Free Republic

In the private sector and during his short time as president, Donald J. Trump has never been shy about firing subordinates. Yet some powerful Obama holdovers seem to have a puzzling staying power. The recent decision of the Justice Department not to prosecute Lois Lerner for her alleged role in the Internal Revenue Service’s targeting of conservative non-profits brought criticism and also highlighted the fact that Obama’s appointee John Koskinen is still at the IRS’s helm. Even more frustrating is that Trump has yet to fire Consumer Financial Protection Bureau director Richard Cordray, despite Cordray’s actions that go directly against...

A federal appellate court questioned Tuesday whether the structure of the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau (CFPB) violates the constitutional separation of powers. That question has been on the minds of constitutional scholars and administrative lawyers ever since the Dodd-Frank Act brought forth this Frankenstein agency, which wields all the power and jurisdiction once exercised by seven separate agencies over great swaths of the economy, all without any meaningful oversight by the political branches. What federal agency would have the gall to answer Congress’ legitimate questions about its extravagant spending with the retort, “Why does that matter to you?” That was...

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau remains "the most out-of-control, unaccountable, and nontransparent agency in the federal government... And we can say that without reservation because this is one of the only agencies that literally operates outside of congressional oversight," added Wise, whose Virgina-based organization "works to protect consumers' right to access free-market goods and services." The CFPB, created under the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act, is funded largely by fees banks pay to the Federal Reserve. While its director, Richard Cordray, has bragged that his bureau has levied more than $141 million in fines used for CFPB education programs or reparation to...

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), a federal agency designed to purposely avoid oversight from Congress, with much fanfare recently introduced a public database cataloging all of the complaints it has received from consumers. “Consumer complaints are the CFPB’s compass and play a central role in everything we do. They help us identify and prioritize problems for potential action,” CFPB Director Richard Cordray said in a press release announcing the new public database. The only problem? The database shows complaints about “payday lenders,” which are currently in Cordray's cross hairs, composed less than one percent of all complaints, far outnumbered...