CFPB Deputy Director Leandra English Resigns

Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) Deputy Director Leandra English, who was former CFPB Director Richard Cordray’s chosen successor, announced on Friday that she will leave the agency and terminate her lawsuit challenging President Trump’s appointment of Acting CFPB Director Mick Mulvaney.

English filed her lawsuit in November 2017, claiming that President Trump lacked authority to appoint Office of Management and Budget (OMB) chief Mulvaney because the Dodd-Frank Act specifies that the Deputy Director “shall serve as Acting Director in the absence or unavailability” of the Director until a new Director is appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate.  The Trump administration argued that the Dodd-Frank provision was superseded by the Federal Vacancies Reform Act, which gives the President the authority to fill a vacancy in a federal agency.

A federal judge denied English’s request for a preliminary injunction to remove Mulvaney in January 2018.  English appealed to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, which held oral arguments on her appeal in April.  If the court had ruled in favor of English, it was possible that she still could have been installed as Acting CFPB Director until Congress confirmed President Trump’s nominee for CFPB Director.

English said that her decision was prompted by President Trump’s June 16 nomination of OMB official Kathy Kraninger as CFPB Director.  The Senate Banking Committee has scheduled Kraninger’s nomination hearing for July 19.

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