Trump to nominate OMB official to lead consumer watchdog

FILE: President Donald Trump (Photo by Michael Vadon/Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0)

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump intends to nominate an associate director at the Office of Management and Budget to lead the government’s consumer watchdog agency, the White House announced Saturday.

In a statement announcing the decision, spokeswoman Lindsay Walters said Kathy Kraninger “will bring a fresh perspective and much-needed management experience” to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which the administration has been trying to rebrand as the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection.

Trump’s budget chief, Mick Mulvaney, has been filling in as the bureau’s acting director along with running the OMB since late November when his predecessor, Richard Cordray, resigned.

Since then, Mulvaney has steered the bureau in a more industry-friendly direction.

In her statement, Walters said the agency had been “plagued by excessive spending, dysfunctional operations, and politicized agendas” in the past and that Kraninger would continue to implement the policies Mulvaney put in place.

The Senate must confirm her nomination.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau was established after the 2008 financial crisis to ensure customers were not being exploited and that banks were complying with consumer protection laws.

Cordray, appointed by President Barack Obama, was criticized by congressional Republicans as being overzealous but was lauded by consumer advocates for aggressively going after banks for wrongdoing.

Mulvaney earlier this month dissolved a group of outside experts that acts as a sounding board for the federal watchdog agency on important economic and financial issues as well as policy. The law that created the CFPB mandates that bureau officials meet with the advisory board at least twice a year.

Bureau officials said the board would be reconstituted in the fall, likely with fewer than its current 25-person membership. None of the current members of the board, who typically serve three year terms, would be eligible to apply.

Mulvaney has also given big pay raises to the deputies he has hired to help him run the bureau.