Posted on 11/25/2017 9:49:31 PM PST by Oshkalaboomboom
The White House may name an acting director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the Justice Department said in a memo on Saturday that endorsed an action by the Trump administration.
"The President may designate an Acting Director of the CFPB," the eight-page memo said.
On Friday, the White House said Mick Mulvaney, President Donald Trump's budget director, would lead the CFPB on an interim basis.
The leadership of the independent regulatory agency was thrown into question on Friday when its outgoing director Richard Cordray, a Democrat, named his deputy as his acting replacement until the U.S. Senate confirms a new director.
But Trump named White House budget director Mulvaney, a fierce critic of the agency, to temporarily oversee the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) until he nominates someone to take on the job - a pick expected in upcoming weeks, senior administration officials told reporters on a conference call.
Trump's nominee must be confirmed by the U.S. Senate, meaning that Mulvaney - who will be at the CFPB on Monday - could be the acting director for months.
"We don't have any reason to think that anything out of the ordinary course will happen: we think he will show up Monday and he will go into the office and start working," a senior administration official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
The officials said Trump's move to name an acting director was "routine" and is supported by a plain reading of the 1998 Federal Vacancies Reform Act.
Cordray was the CFPB's first director, so this is the first time the agency's succession plan has been tested.
The agency was created by former Democratic President Barack Obama in the wake of the financial crisis and has imposed steep penalties on banks, auto dealers, student lenders and credit card companies
(Excerpt) Read more at newsmax.com ...
The whole thing should be shut down. It was nothing more than a powe grab that Obama used to enforce his communist will. It had power to dig into private financial records and any and all private and public transactions (including cell phone and email) AT WILL and Obama used it to strong arm his policies.
You’ll note that EVERY article written has to make the blurb that it was done for “our” protection - like the TSA of course.
The Supreme Court has already ruled that the statute that created this mafia fiefdom was too dictatorial. It allowed that a President can fire whoever is at the post. That means even if some black robed Obama stooge from Hawaii says the commie’s choice must stay, Trump can merely pop that pimple by firing whoever this lawless judges rules should be the ruler.
I missed where Pres. Trump fired Leandra English.
I’m all out of popcorn.
This whole thing is just silly. If you accept the Democrats’ interpretation, then once a director is named, that director could start a chain of events that would result in a monarchy within that agency, by naming his chosen successor, who would then name her chosen successor, who would then name his chosen successor, ad infinitum - all of them with no congressional or presidential oversight. No legitimate interpretation of federal law allows that.
This article from the House Financial Services Committee was written in 2013, but CFPB was a stinking swamp back then - you know it’s only gotten worse. Fauxcahontas is going ballistic about Trump appointing Mulvaney because she knows it will be the end of her “baby”. Evidently, CFPB did without an assistant director for years - Cordray quickly appointed one just before he resigned, trying to keep Trump from putting his own man in. The Dems set this up to function without ANY oversight & the Director holds all the power - see paragraph #2 below.
Link: https://financialservices.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=339512
The Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee highlighted the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s (CFPB) radical structure at a hearing today, and members continued to express concern that the agency operates without basic oversight and accountability.
The CFPB, created under the Dodd-Frank Act, is controlled by a single individual who cannot be fired for poor performance and who exercises sole control over the agency, its hiring and its budget.
For Fiscal Year 2013, the CFPB estimated that it would spend $541 million and increase its staff to more than 1,200. The CFPB is able to spend this money with no oversight from Congress, the President or the Federal Reserve from which it obtains its funding.
“In the end, this single director can disregard advice and manage as he wishes. He has little accountability to the Administration, and even less to Congress; his budget is secure. As a result, it should come as no surprise that the Bureau has operated with less transparency and less concern for fiscal discipline than is appropriate for a steward of taxpayer funds,” said Subcommittee Chairman Patrick McHenry (R-NC).
With the lack of Congressional control over appropriations to the CFPB, and the lack of Administration control over the CFPB’s budget, the large budget and broad regulatory discretion conferred upon the CFPB present substantial risk of waste, fraud and abuse.
“As a result of this lack of accountability, certain expenditures have been called into question, such as the $55 million that has been set aside for renovating the CFPB headquarters building just steps from the White House. Incidentally, $55 million is more than the entire annual construction and acquisition budget for GSA for the totality of federal buildings,” McHenry added, referencing the General Services Administration.
Other areas of concern that the Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee reviewed during its hearing include:
The CFPB spends a substantial amount of money on travel by its employees. In the first half of Fiscal Year 2013, the CFPB spent $5.9 million on travel compared to $68.4 million on personnel compensation, excluding benefits. Of the CFPB’s 1,168 current employees, 299 are examiners, who travel frequently. Assuming that for the balance of the year travel costs continue at the same pace, the CFPB will have spent nearly $12 million by the end of this fiscal year.
This substantial travel expense requires strong procedures and controls to prevent abuse, particularly considering the waste recently revealed at the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and GSA conferences. However, according to an independent audit of the CFPB performed by ASR Analytics, this is not the case:
“The travel request is approved by the Supervisor without any knowledge of the estimated dollar amount to be expended on the trip. Further, Travel Vouchers are not routed for approval by the traveler’s Supervisor. We recommend that the dollar amount be stated in the initial travel request and approved by the Supervisor. Additionally, CFPB should strengthen internal control by instituting approval of the Travel Voucher by the Supervisor before it is routed to the Approving Official in the Office of Travel for payment.”
The CFPB is not required to follow Office of Management and Budget (OMB) guidelines, rules and regulations. For example, on May 31, 2013, OMB issued a “Controller Alert” related to conference spending by agencies over which the OMB has jurisdiction. This alert related to agency spending in the context of the sequester, and grew out of the discovery of waste and abuse at the 2010 General Services Administration’s Las Vegas conference. Coincidentally, this Controller Alert was issued just prior to news of the wasteful spending at the IRS conference. However, pursuant to its exemption under Dodd-Frank, the CFPB is not required to comply with this OMB alert.
The CFPB’s refusal to participate in the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) Employee Viewpoint Survey. ASR Analytics, in its independent performance audit results reported on November 12, 2012, recommended that the “CFPB should participate in an OPM led, Annual Employee Viewpoint Survey to provide a mechanism for anonymous employee feedback.” Despite this specific recommendation that the CFPB join the OPM’s survey, which 98 percent of executive agencies participate in, the CFPB instead decided to perform its own survey. By taking this action, the CFPB avoided OPM’s independent review of its staffs’ concerns. This lack of independent insight into the CFPB further demonstrates the Bureau’s lack of transparency and oversight.
The CFPB employee survey revealed significant concerns regarding the management of the Bureau’s staff. According to the CFPB’s annual employee survey, only 35.6 percent of employees agree or strongly agree that the CFPB takes steps “to deal with a poor performer who cannot or will not improve.” This statistic reflects that 64.6 percent of the staff do not see the CFPB as ensuring that employees are held accountable. If the CFPB cannot hold its own staff accountable for their failures, it is difficult to believe that the CFPB will be accountable in other areas.
Furthermore, the CFPB claims to “invest in world-class training” for its employees. However, in its own survey when its own employees were asked “how satisfied are you with the training you receive for your present job,” only 38.8 percent agreed that the training they received was sufficient.
The lack of accountability to both Congress and the administration for an agency run by a single director creates enormous risk of abuse through the broad discretion enabled by the CFPB’s Civil Penalty Fund.The director of the CFPB can effectively direct the managers of the Penalty Fund, a repository for funds collected by the CFPB in judicial or administrative proceedings, to follow his particular wishes with regard to compensating victims throughout the United States. It appears the CFPB need not win its own cases – instead the CFPB can identify cases brought by other Federal, State and even private plaintiffs and selectively intervene. Such vast authority demands accountability.
Not with another chuck n Nancy debt deal already in progress. Kabuki. The Dems will get their way and their free money too.. Meanwhile, not one inch of the fortified wall is complete.
So just what did we get for the June chuck n Nancy deal?
They just call it consumer protection when it is really designed to screw consumers.
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