Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) on Monday ripped the legitimacy of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), adding that acting director Leandra English “doesn’t have a legal leg to stand on” in her lawsuit to bar the appointment of Mick Mulvaney to lead the bureau.
“The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is a rogue, unconstitutional agency. Leandra English’s lawsuit to install herself as acting director against the president’s explicit direction is just the latest lawless action by the CFPB,” Cotton said in a statement.
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“The president should fire her immediately and anyone who disobeys Director Mulvaney’s orders should also be fired summarily. The Constitution and the law must prevail against the supposed resistance,” he added.
English, who was tapped by former CFPB director Richard Cordray to be the acting director, filed a complaint Sunday in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia against President Trump and Mulvaney, after the president tapped Mulvaney, the Office of Management and Budget director, to lead the panel.
Passed in 2010, the Dodd-Frank Act established the CFPB and called on the bureau’s deputy director to serve as acting director when in between Senate-confirmed chiefs. Cordray promoted English, his chief of staff, to the deputy director position shortly before resigning on Friday.
But Trump nominated Mulvaney to be the CFPB’s acting director on Friday evening, claiming he had the power to do so under the Federal Vacancies Reform Act of 1998. That law empowers the president to nominate any Senate-confirmed administration official as acting director of a department or agency.
English has asked the court to not only bar Mulvaney from the position but declare that Dodd-Frank’s line of succession supersedes the vacancies act. English has also asked the court to ban Trump from appointing another acting director.
Cotton’s comments echo those of other conservatives, including Mulvaney, who have said the CFPB is unnecessary.
Democrats have opposed Mulvaney’s appointment, arguing he would gut the bureau from the inside.
While a congressman, Mulvaney sponsored legislation to eliminate the CFPB, which he’s called “a sick, sad joke,” and had said he doesn’t think the bureau should exist.