Richard Cordray Steps Down as Head of Consumer Protection Financial Bureau

WASHINGTON, DC - MARCH 12: U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) (L) speaks?with Richard Cordray, center, nominee for director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and his wife Peggy Cordray, (R) after a confirmation hearing in the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs on March 12, 2013 in Washington, DC. Cordray testified that he doesn't see a "one-size-fits-all solution" to financial challenges and stressed the importance of transparency in the bureau's work. (Photo by T.J. Kirkpatrick/Getty Images)

The rumors were true.

Richard Cordray will step down from being head of the Consumer Protection Financial Bureau, leaving the agency free to be remade by President Trump.

It’s widely expected that Cordray will run for governor of Ohio. The financial bureaucrat was an Obama appointee who was held over into the Trump Administration. We reported back in September that he was considering retiring to run for higher office.

The news comes via Bloomberg: “Richard Cordray will step down as the head of a controversial consumer watchdog at the end of the month amid growing speculation that he will run for governor of Ohio as a Democrat.”

American consumers just lost their biggest champion, Richard Cordray. Here’s what happens next https://t.co/4niPML0Dfy

— Money (@MONEY) November 15, 2017

For Democrats concerned about the excesses of Wall Street, this news has to be dismaying. Cordray held the line on Trump’s deregulatory agenda. With him not at the helm of the CPFB, expect Trump to gut the agency of power.

Nobody is likely more troubled by this resignation than Massachusetts senator Elizabeth Warren. She was the architect behind the CPFB back when it was established by the Dodd-Frank bill that passed under Obama. Warren was the first director of the agency.

I’m sure she hates seeing someone like Cordray go. She knows that means the agency will eventually be led by an appointee named by President Trump. All of her hard work is about to go down the drain.

Some liberals are already fretting about this possibility:

This is unfortunate. Trump has targeted this agency Warren created from the get-go. With his leader in charge, like every other agency, CFPB will be dismantled from within. https://t.co/xCqVTCA41W

— Amy Siskind (@Amy_Siskind) November 15, 2017

It’s true that Dodd-Frank, and its progeny, the CFPB, put undue stress on the financial system, overly regulating banks to the point where new loans couldn’t be made. But let’s not forget the role Wall Street traders played in the financial crisis. Sure, many were incentivized by government to blow up the housing bubble. But they acted with little regard to the consequences of their actions.

I just hope President Trump continues to act with the best interests of all Americans in mind – not Goldman Sachs.

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