Seventeen state attorneys general have sent a letter to President Donald Trump, demanding he replace Mick Mulvaney as interim director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
The letter said past statements from Mulvaney, including a characterization of the bureau as “a joke” and “an awful example of a bureaucracy that has gone wrong”, disqualify him from leading it. Dated Tuesday, the letter was signed by New York Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman and 16 other state attorneys general.
“Such statements about an agency that has helped millions of American consumers and achieved fundamental reform in a number of critically important areas of American commerce are categorically false, and should disqualify Mr. Mulvaney from leading the agency, even on an acting basis,” the letter stated. “As the top state law enforcement officials charged with investigating consumer complaints of fraudulent, deceptive and abusive financial practices in our respective states, we know from first-hand experience that the need for strong consumer financial protection is undiminished in the years since the financial crisis.”
However, the attorneys general did not specifically demand Mulvaney be replaced by Leandra English, who was named acting director by Richard Cordray the day he resigned.
The letter was signed by the Attorney Generals of California, Connecticut, District of Columbia, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Vermont, Virginia, and Washington.
Mulvaney, who has been on the job for two weeks, has already declared a month-long moratorium on new hires and regulations.
After a judge sided with Mulvaney as interim director in a first lawsuit, English launched a second suit last week seeking to block Mulvaney’s appointment.