November 28, 2017
While we were understandably disgusted by the vulgar disrespect Trump displayed towards the Navajo code talkers at the White House ceremony yesterday, we should be accustomed by now to the fact that a walking, unbridled, racist id is President of the United States. Our real focus should be on the drama unfolding at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
Monday morning, Bureau staff were met with dueling bosses, each of whom claimed the authority of Acting Director. Mick Mulvaney, current head of the Office of Management and Budget, assumed a second role at Trump’s behest, showing up with donuts, in an effort to sugarcoat his plan to kneecap the consumer watchdog agency. Leandra English asserted the authority to serve as Acting Director after her appointment by outgoing founding director, Richard Cordray. Mulvaney and English each claimed statutory authority for their position. Mulvaney under the Federal Vacancies Reform Act, and English under the Dodd Frank Act, which established the CFPB and contains a specific procedure for handling vacancies. By the end of the day, English had gone into federal court seeking a temporary restraining order preventing Mulvaney from assuming control. This may seem like an arcane matter, of interest only to Administrative Law nerds, but the fate of the bureau itself hangs in the balance. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the brainchild of Elizabeth Warren, was established to protect consumers from “unfair, deceptive or abusive practices” in the financial services industry (Source: Consumerfinance.gov). In its first five years, the CFPB has secured $12 billion in penalties and fines benefiting more than 27 million consumers (Source: “The CFPB Turns 5 Today. Here’s What It’s Done (and What It Hasn’t)” by Ian Salisbury, Money, time.com, 7/21/16). Meanwhile, Mulvaney has referred to the Bureau as a “sick joke.” Today, the judge in the case, Trump appointee, Timothy J. Kelly, denied Leandra English’s request for a temporary restraining order and said that Mulvaney could assume the helm of the agency on an interim basis.
With a corrupt administration who views government as nothing more than a profit delivery system for crony capitalists and a Congress whose every move seems designed to exacerbate already stratospheric income inequality, the days of any agency of the U.S. government acting in the interest of its citizens may be numbered.
#2018 Midterms