saule Omarova into withdrawing herself from consideration after launching an investigation into her history and falsely painting her as a Marxist. Omarova told the New Yorker, "There were so many accusations. AAF was at the forefront of making my life extremely and unnecessarily difficult. It was complete absurdity. But people who have no idea who I am jumped in and said, 'Go back to the Soviet Union!'."[6] The AAF's tactics for attacking Omarova primarily involved taking clips of her speaking and reproducing them without context and weaponizing her childhood in Kazakhstan against her.[12]
AAF Attack on Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives Nominee David Chipman
The New Yorker reported that the AAF accused Chipman of being both racist and too "woke", exaggerating his belief that Army bases should not be named after Confederate soldiers and his opposition to monuments that celebrate them due to their racial insensitivity. AAF claimed that he wanted to "use fighter jets to bomb" Mount Rushmore. Due to the relentless harassment of AAF, users on Twitter called for his death and his wife, a long-time ATF employee felt too unsafe to continue working and quit her job[6].
AAF Infiltrated Zoom Training Meeting for Congressional Staffers
AAF members posing as congressional aides infiltrated and recorded a Zoom meeting about earmark spending rules in the spring of 2021. The recording was posted online. Appropriations Committee spokesman Evan Hollander wrote in an email, "For a group that purports to concern itself with ethics, using fake identities, misrepresenting themselves as Congressional staff and surreptitiously recording meetings is hypocritical in the extreme."[13] Founder Tom Jones told Fox News, "I'm never doing anything illegal but just because it's impolite to log into an earmark training seminar and offend the morals of Capitol Hill staff, that's not going to stop me from doing it."[4]
Launched with the Help of the Conservative Partnership Institute
AAF lists itself as in care of the Conservative Partnership Institute in its 501(c)(3) application, and in CPI's 2021 annual report, it described that AAF was part of a "new dimension" to the group's work. The report states, "Before the American Accountability Foundation (AAF), conservatives didn't have a group performing research on Biden's woke nominees-- even though plenty of liberal groups were digging up (or manufacturing) dirt on our side."[14]
AAF Founder Tom Jones
Founder and executive director Tomas Jones was the Legislative Director to Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, Senior Policy Advisor to former Senator Jim DeMint of South Carolina, Opposition Research Director for Republican Presidential candidate Ted Cruz, and served as the President of both the339 Group and the Cannon Research Group.[15] He also served as legislative director forJohn Ensign of Nevada.[6]He told Fox News that AAF wants to "take a big handful of sand and throw it in the gears of the Biden Administration"and that, unlike other opposition groups, AAF is based not on individual clients but on "causing trouble for the new administration".[4]
Funding
Funding information for AAF is not publicly available as of July 2022.
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https://accountable.us/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Lisa-Cook-Case-Study.pdf
20 pp
SUMMARY: The nomination of Lisa Cook to the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, while successful and
historic, was not without bad-faith conservative attacks demeaning Cook’s background. Cook is a tenured
economics professor at Michigan State University (MSU) and has held roles at Harvard and Stanford in
addition to visiting roles at multiple Federal Reserve Banks and a position on the White House Council of
Economic Advisors Under President Obama. Despite her formidable qualifications, conservative attacks
centered around an attempt to paint Cook as underqualified.
Cook was confirmed as the first Black woman on the Federal Reserve Board of Governors on May 10th,
2022 – 118 days after her initial nomination on January 13th, 2022. Since there are only six members of the
Federal Reserve Board of Governors, it’s hard to draw comparisons to Cook’s nomination process. Cook
would have been confirmed two weeks earlier on April 26th had it not been for Democratic absences due to
COVID. Cook’s name was first floated for the position as early as February 2021, which gave the
conservative apparatus ample time to formulate attacks and lines of inquiry during hearings.
These attacks seem to originate from an independent investigative journalist and Daily Caller contributor,
Christopher Brunet, working via a Substack page titled “Karlstack Economics.” Brunet began looking into
Cook in the Spring of 2021, and immediately started questioning her qualifications for the position saying if
Cook “were an Asian male economist, she would be laughed out of any school in the top 200.” Brunet’s
reporting was picked up by the Daily Caller and Tucker Carlson in February 2022, and the next month
Brunet released a copy of Cook’s tenure packet, doubling down on his assertion that Cook was unqualified.
At the same time, the conservative opposition research firm the American Accountability Foundation (A.A.F)
started to boost Brunet’s reporting on Twitter and released video clips of Cook speaking out of context on
Zoom calls.The A.A.F. is a non-profit republican opposition research firm founded by former Senate staffers
for Republican Jim DeMint, who now runs the Conservative Partnership Institute (CPI). Notably, CPI is listed
as the “care of name” on the A.A.F.’s founding tax form. Since the A.A.F was founded in January 2021, little
is known about its funding sources.Nevertheless, the A.A.F. began with around $600,000 in funding, and
projects to have over $1 million in funding in subsequent years.
The attacks against Cook’s qualifications culminated in Senator Hagerty calling for Cook’s background to be
investigated, though any such investigation did not end up happening as Cook was successfully confirmed
weeks later.
Table of Contents
Accountable.US Case Study: The Nomination Of Lisa Cook .............................................................................1
NOMINATION TIMELINE AND INITIAL RECEPTION ..........................................................................................2
Background (Reception At Time, Basic Data On Nomination Timeline) ..................................................................... 2
Confirmation Timeline...................................................................................................................................................................... 2
President Biden Nominated Lisa Cook, A Michigan Economics Professor, To Be On The Board of Governors of the
Federal Reserve System............................................................................................................................................ 3
Cook’s Nomination Was Generally Well Received By Mainstream Outlets, Highlighting Her Status As Potentially The First Black
Woman To Be On The Federal Reserve Board Of Governors.............
banks And Advocacy Groups Rallied Around Cooks Nomination, As Did Democratic Officials........................................................ 4
NEGATIVE RESPONSE FROM RIGHT-WING MEDIA AND SENATORS.................................................................6
The Daily Mail Called Biden’s Fed Nominee’s “Woke,” While ToomeyApproached The Nomination With Hesitation .................. 6
Republicans And Conservative Outlets Ramped Up Attacks And Solidified Their Main Line Of Inquiry Into Cook Before And
During Her Hearing........................................................................................................................................................................... 7
SOURCE OF RIGHT-WING ATTACKS ON COOK.................................................................................................8
An Independent Investigative Journalist Uncovered Much Of The Research Into Cook, Which Conservative Media
Promptly Picked Up.................................................................................................................................................. 8
The American Accountability Foundation Picked Up The Racist Smear Campaign Against Lisa Cook’s Nomination To
The Federal Reserve’s Board Of Governors............................................................................................................... 9
The American Accountability Foundation Began Their Twitter Campaign Against Cook In January 2022 With A Series Of Video
Clips.................................................................................................................................................................................................. 9
By March 2022, AAF Had Picked Up Brunet’s Reporting Of Cook And Began Signal Boosting ...................................................... 10
Public Reporting Identified AAF As A Lead Aggressor Against Cook .............................................................................................. 10
American Accountability Foundation Is A Republican Opposition Research Non-Profit Founded In 2021 With
Millions Of Dollars In The Bank Upon Inception...................................................................................................... 11
American Accountability Foundation Was Founded In 2021 With Millions In Funding And A Sizable Budget— AAF Estimated
That It Needed $750,000 In 2021................................................................................................................................................... 12
American Accountability Foundation Conducted Opposition Research Against Biden Nominees And Coordinated With The NRA
To Sink Nominees........................................................................................................................................................................... 12
American Accountability Foundation Is Closely Tied To The Conservative Partnership Institute, A Trump And
Insurrection Connected Group Leading The Right-Wing Assault On Voting Rights................................................... 13
American Accountability Foundation Is Closely Tied To The Conservative Partnership Institute, A Conservative Group Founded
By Ex-Heritage Foundation Head Jim DeMint, Which Shares High Profile Staff With AAF ............................................................ 13
The Conservative Partnership Institute Is Closely Tied To The Trump Administration—And Was Heavily Financed By Trump’s
Own PAC......................................................................................................................................................................................... 15
The Conservative Partnership Institute Is Closely Tied To The Insurrection Via Senior Partner Mark Meadows And Prominent
Member Cleta Mitchell................................................................................................................................................................... 17
The Conservative Partnership Institute Advised White Nationalist And High Profile Trump Advisor Stephen Miller On Starting
His Own Non-Profit After Leaving Trump’s White House............................................................................................................... 18
SENATE VOTES AND EVENTUAL CONFIRMATION..........................................................................................18
Cook’s First Vote In April Failed Due to Covid Absences, Though Lael Brainard Overcame The Lack Of Democratic Votes And
Was Confirmed On The Same Day.................................................................................................................................................. 18
The Second Vote Came Less Than A Month Later, Where Cook Was Successfully Confirmed ....................................................19
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