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00:00As someone who's actually dealt with mortgage fraud cases like this, does a clerical error get Lisa Hook Lisa cook off the hook? It may very well because you have to show fraudulent intent to get a conviction on a mortgage fraud case. And if you can't show that this if this was just a mistake, if they haven't gone back, which I'm sure they have not done, and talked to the people at the banks who actually accepted those forms. Find out what the circumstances were as to who checked off what. Who did what. At what point did Lisa Crook sign these mortgage applications? If they haven't done their homework, I think they're in big trouble here because it's very difficult to bring a mortgage fraud case like this unless you've lined up all of your evidence and you can block out any kind of mistake. Defense at all. And I just don't see that they've done that. They've just shot from the hip. They've got a person looking at this trying to find something that might show somehow that there was a misstatement. And that's the best they can do at this point. So I don't see them doing anything at this hearing tomorrow for a temporary restraining order. I think they have to really kind of go with what's there and what's there isn't much. Let's talk about cause earlier today on Bloomberg, Scott Alvarez, a former Federal Reserve general counsel, got into this and discussed how the courts will likely look at this case. Take a listen. We'll have you respond. But the courts have not decided whether behavior before a person has taken a job counts as cause for removing them from the job. In the suit that Lisa has filed this morning, she's arguing that cause must be related to job performance so that it doesn't include anything that happened before she took the job at the Fed. It comes down almost to the simple question of what is cause. In this case, we had Peter Navarro with us last evening. He said the documents themselves represent due process. The president has cause. What is your view? Well, the documents themselves don't mean anything. You have to first show fraudulent intent and you have to show it wasn't a mistake. And they simply haven't done that up to this point, nor can they do it because they haven't put together the facts. Yes, it's true that in terms of what is for cause probably only relates to somebody mis performing and doing something wrong on the job itself. That is probably the way it's going to be interpreted. But the bottom line is this whole thing with this mortgage fraud allegation is completely made up. It's not something you'd even raise in the public until you actually had a case and you had it pinned down, which they don't have. They what's really worrisome here is that it's obvious that with Donald Trump and his minions are doing is investigating everybody on the Fed board. They're trying to find anything they can. They tried to do it with the chairman of the board with an overrun on this new building. And Donald Trump had it all screwed up because he was pointing to a building that had already been built at this point in time. So they've got to get their act together. They're flailing around trying to come up with crazy allegations, conspiracy theories, without putting together a real legal case. And without that, they're going nowhere. Well, that's interesting because as someone who was deeply involved in the Watergate case, I wonder your thoughts. And I think you just touched on this a little bit, but but more about what's going on inside that building. Is this an administration that's just digging through the backgrounds of anyone they disagree with, or is it more strategic than that? No, that's pretty much what it is. Look, here's the problem. The problem is the Supreme Court's opinion last year that essentially said the president has immunity for official acts. So everything that Donald Trump does now is clothed in an official act, whether he's going after universities and trying to use the various government agencies to bring investigations, an official act, whether he's filing a executive order, another official act. He's done that with law firms. He's doing it with individuals that were in his cabinet, not in his cabinet, but in his administration before he's clothed everything in official acts. Back in the day when I was in Watergate, I was investigating Nixon's actions against his enemies list. And part of the problem was proving the motive and the intent in terms of what they did to various people. Here it's out in the open. It's in the executive orders. It's in the investigation. Orders to the AG, to Homeland Security, to the EEOC. And because it's part of an official act, you can Roberts is basically giving Donald Trump a free pass to do whatever he wants.

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Cook Allegations Are 'Completely Made Up:' Nick Akerman

Nick Akerman, Former Assistant US Attorney, shares his thoughts on what to expect at Friday’s emergency hearing for Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook. Akerman also talks about Cook’s lawsuit mentioning a ‘clerical error’ behind a mortgage dispute and if this will have any effect on her case. Nick Akerman speaks with Joe Mathieu on the late edition of Bloomberg’s “Balance of Power.” (Source: Bloomberg)

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The only daily news program focused exclusively on technology, innovation and the future of business from San Francisco. Hosted by Emily Chang.
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