Free Republic

Government agencies are hardly paragons of restraint and efficiency, but bureaucrats are at least held accountable by Congress - most of the time. Unfortunately, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) operates without a leash from lawmakers and consumers and taxpayers pay the price every day.  This sprawling bureaucracy, which runs diametrically counter to the ideas in the Constitution, exists wholly beyond the scope of checks and balances that keep other government agencies in line. Its rules have proven onerous, and the CFPB has led to costlier financial services across the economy. Instead of further increasing this agency’s power, as lawmakers (and...

As the payday campaign manager for the liberal group Americans for Financial Reform, Alcoff participated in congressional Democratic press conferences, was a guest on a House Democratic podcast and met with senior officials at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau from 2016 through 2018. He was also pictured with now-House Financial Services Committee Chairwoman Maxine Waters, D-Calif., and ranking Democrat on the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio. Both committees oversee financial regulatory policies Alcoff was advocating.Alcoff met with then CFPB Director Richard Cordray and other senior CFPB officials on April 2016, again in March...

NEW YORK (AP) — The government’s top official overseeing the $1.5 trillion student loan market resigned in protest on Monday, citing what he says is the White House’s open hostility toward protecting the nation’s millions of student loan borrowers. Seth Frotman will be stepping down as student loan ombudsman at the end of the week, according to his resignation letter, which was obtained by The Associated Press. He held that position since 2016, but has been with Consumer Financial Protection Bureau since its inception in 2011. Frotman is the latest high-level departure from the CFPB since Mick Mulvaney, President Donald...

The Democratic candidate for governor of Ohio, Richard Cordray, has called for state and local TV stations to pull an ad he claims presents false information, according to the Associated Press. The ad focuses on Cordray’s time as the head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau under both former President Barack Obama and President Donald Trump. “The advertisement contains statements for which [Republican Governors Association Right Direction PAC] publicly concedes there is no factual backup; and it makes other false assertions that are contradicted by evidence in the public record,” read a cease and desist letter written by Cordray’s lawyers....

The Treasury Department’s Office of Intelligence and Analysis has been illegally rifling through and filing away the private financial records of US citizens, Treasury employees alleged. “This is such an invasion of privacy,” said one official. The intelligence division at the Treasury Department has repeatedly and systematically violated domestic surveillance laws by snooping on the private financial records of US citizens and companies, according to government sources. Over the past year, at least a dozen employees in another branch of the Treasury Department, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, have warned officials and Congress that US citizens’ and residents’ banking and...

Government auditors faulted the controversial consumer finance bureau for mismanaging a $43 million contract with political advertising firm, and the bureau’s Republican director is now trying to get some of that money back. Various groups have criticized a contract the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) awarded to GMMB, a marketing and advertising firm that did work on election campaigns for former President Barack Obama and other Democratic candidates, for showing hints of political favoritism. In managing the five-year contract, the CFPB did not verify the expenditures GMMB made during its work with the government, particularly on labor costs, and did...

As the Senate prepares for what should be a contentious confirmation hearing for President Trump’s nominee to head the powerful Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection (formerly known as the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau), a federal judge in New York just ruled that the BCFP’s unchecked power violates the Constitution. The BCFP “lacks authority to bring claims” because of the lack of constitutional checks on its director, ruled Loretta Preska, a respected senior judge and former Chief Judge of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, on June 21. The Dodd-Frank financial regulatory overhaul, rammed through the...

A federal district judge ruled Thursday that the structure of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) violates the Constitution, countering a January ruling from a federal appeals court. Judge Loretta Preska of the Southern District of New York ruled that the CFPB’s creation as an independent agency with a director that could only be dismissed for wrongdoing was unconstitutional. In January, the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled that the CFPB’s structure was constitutional, reversing a 2016 verdict issued by a panel of the court’s judges. The appeals court’s initial opinion, written by Judge Brett Kavanaugh,...

President Trump will nominate budget aide Kathy Kraninger to be the director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, a White House official said Saturday. If confirmed, she will replace Mick Mulvaney, Trump’s budget director who has been running the watchdog agency on an acting basis. A White House representative said that Kraninger “will bring a fresh perspective and much-needed management experience to the BCFP, which has been plagued by excessive spending, dysfunctional operations, and politicized agendas.” . Last week, Mulvaney told reporters that he expected to remain at the agency until well into the fall, given the slow pace of...

ItÂ’s an agency that you wouldnÂ’t think would be in the news much, but the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau became another front in the war against the Trump administration for the Left. Now, acting director Mick Mulvaney has just fired the entire 25-member advisory board, which was starting to criticize the front office. Last night, Mulvaney told its members that they were being replaced. YouÂ’re fired, as Trump would say. ItÂ’s a purge, some late spring-cleaning but one that could bring this administration into conflict with congressional Democrats (via WaPo): Mick Mulvaney, acting director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau,...

The Trump administration is disbanding a panel of experts focused on protecting consumers from financial abuse. Members of the panel, called the Consumer Advisory Board, say Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Acting Director Mick Mulvaney has dissolved the group, which includes consumer advocates, financial industry representatives, community leaders and others. As head of the CFPB, Mulvaney has moved to eliminate or blunt a number of financial regulations, including rules for payday lending, pre-paid cards, mortgages and student loans, while also curbing its industry oversight.

A U.S. senator on Thursday criticized Citigroup Inc and Bank of America Corp’s restrictions on lending to firearm makers and sellers, saying the new policies were wrongly politicizing banking services. Speaking during a hearing on the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), Republican Senator John Kennedy said he planned to personally file complaints with the U.S. consumer watchdog regarding the firearm policies. “Our friends at Citigroup and Bank of America apparently aren’t busy enough with their banking business; they have decided that they are going to set policy for the second amendment,” the Louisiana lawmaker said, referring to the component of...

Today’s Wall Street Journal publishes a letter to the editor by OMB Director and Acting Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) Director Mick Mulvaney. In the letter Mulvaney responds to the column by Senator Elizabeth Warren published in the Journal last week attacking his leadership of the CFPB. At NR, Ronald Rubin has another take on Warren’s column. Mulvaney’s letter seems to me a classic of the kind. I don’t think Mulvaney’s letter is subject to copyright and I am posting the whole thing below. Here it is: I write to correct misrepresentations made by Sen. Elizabeth Warren in “Republicans Remain...

Driven to desperation by their fury at President Trump’s election, his presidency, and Robert Mueller’s failure to substantiate the bogus Russia conspiracy fantasy, progressives are escalating their rhetoric, and in the process, unmasking their true beliefs. For decades, they have obscured their real goals, and pretended to be interested in moderate, incremental measures that they believe would be acceptable to mainstream Americans. Using terms like “compassion” and “fairness,” they have sought to justify handing more and more power to the state, and the importation of a population amenable to state control of all aspects of life. But in reaction to...

RUSH: Here’s Chuck You Schumer. This is in Washington today on the Senate floor. Audio sound bite No. 24. SCHUMER: Overall, we Democrats are very happy with what we’ve been able to accomplish on a number of very important priorities to the middle class in America: infrastructure, education, opioid treatment, mental health, child care. This spending agreement brings that era of austerity to an unceremonious end and represents one of the most significant investments in the middle class in decades. RUSH: I don’t know, folks. I just want to puke when I hear this stuff. I just want to vomit....

... Federal AgenciesIf Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren had taken a page out of Virginia Delegate Nick Freitas' book, she might not be in the pickle she is today. Warren (is spitting mad) at Mick Mulvaney, the Office of Management and Budget director who does double duty heading up an agency whose creation Warren championed: the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). The CFPB's previous director was an ideological ally of Warren. Since Mulvaney took over, Warren has ripped the agency's decisions. Warren (said) Mulvaney is giving "the middle finger" to consumers, and she (railed at) Mulvaney's indifferent response to the 10...

Smug self-congratulation and groveling delight in being praised by progressives. Bruce Thornton is a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center. President Trump in his first year has succeeded at realizing many long-time conservative goals like tax reform and deregulation, to name a few. But for NeverTrump grumps, these achievements seem to intensify their bitter-ender anger at a political parvenu. Puffed up with self-regard about the purity of their “principles,” many have doubled-down on their criticisms of Trump’s brash, vulgar demeanor, coming off like the pompous Judge Smails sputtering over Al Czervik’s trashing of the Bushwood Country Club....

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the brainchild of Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), is having difficulty accounting for laptops belonging to the agency. According to the CFPB’s Inspector General, a number of laptops have gone missing despite the agency sending out an “early alert memorandum,” on how to prevent inventory loss back in 2016. National Law Review reports: The CFPB’s Office of Inspector General has issued a report indicating that, in performing an audit of the CFPB’s encryption of data on mobile devices issued to staff members, the OIG found the CFPB had not yet completed all of the steps previously...

On Monday, banners were dropped by members of Black Lives Matter and Antifa during the Super Bowl LII’s media event warning that “#WeReadyWeComin.”As the two large banners were dropped inside, hundreds of leftist protesters marched in the streets and blocked traffic surrounding the event at the Xcel Energy Center. Many of the demonstrators have formed an Antifa-aligned group calling themselves the  “Super Bowl Anti-Racist Anti-Corporate Coalition.”According to their Facebook page, the group is planning to hold protests every day leading up to the main event. “Their plans will culminate on Sunday, February 4, with a 3pm rally at Peavey Park...

Having observed the workings of federal bureaucracies over a number of years, most of you are aware of how the budget process works for the various departments of the federal government. Everyone scrapes and claws for every penny they can get their hands on and studiously ensures that they spend the entire pot so they can ask for more money next time. This is one of the central premises of The Weed Agency (which you should absolutely read if you didn’t catch it when it first came out). But what happens when somebody breaks that mold? We’re about to find...