Trump Reportedly Considers Mulvaney as Interim CFPB Director

Nov 17, 2017

Mick Mulvaney, the Acting Director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), has informed the agency’s staff that he has no plans to fire or reassign Eric Blankenstein

President Trump is reportedly considering to fill the soon-to-be-vacant Director’s office at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) with Mick Mulvaney, Director of the Office of Management and Budget, serving on an interim basis.

According to a Bloomberg report citing “two people familiar with the matter,” having an Interim Director would enable the president to begin his goal of a CFPB overhaul. Federal law enables the President to replace an outgoing Agency Director on a temporary basis with someone from another agency who has already won Senate approval.

Mulvaney, who once referred to the CFPB as “a sad, sick joke,” earned the immediate scorn of Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), the CFPB’s creator. Warren took to Twitter to complain: “Mick Mulvaney thinks the @CFPB shouldn’t exist. A member of the GOP anarchy gang has no business running the Agency. This is a giant middle finger to consumers.”

Bloomberg named several possible candidates that are reportedly under White House consideration to run the CFPB, including Todd Zwyicki from George Mason University’s Mercatus Center, former congressman Randy Neugebauer and Brian Brooks, Fannie Mae’s former General Counsel. The outgoing CFPB Director, Richard Cordray, announced in an internal CFPB memo on Wednesday that he planned to leave his job at the end of the month, but he has not set a final day for his departure. President Trump made no public comment on Cordray’s decision to leave ahead of the July 2018 conclusion of his five-year term.

The CFPB directorship would be the latest vacancy for the Trump Administration to fill. Yesterday, the Senate voted 54-43 to confirm former banking executive Joseph Otting as the next U.S. Comptroller of the Currency (OCC). He will replace Keith Noreika, who served as an Interim Director since May.

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Phil Hall

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Nov 17, 2017

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