Today, Congresswoman Maxine Waters (D-CA), Ranking Member of the Committee on Financial Services, issued the following statement on President Trump’s nomination of OMB Associate Director Kathy Kraninger to serve as Director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. In 2017, Trump illegally appointed his Office of Management and Budget Director, Mick Mulvaney, to serve as Acting Director of the Consumer Bureau.

“In his time at the Consumer Bureau, Mick Mulvaney has been doing everything in his power to roll back consumer protections, strip the agency of its resources and prioritize Wall Street at the expense of consumers. Since Mulvaney’s illegal appointment as Acting Director, he has dropped lawsuits and investigations into abusive payday lenders, taken away the Office of Fair Lending and Equal Opportunity’s enforcement powers, fired the members of the agency’s Consumer Advisory Board, scaled back enforcement actions against bad actors, requested reduced funding for the agency, and literally changed the name of the agency so that bureaucracy comes before consumers.

“Now Trump has nominated one of Mulvaney’s deputies at OMB to serve as Director of the agency. Given Ms. Kraninger’s apparent lack of qualifications for this role, it appears that her nomination may be less about securing her confirmation as Director, and more about allowing Mick Mulvaney to continue to operate as Acting Director, which this nomination will potentially allow him to do through 2020 if she is not confirmed.

“I urge my colleagues in the Senate to reject this highly cynical nomination.”

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