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Fight Over Leadership of Consumer Finance Protection Bureau

Interesting development: https://washingtonpost.com/news/business/wp/2017/11/25/white-house-consulted-justice-department-before-naming-cfpb-critic-to-lead-agency/?utm_term=.32d4bdd40453
The battle, should it wind up in court, could turn into a roadblock to the Trump administration’s efforts to roll back financial regulations. While Trump has installed new leadership at the top of several other regulatory agencies, many of which have already taken a more business-friendly tone, the CFPB has continued to aggressively push rules that irked Wall Street. The agency has broad powers to regulate financial firms, from banks, credit card companies to payday lenders, and impose fines for wrongdoing.

The agency has often run afoul of conservatives for what the banking industry has complained is overly aggressive rulemaking. But it has been cheered by consumer advocates and Democrats for taking on big banks, including Wells Fargo, which it fined a record $100 million for opening millions of fake accounts customers didn’t ask for.

“The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, or CFPB, has been a total disaster as run by the previous Administrations pick. Financial Institutions have been devastated and unable to properly serve the public. We will bring it back to life!,” Trump said of the six-year old agency Saturday. In another tweet, he referred to a Wall Street Journal editorial critical of the agency, and said Cordray had “just quit.”

Still, the agency’s fate remained unclear. “It appears that both Deputy Director English and OMB Director Mulvaney will walk in the door on Monday morning with the expectation of running the CFPB. We haven’t the faintest clue how that specific interaction will unfold, but our sense is that it could be a muddled mess,” Isaac Boltansky, a Washington policy analyst for the investment firm Compass Point Research & Trading, said in a research note Saturday.
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