Dem says frosted glass indicates lack of ‘transparency’ at CFPB

Mick Mulvaney, the acting head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), defended on Wednesday a decision to put frosted glass on the windows of his office, after he was confronted for a lack of “transparency” by Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.).

Ellison questioned Mulvaney at a House Financial Services Committee hearing about the decision to install frosted glass on the windows of 13 offices at the CFPB, asking whether doing so undermined his commitment to transparency. 

“You are the champion of transparency, right?” Ellison asked. “And yet you have obscured yourself physically, and I find that to be ironic, sir.”

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Mulvaney said the windows of 13 offices had been frosted in recent months at a cost of $3,500. The frosted windows, he said, were part of a plan put together under his predecessor at the CFPB, Richard Cordray.

Mulvaney then fired back at Ellison, asking whether the door to his office is transparent. 

“I’m not a witness today. You are,” Ellison replied. 

“I’ve been to your office. I can’t see into it,” Mulvaney quipped. 

The Associated Press reported Tuesday that the CFPB had spent $6,000 to frost the office windows of senior staff in recent months. The bureau reportedly ordered the film used to frost the windows in September 2017, before Cordray left the agency, and again in February, after Mulvaney took over.