A news website in Washington, D.C., has published excerpts of emails between Richard Cordray, the former director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and members of his staff in the days leading up to his resignation last November. The emails appear to detail Cordray’s plans to have Leandra English be named the CFPB’s acting director upon Cordray’s resignation.
The website gained access to the emails via a Freedom of Information Act request.
Cordray appeared to get the idea of naming a deputy director who would then become acting director upon his resignation from two “left-wing” websites, according to a published report. Cordray did end up promoting English from chief of staff at the CFPB to be the agency’s deputy director on the day he resigned. President Trump named Mick Mulvaney acting director and that has set off a legal battle within the CFPB that English has lost at every step of the way so far.
The emails purport to include Mary McLeod, the CFPB’s general counsel, in helping ascertain the validity of the idea. McLeod, however, ultimately wrote a report that said whomever the president named should be the rightful acting director.
Cordray and English are using language in the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act to claim that English should be the rightful acting director while President Trump is using the Federal Vacancies Reform Act to give him the power to name an acting director.
