Congressional Democrats are asking Consumer Financial Protection Bureau acting director Mick Mulvaney to explain his decision to reorganize an agency office overseeing fair lending rules, warning that doing so could lead to predatory lending.
Democrats also asked the Trump-appointed Mulvaney to turn over all correspondence he might have had with the White House or bank lobbyists in arriving at the decision. Their criticism represents a reversal from the patterns of the past seven years, when congressional Republicans hassled Obama appointee Richard Cordray at every step of the way as he implemented new rules.
More than 50 Democrats, led by top Senate Banking Committee Democrat Sherrod Brown of Ohio and top House Financial Services Democrat Maxine Waters of California, wrote Mulvaney Friday to warn that reorganizing the bureau’s Office of Fair Lending and Equal Opportunity and removing its enforcement role “will frustrate the CFPB’s efforts to ensure all ‘consumers are protected from unfair, deceptive, or abusive acts and practices and from discrimination.'”
The Intercept reported in February that Mulvaney sought to bring the office under his direct control and limit its powers.
This week, however, Mulvaney defended his move, writing in a USA Today op-ed that he reorganized the office “to have only one office, not two, that handles enforcement, and only one, not two, that handles supervision.”
Democrats have challenged Mulvaney’s legitimacy in running the agency, arguing that Trump didn’t have the power to appoint him as director under the law that created the CFPB. In their letter, they addressed Mulvaney as the director of the Office of Management and Budget, his other role. They addressed former deputy director Leandra English as the acting director.
