In a move that shocked many inside the Washington, D.C., beltway late last night, President Biden withdrew his nomination of Rohit Chopra to be the next director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and instead put forth Sen. Elizabeth Warren [D-Mass.] to be the next director to run the federal agency.
While Sen. Warren’s confirmation process is likely not to be a smooth one, the administration said that Chopra’s role as a commissioner of the Federal Trade Commission was too important for him to leave and that a replacement needed to be found to run the CFPB.
Sen. Warren is credited with developing the idea for the CFPB back in 2007 when she was the a professor at Harvard Law School. Three years later, Sen. Warren was tapped by then-President Barack Obama to be an Assistant to the President and a Special Advisor to the Treasury Secretary to set up the agency. At the time, Sen. Warren was not considered to be a candidate to be the first director of the CFPB because of strong Republican opposition. That job instead went to Richard Cordray and Sen. Warren instead chose to run for office.
But now, given the emphasis that the Biden administration is putting on consumer protection in the wake of the COVID-10 pandemic, it has decided it needs someone with significant experience to lead the CFPB, especially while Chopra’s confirmation process seems to have stalled.
Warren pledged to aggressively enforce consumer protection laws and go after any company in the financial services industry that she feels is taking advantage of consumers. She also said that she will be closely reviewing the recently released debt collection rule and that she expects that it will not go into effect this November as currently drafted.
“It’s an honor to have the chance to live in the house that I built,” Sen. Warren said in a statement. “The only thing that excites me more than being the next director of the CFPB is being able to say, ‘Gotcha’ and wishing everyone a Happy April Fools’ Day!”
If You Made It This Far …
