The Consumer Financial Protection Czar and the Trump Administration

The Wall Street Journal has a report about the ill-advised Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) and its director Richard Cordray. (The article link is to the CETUS website, since WSJ articles are usually behind a paywall). Cordray was appointed by the Obama administration in 2012 to head up this agency. Prior to that appointment, he had been Ohio Attorney General but had lost his Senate race against Mike DeWine.

In 2011, Cleveland Tea Party’s Ralph King pointed out that the position of the Director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) is, “in more accurate terms Consumer Financial Protection Czar”:

The director of the CFPB is empowered to regulate almost any industry for any reason and cannot be removed for any reason other than malfeasance. The position is a five-year term, so the next president will have to deal with Cordray regulating our economy, despite the president’s wishes.

And now that next president, President Trump is having to deal with it. And the Wall Street Journal (article titled “Trump to Cordray: You’re Not Fired”) reports that the “Treasury Department has made an excellent case for dismissal.” Further in:

The problem is that Mr. Cordray won’t accept curbs on his power. Dodd-Frank states that the President may remove the director only for “inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office” rather than at-will like other agency heads. Yet the report enumerates a litany of ways in which Mr. Cordray has flouted the law.

Treasury notes the “CFPB has avoided notice-and-comment rulemaking and instead relied to an unusual degree on enforcement actions and guidance documents.” The Administrative Procedure Act requires regulatory agencies to issue formal rule-makings, or at least formal guidance, to explicate law. Mr. Cordray says “facts and circumstances” guide the bureau’s legal interpretations.

. . .

Mr. Cordray’s term doesn’t end until July 2018, and implementing Treasury’s reforms as well as attendant rule-makings could take more than a year. Meantime, Mr. Cordray can continue shaking down businesses with enforcement that he hopes will propel his expected campaign for Governor in Ohio.

Some take-aways: The WSJ may point out the excellent case for Cordray’s dismissal (not to say the elimination of the agency itself), but it’s not about legal niceties, it’s all about politics and power. Mr. Trump is still surrounded by hostile deep state operatives, bureaucracies, and Congressional Uniparty opponents who ignore Obama Administration scandals and refuse to respect existing laws  (think Lynch, Comey, and the FBI; or Susan Rice unmasking of political opponents; or Lois Lerner’s IRS scandal, and on and on)….  So it may be obvious that Cordray and the CFPB are on the wrong side of the law, but The Uniparty and Corporate Media don’t much care. Trump is probably choosing his battles.

I decided to blog on this not only because the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and its director represent more of the swamp to be drained, but also because Richard Cordray may very well run for Governor of Ohio. Voters should know what he’s been doing. The full WSJ report is here.  

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