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Renovation costs for the brand new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau headquarters have skyrocketed, posting 25 percent in cost overruns. Original cost estimates for the CFPB’s renovation were estimated at $55 million, but the bureau ran up the proposed cost to $216 million. The Federal Reserve Inspector General rejected the proposal in 2014, saying there was no “sound basis” for the figure. As the CFPB renovation costs continued to escalate, renovation was taken out of the CFPB’s hands and transferred to the General Services Administration (GSA). GSA’s budget, however, was nearly twice the original $55 million, hitting $99 million.

Extortion: The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is diverting potentially millions of dollars in settlement payments for alleged victims of lending bias to a slush fund for poverty groups tied to the Democratic Party. We've seen this before at the Justice Department, which Congress earlier this year scolded for "shortchanging" alleged victims of Bank of America and Citibank the same way. Justice funneled at least $150 million into a slush fund for Democratic interests, unconstitutionally avoiding Congress. Now, a little-noticed item on the CFPB's website reveals the powerful new agency is launching its own scheme to provide backdoor funding for nonprofit...

Sen. Ron Johnson says woman who claims to be acting chief ‘burrowed’ into agencyA top Republican demanded answers Wednesday on how Leandra English, the woman Democrats are pushing to be acting director of the government’s top consumer advocacy agency, managed to “burrow” into her job and outlast the Obama administration. Sen. Ron Johnson, chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, said Ms. English held a political job at the Office of Personnel Management but managed to convert herself to a career civil service position early this year at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The process is called “burrowing,”...

Secret donors are financing the lawsuit against President Donald Trump and White House Budget Director Mick Mulvaney over who runs the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). Deepak Gupta, the lead lawyer of a boutique law firm that launched its suit on behalf of CFPB acting director Leandra English, confirmed in a CNBC interview that English is not paying for his hourly fees, but rather unknown anonymous donors are. Gupta refused to name who is funding the lawsuit, making it difficult to ascertain the motives, intentions, or any special interests of those underwriting the case. The D.C. lawyer appeared caught off...

In a victory for the Trump White House, a temporary restraining order to halt the president's pick for acting director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFBP), Mick Mulvaney, was denied by a judge late Tuesday though the decision is likely to be appealed. U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly ruled in favor of Trump in his effort to appoint White House budget director Mulvaney to lead the bureau, the nation's top financial watchdog agency. “Denying the president’s authority to appoint Mr. Mulvaney raises significant constitutional questions,” Kelly, a Trump nominee for the bench, said. Former CFPB litigation counsel Deepak Gupta,...

Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney just savaged the federal agency President Donald Trump recently put him in charge of during his first press conference as acting director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Mulvaney, who has long criticized the CFPB, doubled down on his hatred of the agency which was enacted in 2011 by the Dodd-Frank Wall Street regulations passed in the aftermath of the 2008 economic downturn. “Yeah, my opinion of the structure of CFPB has not changed,” Mulvaney said. “I still think it is an awful example of a bureaucracy that has gone wrong. It...

Deepak Gupta was in court once again this week in a role he seems increasingly comfortable filling: representing clients who are battling President Trump. This week, Gupta was in court representing Leandra English, who claims she is acting director Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. When Trump picked Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney to fill the position, English sued, arguing that as deputy director the law puts her in charge. ... It wasn't Gupta's first time arguing in court against Trump this year. In January, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington hired him to sue Trump after alleging...

White House budget boss Mick Mulvaney moved quickly Monday to rein in the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, imposing a 30-day hiring freeze and other new rules as the fight over who’s really in charge of the agency heads to court. Mulvaney, whom President Trump chose to run the CFPB on a temporary basis, has a history of bashing the bureau and has called it a “sad, sick” joke. He didn’t back away from those assertions Monday afternoon, describing the CFPB as “an awful example of a bureaucracy that has gone wrong and is almost entirely unaccountable.” Mulvaney said he was...

White House budget director Mick Mulvaney, named by President Trump as acting director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, sent a memo to the agency's staff Monday that read: "Please disregard any instructions you receive from Ms. English in her presumed capacity as Acting Director," Reuters reports. He also brought donuts.The backdrop: The CFPB currently has two chiefs. Leandra English is former director Richard Cordray's pick to lead the agency, and she has sued the Trump administration over Mulvaney's appointment. Mulvaney told staffers to report any communications from English to the general counsel of the CFPB, who has said she...

Mick Mulvaney may be getting sued over his appointment to serve as interim director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, but he certainly is not letting it faze him. The Office of Management and Budget Office director told CFPB staffers Monday to ignore communications from Leandra English, who was named by former CFPB Director Richard Cordray as his replacement. English filed a lawsuit against President Trump’s appointment of Mulvaney as acting head of the agency, saying he does not have the authority due to provisions in the Dodd Frank Act that delineate the line of succession. The administration on the...

A Consumer Financial Protection Bureau official sued President Trump on Sunday over his appointment of Office and Management and Budget director Mick Mulvaney to serve as interim director of the agency.Leandra English filed the lawsuit late Sunday to block Mulvaney from taking over the CFPB, and asked for a declaratory judgment by the United States District Court for the District of Columbia on the matter. The federal official argues that the Dodd-Frank Act, a law championed by Democrats that created the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, prohibits the White House from naming the director for the agency.  English, who is the...

The self-described acting director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau petitioned a federal judge late Sunday to block President Donald J. Trump from putting John M. “Mick” Mulvaney, the director of the Office of Management and Budget in charge of the rogue agency.Richard Cordray named Leandra English as his deputy director Friday, his last day in office, and as such set up the crisis, English seeks to resolve with her petition to the federal courts asking that she be recognized as the acting director until the president has his own selection confirmed by the Senate.“Leandra is a seasoned professional who...

President Donald Trump's appointment of his budget director as interim director of a consumer financial protection agency championed by Democrats was challenged in a lawsuit filed in federal court Sunday night. Leandra English, the federal official elevated to the position of interim director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau by its outgoing director, filed the suit against Trump and his choice, White House budget director Mick Mulvaney. The suit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia asked for a declaratory judgment and a temporary restraining order to block Mulvaney from taking over the bureau. English cited the...

Replay Mute Loaded: 0%Progress: 0% -0:00 Share Fullscreen The deputy director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) on Sunday night sued President Trump in order to block Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney from taking over as acting director of the agency. Leandra English, who was tapped by former Director Richard Cordray to be the acting director, filed a complaint in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia against Trump and Mulvaney, whom the president nominated to be CFPB's interim leader. The office of the CFPB’s head council is expected to challenge her suit,...

hat’s this? …MORE winning? …Sheesh. Well, just add it to the pile in the corner over there, along with all the other winning we haven’t got around to yet. he internal legal counsel for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) has just agreed with the White House Office of Legal Counsel that President Trump has full authority to appoint OMB Director Mick Mulvaney as the acting head of the agency. Oh noes, Princess Moonbat Feathers is gonna have a ‘splodey head in 3…. 2…. 1…

Republicans on the House Financial Services Committee hope to markup legislation to reform Dodd-Frank in April. Democrats will have a month to agree upon a strategy to defend the CFPB and to decide to what to degree they wish to work with Republicans to keep the CFPB alive. Democrats believe they can strike a deal with Republicans to transform the CFPB into a bipartisan commission from a single directorship. Congressman Brad Sherman (D-CA) explained that the alternative would give President Trump sole control over the CFPB when current director Richard Cordray’s term expires next year.