The bureau's interim director said it continues to be associated with the principles of the person who founded it
Mick Mulvaney, acting director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, said the agency’s origins are holding it back from becoming a “gold-standard” regulator, CNBC reported.
"We are still Elizabeth Warren's baby," Mulvaney said at a fintech conference in New York. "Until we break that, we will never be considered a gold-standard institution."
Warren, a Democratic Massachusetts senator, originally proposed the creation of the CFPB. The agency was created through the financial reforms enacted in the Dodd-Frank Act eight years ago, with the consumer watchdog officially coming into being in 2011. Republicans, including Mulvaney, has previously criticized the Obama-era agency.
"The bureau has never been through a transition; we're going to learn how to do that," Mulvaney said. "The bureau is different, we are associated with our founding, the principles of someone who founded us."
Mulvaney’s statements follow pushback from Warren against President Donald Trump’s selection of Kathy Kraninger to head the consumer watchdog on a permanent capacity. Warren tweeted that she will put a hold on Kraninger’s nomination until she turns over documents related to her role in the Trump administration’s “zero-tolerance” immigration policy, which has resulted in thousands of immigrant children being separated from their parents at the border.
Currently an officer with the Office of Management and Budget, Kraninger oversees the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Justice, the two agencies that implement the policy.
In spite of Warren’s statement, Mulvaney expects Kraninger’s nomination to be confirmed by the end of the fourth quarter.
