November 27, 2017

There Are 2 Bosses at the CFPB Right Now. One Is Suing. One Brought Doughnuts.

The fight to keep Trump’s pick away from the agency heads to court.

Octavio Jones/ Tampa Bay Times/ Zumapress

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On Monday morning, two different people showed up for work at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, claiming to be the acting directors of the financial watchdog agency following the departure of its Obama-era director, Richard Cordray, late last week.

Mick Mulvaney, Trump’s White House budget director and the president’s pick to run the agency, brought doughnuts. Leandra English, Cordray’s former chief of staff and chosen successor, emailed the staff to welcome them back to the agency after Thanksgiving, signing off as the acting director. 

Mulvaney sent his own memo, telling employees to “Please disregard any instructions you receive from Ms. English in her presumed capacity as Acting Director.” 

This confusing chain of events came after a showdown over the Thanksgiving weekend about who is the rightful interim head, and whether Trump has the power, by law, to install his own choice to temporarily lead the agency. 

The tug-of-war began late on Friday, when Cordray appointed English to be the CFPB’s deputy director and then stepped down from his post. Cordray’s departure triggered a provision of the 2010 Dodd-Frank law that stipulates the deputy director—in this case, English—”shall” become the acting director of the agency should the CFPB head leave, until the president nominates, and the Senate confirms, a permanent replacement.

That language may sound definitive, but the Trump administration thought otherwise: That same day, Trump appointed Mulvaney, a vocal, long-time foe of the CFPB, to serve as the agency’s head.

On Saturday, the Department of Justice issued a memo explaining that the administration believes Mulvaney’s appointment is legal because the 1998 Federal Vacancies Reform Act gives the president authority to supersede the rules of succession outlined in Dodd-Frank and appoint an acting director. (That memo was written by DOJ lawyer Steven Engel who in 2015 was one of two lead lawyers defending a payday lender in their case against the CFPB.)

Now, the succession battle is headed to court. Late on Sunday, English filed a lawsuit in federal district court against Trump and Mulvaney, arguing that she is the “rightful Acting director” of the CFPB, according to the agency’s chain of succession laid out in the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial reform legislation. She also requested an emergency restraining order to prevent Mulvaney—or anyone else handpicked by Trump—from stepping into the acting director position. 

In the complaint, she refers to Mulvaney as “the person claiming to be acting director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau,” asserting, “the President’s purported or intended appointment of defendant Mulvaney as Acting Director of the CFPB is unlawful.” 

English’s lawsuit alleges that DOJ’s reasoning is flawed, in part because when lawmakers drafted Dodd-Frank, they made an explicit choice to scrap the FVRA process for appointing an acting director—the procedure was written into an earlier draft. Instead, they created different rules of succession for the CFPB, in which the deputy director is entitled to the acting director job automatically. “The President’s stance is…difficult to square with the relevant legislative history,” the lawsuit notes.

“The President’s attempt to install a White House official at the head of an independent agency—while allowing that official to simultaneously serve in the White House—is unprecedented,” English’s lawyer, Deepak Gupta, said in a press release. “The law is clear: Leandra English is Acting Director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau until the Senate confirms a new Director.”

You can read the full lawsuit below:


 

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

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