Trump’s CFPB Saboteurs Tell The Supreme Court To Finish The Job

Former Trump Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) Director Mick Mulvaney has authored a new amicus brief supporting the payday lender plaintiffs in CFSA v. CFPB, an upcoming Supreme Court case that alleges the CFPB's independent funding mechanism is unconstitutional. Mulvaney accepted thousands in campaign contributions from the lawsuit’s plaintiffs and other payday lenders while serving in Congress, where he repeatedly tried and failed to eliminate the popular CFPB through legislation, and succeeded in gutting the CFPB’s enforcement actions against payday lenders while serving as the Bureau’s Acting Director. The amicus brief was filed by Eric Blankenstein, a former CFPB political appointee who helped implement Mulvaney’s lender-friendly agenda before resigning over his authorship of racist blog posts.

The Revolving Door Project, which recently highlighted a separate amicus brief filed by insurrection mastermind John Eastman, responded to the Mulvaney-Blankenstein brief in a new blogpost examining the filers' anti-consumer records and Mulvaney’s industry donations. Read the blogpost here.

In response to Mulvaney's amicus brief filing, Revolving Door Project Senior Researcher Vishal Shankar issued the following statement:

“By authoring an amicus brief supporting his former campaign donor, Mick Mulvaney has again proven himself to be a shameless corporate shill. As a Congressman and CFPB Director, Mulvaney repeatedly tried to kill the CFPB after raking in whopping sums from big banks and predatory lenders who wanted the Bureau dead. Now, with the help of his disgraced former lieutenant, Mulvaney wants SCOTUS to finish the job. It’s time to stop pretending this case is anything but a brazen power-grab by corporate criminals and their loyal bagmen.”

Revolving Door Project Executive Director Jeff Hauser added:

“If the CFPB weren’t so popular, corrupt bankers and their proxy members of Congress would have succeeded in killing it legislatively. Since the CFPB is too popular to take on legislatively, sellout has-beens like Mulvaney and Blankenstein are shifting to Plan B, seeking action by a judiciary which is as corrupted by big money as it is blinded by right-wing zealotry.”