Administration, consumer agency clash over bureau’s interim leadership choice
Come Monday morning, who will be running the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau? Over the weekend, the answer wasn’t clear.
Trump administration officials on Saturday defended the president’s legal authority to name his budget director as acting head of the independent watchdog agency.
President Donald Trump made the appointment late Friday after the abrupt resignation of Richard Cordray, the agency’s director.
Trump’s announcement was intended to thwart a move by Cordray earlier in the day to elevate an official from inside the agency to take on temporary leadership of the bureau.
Now, both sides say the law is in their favor, setting up a clash that may well end up in court.
Two White House officials, speaking to reporters in a briefing call Saturday, cited guidance from the Office of Legal Counsel, part of the Justice Department, as legal grounds for Trump’s move to install Mick Mulvaney as the consumer agency’s interim leader until a permanent successor is confirmed by Congress.
The officials cited the federal Vacancies Reform Act as giving Trump the authority to override the successor named by Cordray, who resigned about a week earlier than expected. Cordray followed up his resignation announcement with a letter naming the agency’s chief of staff as acting chief.
Trump’s decision shortly afterward to name his own temporary director was a “typical routine move,” said one official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
Mulvaney has previously called the agency a “sad, sick joke” and sponsored legislation to end its existence.
A formal opinion from the Office of Legal Counsel was expected to be released soon, officials said. In two opinions, issued in 2003 and 2007, the office had argued that the president has the authority to use the Vacancies Act to override an agency’s designated succession path.
Cordray named Leandra English, the agency’s chief of staff, as deputy director.
Under the 2010 DoddFrank Act, which established the consumer bureau, the deputy director serves as the agency’s acting head in the absence of permanent leadership. Cordray, citing that act, said he expected English to take over from him.
Stephen I. Vladeck, a law professor at the University of Texas, says it’s an “open question” which act — the vacancies law or Dodd-Frank — should prevail, especially because Dodd-Frank was enacted more recently.