A new report has stated the continued presence of Biden administration-appointee and Sen. Elizabeth Warren ally Rohit Chopra as the director of Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) is due to the inability of the Trump administration to find someone to take over the regulatory agency.
Chopra was the rare Biden-era figure not to resign ahead of the Trump inauguration. While a new regulatory freeze enacted last week by Trump prevents the CFPB to promulgate new consumer protection rules, it can continue with enforcement actions and data collection – and Chopra has taken advantage of this, with an enforcement against Argus Information and Advisory Services, a subsidiary of TransUnion, and issued a new request for information on the consumer credit market.
American Prospect reports that having Chopra still at the CFPB is reportedly by default rather than design – the Trump team has not identified any internal candidates at the CFPB who would run the agency in alignment with Trump policies. Nor have they been able to attract an outsider to the job. Kathy Kraninger, who held the position in the first Trump administration from 2018 to 2021, is now CEO of the Florida Bankers Association and not interested in returning to Washington. Brian Johnson, a Kraninger aide who is now vice president and US card compliance officer at Capital One, and former Trump FDIC Chairwoman Jelena McWilliams also turned down the job offer, while have all been offered the job and turned it down. Craig Phillips, a Trump Treasury official, considered the job but took a position at Freddie Mac.
But having Chopra at the CFPB during a Trump presidency is created discomfort in the financial services industry. Weston Lloyd, a spokesperson for the Consumer Bankers Association, warned that “the longer Director Chopra stays, the harder it will be for this pro-growth administration to undo the politically-driven, government-price-setting agenda that former President Biden’s appointee has engaged in over the last several years.”
If they can’t find anyone to run it, guess they’ll just have to shut it down. Good riddance.