Legal professional Abbe Lowell, representing Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Prepare dinner, arrives at federal courtroom in Washington, DC, US, on Friday, Aug. 29, 2025.
Al Drago | Bloomberg | Getty Pictures
When President Donald Trump abruptly introduced final week that he had fired Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Prepare dinner, a legendary Washington lawyer rapidly stepped into the world.
Abbe Lowell has represented New York Legal professional Normal Letitia James, Hunter Biden, Jared Kushner, Ivanka Trump and several other different high-profile political purchasers, each Republicans and Democrats.
Now he’s on the middle of Trump’s bid to increase his authority over federal regulators.
Earlier than Trump introduced he was firing Prepare dinner on Aug. 25, no American president had ever tried to unilaterally take away a Fed governor, pushing Prepare dinner and the central financial institution into uncharted authorized territory.
However for Lowell, a fixture in Washington authorized circles for many years, preventing a presidential administration’s try and exert management over federal regulators is nothing new.
“I’ve mainly challenged the overreach of federal businesses in each administration since Ronald Reagan’s,” Lowell stated on MSNBC final month.
“Did not matter whether or not it is a Democratic or Republican administration. If the federal government overreaches, then [the] lawyer’s job is to place the federal government in the precise place,” he added.
Prepare dinner and James are among the newer names of the prolonged shopper listing Lowell has constructed through the years.
James gained a civil fraud case in opposition to Trump and his household enterprise in 2023. The penalty within the case — roughly $500 million — was thrown out final month.
That very same month, the Trump Justice Division launched a federal grand jury investigation into James over alleged “mortgage fraud.”
The allegations in opposition to James have been publicly leveled earlier this yr by the identical Trump ally, Federal Housing Finance Company director Invoice Pulte, who made the claims in opposition to Prepare dinner.
Lowell, not afraid to function the assault canine for his purchasers, has known as the investigation into James “essentially the most blatant and determined instance of this administration finishing up the president’s political retribution marketing campaign.”
Lowell, 73, has additionally represented a number of different high-profile purchasers throughout his profession, together with Kushner and Ivanka Trump, the president’s son-in-law and eldest daughter.
Kushner and Ivanka Trump retained Lowell throughout Trump’s first time period to signify them in a particular counsel probe of Russian interference within the 2016 elections.
Former Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., employed Lowell’s then-firm to defend him in a 2017 federal bribery case that led to a mistrial. Menendez was convicted in a separate federal bribery case final yr.
Lowell additionally defended Hunter Biden, who was convicted final yr on federal gun associated fees, earlier than being pardoned by his father, former President Joe Biden.
Lowell additionally served as minority counsel to the U.S. Home Judiciary Committee throughout impeachment proceedings in opposition to former President Invoice Clinton in 1998.
However since Trump’s return, the majority of Lowell’s purchasers have been people focused by the Trump administration, giving him a well-recognized playbook as he takes on the White Home in authorized filings and within the courtroom.
“The distinction,” he says, between the Trump administration and different administrations, is that the Trump White Home overreaches “again and again.”
“So I suppose the underside line is that is in keeping with what I and the individuals I am working with have all the time finished. There’s simply extra of it to do,” Lowell stated on NPR’s “Morning Version” final month.
Following a well-recognized technique in Prepare dinner’s case as in his others, Lowell rapidly filed a lawsuit on her behalf final week after Trump moved to fireplace her over unsupported allegations of mortgage fraud.
“Nothing in these obscure, unsubstantiated allegations has any relevance to Gov. Prepare dinner’s position on the Federal Reserve, and so they under no circumstances justify her removing from the Board,” Lowell stated in an announcement on Friday, after Pulte filed a second prison referral in opposition to Prepare dinner with the Justice Division.
Lowell additionally sharply criticized the trouble throughout a Friday courtroom listening to on the matter that ended with out a direct resolution.
A query in Prepare dinner’s case is whether or not the alleged mortgage fraud is ample for Trump to take away Prepare dinner “for trigger,” which is the edge beneath the Federal Reserve Act. Pulte first raised and has relentlessly promoted the mortgage fraud allegations.
“You may’t have Director Pulte’s loopy midnight tweets be the trigger” for which Prepare dinner is eliminated, Lowell stated throughout the listening to.
Earlier this yr, Lowell left Winston & Strawn, the place he was a accomplice, and based his personal agency, Lowell & Associates. His boutique agency has rapidly developed a roster of purchasers who’ve been targets of the Trump administration.
And he seems unlikely to cease taking up the administration anytime quickly.
Throughout the current NPR interview, Lowell in contrast James’ case to George Orwell’s “Nineteen Eighty-4,” noting “the well-known line a few authorities that engages in what’s known as doublespeak.”
“I imply, take into consideration what the president is doing. He has an workplace within the Division of Justice that is known as one thing in regards to the anti-weaponization workplace,” he stated, including that “they’re utilizing that workplace to weaponize the Justice Division in opposition to the president’s adversaries.”
“I do know we get inured to the surplus of authority that’s taking place within the final six months, however this strikes at such – the guts of the rule of regulation that individuals ought to concentrate,” he stated.