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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