Leandra English, who was promoted to deputy director of the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection hours before former director Richard Cordray resigned last November and who sued President Trump to try and have Mick Mulvaney replaced as acting director of the agency, has announced she plans to resign from the bureau and will drop her lawsuit.
The announcement was made in a tweet from English’s lawyer on Friday.
Statements of Leandra English and Deepak Gupta regarding litigation over the leadership of the independent Consumer Financial Protection Bureau pic.twitter.com/PoOZqKk0LR
— Deepak Gupta (@deepakguptalaw) July 6, 2018
English was waiting for a ruling from the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia on her lawsuit to have Mulvaney’s appointment as acting director invalidated. A District Court had previously denied a request from Mulvaney for a preliminary injunction against Mulvaney, ruling that he was the rightful acting director. English was using language in the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act as the basis for her argument that she should be the rightful acting director upon Cordray’s resignation. President Trump used the Federal Vacancies Reform Act as his legal basis for appointing Mulvaney as acting director. The president has since nominated Kathy Kraninger to be the next permanent director of the BCFP. Her confirmation hearing before the Senate Banking Committee is scheduled for July 19.
Prior to being promoted to deputy director, English had served as the BCFP’s chief of staff. She had continued to be employed by the agency in the months following Mulvaney’s appointment and her subsequent lawsuit, even though Mulvaney had said on multiple occasions — most recently back when he testified before Congress in April — that he had never met her.
