Dueling Appointments Lead to Clash at Consumer Protection Bureau
President Trump on Friday named his budget director, Mick Mulvaney, as the acting director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, moving to take control of the agency hours after its departing leader had taken steps to install his own choice for acting chief.
By the end of the night, an agency born after the financial meltdown — and one which Republicans have tried to kill from the start — had dueling directors, and there was little sense of who actually would be in charge Monday morning.
The bureaucratic standoff began Friday afternoon when Richard Cordray, the Obama-appointed leader of the bureau, abruptly announced he would leave the job at midnight, a week earlier than anticipated. He followed up with a letter naming his chief of staff as the agency’s deputy director.
The announcement came with a twist. Under the law, he said, that appointment would make the new deputy director the agency’s acting director. The move was seen as an effort to block Mr. Trump from appointing his own acting director.
The White House retaliated, saying Mr. Mulvaney, who once called the consumer protection bureau a “sad, sick joke,” would be running the agency. He would also keep his current job as head of the Office of Management and Budget.
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