2 appointees to show up Monday for 1 post

Who’s the boss? That’s the awkward question after Richard Cordray, the departing head of the federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, appointed a deputy Friday to temporarily fill his spot as he stepped down. The White House then named its own interim leader.

One job, two people — and two very different views on how to do it.

The first pick is expected to continue Cordray’s aggressive policing of banks and other lenders that has angered Republicans. The second, President Donald Trump’s choice, has called the agency a “joke” and an example of bureaucracy run amok, and he is expected to dismantle much of what the agency has done.

So come Monday, who will be leading the bureau?

Senior Trump administration officials said Saturday that the law is on their side and they expect no trouble when Mick Mulvaney, the director of the Office of Management and Budget, shows up for work as the bureau’s interim leader. Cordray, a former Ohio attorney general long criticized by congressional Republicans as overzealous in leading the bureau, had cited a different rule in saying the law is on his side.

In tendering his resignation Friday, Cordray elevated Leandra English, who was the agency’s chief of staff, into the deputy-director position. Citing the Dodd-Frank Act that created the bureau, he said that English, an ally, would become acting director upon his departure.

Corday’s move was widely seen as an attempt to stop Trump from shaping the agency in the months ahead.

The White House cites the Federal Vacancies Reform Act of 1998. Administration officials on Saturday acknowledged that some other laws appear to clash with the Vacancies Act, but they said that, in this case, the president’s authority takes precedence.