President Trump’s Office of Management and Budget chief, Mick Mulvaney, is being considered to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, a consumer watchdog agency started by former President Barack Obama after Director Richard Cordray resigned.
Mulvaney once referred to the CFPB as “a sad, sick joke.” His role as interim director would be temporary, according to Bloomberg.
Mulvaney would move into the position after Cordray, an Obama administration holdover and former Ohio attorney general, steps down later this month. Cordray has been the only director of the agency, created in the 2010 Dodd-Frank law to police financial markets for consumer abuse.
Republicans have long aimed to curb the agency’s powers and objected particularly to Cordray’s pursuit of new rules on consumer products.
Mulvaney is expected to name an individual, or a team of people, to run the agency’s day-to-day activities while he focuses on running the OMB.
Mulvaney can serve in both roles under a law covering federal agency vacancies. The law gives the president the ability to replace one outgoing director with someone from another agency as long as the individual has been confirmed by the Senate.
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin also has been eyed to take the director role once Cordray leaves, one of the Bloomberg sources noted.
