POWER PLAY: The value of the dollar fell yesterday on news of President Trump’s attempt to fire a member of the independent Federal Reserve. The President accuses Fed Board member Lisa Cook of giving false information on mortgage documents.

   Cook is the first Black woman on the board appointed to a 14-year term by President Joe Biden. It’s the first time in 111 years that a president has tried to remove a Fed governor.

  Trump, who was found guilty himself of mortgage fraud by a New York court, said to the press, “She seems to have had an infraction and she can’t have an infraction.” 

  Cook has not been formally accused or found guilty of anything. Her mortgage documents were dug up by Bill Pulte at the Federal Housing Finance Agency, who’s also claiming mortgage fraud was committed by California Democratic Sen. Adam Schiff  and New York Attorney General Letitia James. 

THE REGIME:

— President Trump yesterday held a half-day cabinet meeting in front of television cameras during which department executives competed to praise his leadership. The winner may have been peace envoy Steve Witkoff, who said, “There’s only one thing I wish for: that the Nobel committee finally gets its act together and realizes that you are the single finest candidate since the Nobel Peace, this Nobel award was ever talked about.” 

  The President of peace spoke about the threat of windmills; the foul state of traffic medians; the speed with which water flows; and his attempts at securing peace deals for as many as seven international wars. 

  He also spoke about death … death for murderers. The President said during the meeting that the administration will seek the death penalty in all murder cases in the capital city.

   “Anybody murders something in the capital — capital punishment,” he said. “If somebody kills somebody in the capital — Washington, D.C. — we’re going to be seeking the death penalty.” His announcement came just hours after DC reported its first murder in almost two weeks. 

  The District of Columbia does not have the death penalty. The Justice Department would have to prosecute a murder as a federal crime to seek death. 

— A federal judge from Virginia issued a scathing rebuke as he threw out a Trump administration lawsuit against all 15 federal judges in Maryland that accused them of overreaching their authority on immigration matters.  Judge Thomas Cullen called the government lawsuit “novel and potentially calamitous” for its attack on the judiciary.

  Cullen, who was appointed by Trump, excoriated the administration saying you can’t sue judges because you don’t like their decisions. He wrote, “Over the past several months, principal officers of the executive (and their spokespersons) have described federal district judges across the country as ‘left-wing,’ ‘liberal,’ ‘activists,’ ‘radical,’ ‘politically minded,’ ‘rogue,’ ‘unhinged,’ ‘outrageous, overzealous, [and] unconstitutional, [c]rooked,’ and worse.” 

  He said, “This concerted effort by the executive to smear and impugn individual judges who rule against it is both unprecedented and unfortunate.” Cullen said that if the administration doesn’t like the decisions judges make they can do what everyone else has to do … appeal to a higher court.

— The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) yesterday suspended 30 employees who wrote a letter to President Trump saying disaster response has deteriorated since he took office.

LOST AND FOUND: An Italian masterpiece stolen by the Nazis from the collection of a Jewish art dealer in Amsterdam has been spotted on the website of a real estate agent selling a house in Argentina. 

  It’s a portrait of the Contessa Colleoni by the late-baroque portraitist Giuseppe Ghislandi and it’s right there in the real estate ad for the home once owned by Friedrich Kadgien, an SS officer who fled to Switzerland in 1945 before moving to Brazil then Argentina, where he became a successful businessman. The house had been put up for sale by the Kadgien’s daughter.

  The painting is among hundreds looted from art dealer Jacques Goudstikker, who helped other Jews escape during the war, but died at sea escaping the Netherlands.

  The Dutch newspaper AD tried to speak to Kadgien’s daughter who replied, “I don’t know what information you want from me and I don’t know what painting you are talking about.”

THE SPIN RACK:  The Cracker Barrel restaurant chain bowed to the outrage of loyal customers and announced that they are abandoning their new “modern” logo and bringing back “Uncle Hershel” in an apron sitting next to a barrel. Like we said, remember “New Coke?” — Prosecutors in New Jersey are seeking a seven year prison term for Nadine Menendez who with her husband former Sen. Bob Menendez was found guilty of corruption. 

BELOW THE FOLD: What could anyone post on Instagram that would get 10 million likes in the first hour and make it to the evening news? That would be the engagement of pop queen Taylor Swift to NFL tight end Travis Kelce. They posted, ““Your English teacher and your gym teacher are getting married 🧨.”

  Their post included a slideshow of Kelce getting down on a knee in a flowery garden proposing to Swift. The pair, both 35, have been dating since the summer of 2023 when Kelce pursued Swift without ever having met her first. There’s a player who can take the ball into the end zone.

  Speaking on a podcast about Kelce’s bold move before the announcement of their engagement, Swift said, “I was like if this guy isn’t crazy, um, which is a big if, this is sort of what I’ve been writing songs about wanting to happen to me since I was a teenager.” Today, she has a giant rock on her finger.

  We don’t spend much time with celebrity news but at least for the moment it removes the weight of the world. Fame and money can be corrosive and this is a couple that has plenty of both. You have to hope they make it.

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