A comment on the WH statement on the CFPB

We posted the White House statement on the CFPB earlier today. Just to remind you, it calls the CFPB a “woke, weaponized arm of the bureaucracy that leverages its power against certain industries and individuals disfavored by so-called “elites” and then gives what purport to be examples of that conduct. One of the examples is “CFPB targeted a Chicago small business after it complained about the city’s rampant crime.” As Bloomberg Law’s Evan Weinberger pointed out, the linked article discusses a case commenced and pursued for several years during the first Trump administration. So I guess that makes the first Trump administration woke.

Another example characterized the checking overdraft rule as “CFPB granted itself broad new powers in the waning hours of the lame duck Biden administration. Described as classic “government overreach,” the agency gave itself the authority to regulate Americans’ checking accounts by dictating government price controls . . .” Strangely, it never mentions that the Bureau was trying to limit excessive overdraft charges.

Then there’s this example: “CFPB was accused of mining American citizens’ personal financial information — with a 2017 inspector general’s report raising significant concerns about its data security.” That one seems hard to reconcile with DOGE’s employment of a teenager–known as Big Balls–who a cybersecurity firm fired for leaking company secrets. Of course, until a court blocked it, DOGE was rifling through all sorts of confidential government information. Oh, and by the way, note the 2017 date of the IG report. That meant that the first Trump administration had years to fix that issue. And how does this support the claim that the Bureau is a “woke weaponized arm of the bureaucracy” anyway?

I could go on but you get the point. The statement doesn’t survive scrutiny. If this is the best they can do to attack the CFPB, they are almost themselves making the case for leaving it alone. None of this has anything to do with DOGE’s supposed mission of rooting out waste. Someone needs to tell Big Balls to do a second draft.