Warren threatens to block Trump's CFPB nominee

The Massachusetts senator has threatened to put a hold on the nomination of Kathy Kraninger - and 'fight it at every step'

By Ryan Smith

19 Jun 2018

President Donald Trump’s nominee to permanently head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is facing pushback from Democrats, including Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who’s threatened to put a hold on the nomination.

In a tweet today, Warren said that Kathy Kraninger, Trump’s nominee to become the CFPB’s director, “has no track record of helping consumers. That’s bad news for seniors, servicemembers, students – and anyone else who doesn’t want to get cheated. And it gets even worse.”

“Kathy Kraninger helps oversee the agencies that are ripping kids from their parents,” Warren wrote in a separate tweet. Now @realDonaldTrump wants her to run the @CFPB. I will put a hold on her nomination – & fight it at every step – until she turns over all documents about her role in this.”

Warren was referring to the Trump administration’s “zero-tolerance” immigration policy, which has resulted in thousands of immigrant children being separated from their parents at the border. In her current role as program associate director for general programs at the Office of Management and Budget, Kraninger oversees agencies including the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Justice, the two agencies that implement the policy.

According to a letter sent to Kraninger by Warren and Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), that oversight includes providing “ongoing policy and management guidance” to the agencies.

“You served as a top White House budget official with oversight of DOJ and DHS as those two agencies developed and implemented the Zero-Tolerance Policy,” Warren and Brown wrote in the letter. “In that role, you may have been involved in providing ‘policy and management guidance’ on the Zero-Tolerance Policy, helped implement the Zero-Tolerance Policy, and worked with DHS on budgetary and funding issues as it adjusted to the Zero-Tolerance Policy.”

Warren and Brown demanded that Kraninger provide them an explanation of any role she may have played in the development of the policy, along with any emails related to the policy or the separation of children from their parents.