President Donald Trump is reportedly close to choosing a replacement for Richard Cordray as director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
According to multiple reports, Trump is circling Mick Mulvaney, who currently serves as director of the Office of Management and Budget and has long been outspoken about his dislike for the CFPB, to replace Cordray as the bureau’s director.
On Wednesday, Cordray announced via an email to CFPB staff that he intends to step down before the end of the month.
That leaves Trump with the chance to remake the controversial regulator and replace Cordray, who Republicans frequently clashed with throughout his tenure, with someone whose views are more closely aligned with the White House and Republicans.
And according to Bloomberg and multiple reports, Trump may be close to choosing Mulvaney to serve as interim director of the CFPB.
From Bloomberg:
Mulvaney, President Donald Trump’s Office of Management and Budget director, is being considered for a temporary role as interim director of the consumer watchdog after Richard Cordray steps down later this month, according to two people familiar with the matter. Mulvaney would be expected to name someone else or a team of people to run the CFPB on a day-to-day-basis so he could keep his focus on OMB, said one of the people.
According to CNN’s Jeremy Diamond, Trump is “likely” to choose Mulvaney for the role.
NEW: OMB Director Mick Mulvaney is likely to be named Acting CFPB Director as early as tomorrow, administration official tells me. He'll continue to serve as OMB Director, as allowed under Federal Vacancies Act because he's already Senate confirmed.
— Jeremy Diamond (@JDiamond1) November 16, 2017
Prior to serving as OMB Director, Mulvaney served in the House of Representatives and sat on the House Financial Services Committee as well as the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.
In his time in Congress, Mulvaney was often outspoken about his dislike for the CFPB.
In 2014, for example, Mulvaney spoke to the Credit Union Times about his views on the CFPB, describing the relations between Congress and CFPB as a “truly adversarial relationship.”
Mulvaney also criticized the CFPB’s budgetary process, under which the agency draws its funding directly from the Federal Reserve instead of through Congressional appropriations, an arrangement that Republicans have long had an issue with.
“The place is a wonderful example of how a bureaucracy will function if it has no accountability to anybody,” Mulvaney told the Credit Union Times in 2014. “It turns up being a joke. And that’s what the CFPB really has been in a sick, sad kind of way.”
Asked about what reforms could be enacted in regards to the CFPB, Mulvaney suggested eliminating the agency altogether.
“Some of us would like to get rid of it because we don’t like the idea of there being a non-accountable federal agency,” he said.
Instead, Mulvaney could soon be leading the CFPB, which would almost certainly lead to the swift and serious changes at the agency – something that would probably be welcome in certain segments of the financial services industry.
