Rumored consumer bureau pick meets with Trump: report

President-elect Donald Trump met with a former congressman reportedly being considered to lead the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), according to the Dallas Morning News.

Former Rep. Randy Neugebauer (R-Texas) met with Trump at Trump Tower on Wednesday, a transition official told the Morning News. Neugebauer, a former House Financial Services Committee member, was first elected in 2003 and retired in 2016.

The Trump transition is reportedly looking at Neugebauer to potentially replace Director Richard Cordray. Neugebauer is one of countless Republican critics of the agency. He filed a bill in 2015 to install a five-person bipartisan panel to run the bureau instead of a sole director.

{mosads}Neugebauer could have also been advising Trump on how to structure a potential CFPB panel.

The bureau is the focus of rampant speculation and uncertainty.

Cordray’s term as director expires in July 2018, and CFPB spokesperson Jen Howard said he has no plans to step down before then.

Even so, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit ruled the bureau’s structure unconstitutional, though the ruling has been suspended while under appeal.

Republicans have long been critical of the CFPB’s power and relative protection from congressional efforts to curb its influence and reach. Though they are largely opposed to the bureau’s existence, Republicans have offered bills to let Congress control the CFPB’s budget and change its leadership structure. They’re likely to make reforming the agency a centerpiece of any effort to revamp the Dodd-Frank financial reform law.