Corey Lewandowski on Sunday used the recent White House personnel shake-up as an opportunity to push for incoming chief of staff John Kelly to fire an Obama-era appointee who oversees the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB).
“I think the general should re-look at firing Richard Cordray, the CFPB, he is a person who is now all but running for governor in the state of Ohio and he’s sitting in federal office right now,” the former Trump campaign manager said on NBC’s “Meet the Press with Chuck Todd.”
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“I think this general as chief of staff, is going to come in and put a fresh set of eyes on the inner-workings of the White House and making sure the president’s agenda moves,” said Lewandowski, who serves as an outside adviser to President Trump.
“It’s my recommendation to the president of the United States to fire Richard Cordray, and if he wants to run for the governor of Ohio, go do it, but my concern is, you’ve got an unelected bureaucrat sitting in an office right now, and I hope that the new chief of staff looks at him moving forward and saying it’s time to act decisively,” he continued.
Lewandowski denied that his call to terminate Cordray would benefit his own business interests, saying that overall the CFPB chief has passed measures that are to the detriment of the government.
“No, no. I have no clients whatsoever. But what I do know, two weeks ago, Richard Cordray through the CFPB passed a rule with the antithesis of, you know, it’s going to be about a trillion dollars’ worth of arbitration that the government’s going to have to go through now,” he said, citing a controversial new rule that would have protected consumers’ rights to sue banks in class-action lawsuits.
Other Republicans, such as Reps. Sean Duffy (R-Wis.) and Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas), also want to see Cordray removed.
“The one disappointment with Trump is that he still has Richard Cordray at the CFPB. That Cordray is still there is incredibly disappointing,” Duffy told the Washington Examiner.
Cordray has come under fire by both Democrats and Republicans for how the agency is run, including how difficult it is for borrowers to be given access to capital.
Cordray has overseen the CFPB since 2012, an agency which was created by the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act.
The CFPB head plans to run for governor of Ohio, Politico reported earlier this month, citing friends of Cordray.