A former associate director at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, who came under a wave of criticism when racist comments he made under a pen name 15 years ago were uncovered, has published an article calling out a “lawless” CFPB and equating the new leadership at the regulator to the mob, “willing to use the strong arm of the government to get its way.”
The article, written by Eric Blankenstein, was published by the National Review. Blankenstein, who worked at the CFPB for about a year, was one of the agency’s highest-paid employees when he was hired by former Acting Director Mick Mulvaney. Blankenstein resigned from the CFPB in 2019. While working at the CFPB, it was uncovered that Blankenstein made comments back in 2004 in which he claimed that most hate crimes were hoaxes and questioned whether using a racial slur was inherently racist. Blankenstein admitted the comments reflected “poor judgment.”
Under Acting Director Dave Uejio, the CFPB has sought to “systematically” violate the limits of the law imposed on it by Congress, Blankenstein writes. Using recent comments, enforcement actions, and deductions that the CFPB is operating outside of its constitutional authority, Blankenstein calls on the agency to “remember that the rule of law is vital to this nation’s survival” while encouraging the CFPB to be taken off “its current lawless path.”
Blankenstein does mention debt collection in his comments, referring to concerns voiced by the CFPB that collectors would seize stimulus funds to “collect on validly owed debts by using legal means to access stimulus payments that the federal government made to the debtors.” Noting that such an action would not have been illegal, Blankenstein writes “the bureaucrats at the Bureau apparently disapprove, and the mobsters wanted to make their disapproval known.”
