The story is in the American Banker. The theory is that by refusing to rule out a run for the governorship of Ohio, Cordray led Trump to believe that he could avoid the political heat he would take by firing Cordray because Cordray would quit anyway. Indeed, firing Cordray might even make him a political martyr and help him win the governorship of a state that is likely to be key to Trump's hopes for reelection. The piece also speculates on what will happen when Cordray leaves, and discusses the possibility that if Trump names Treasury Secretary Mnuchin to head the CFPB temporarily, Mnuchin could then delegate the actual running of the Bureau to a Treasury staffer. It concludes:
The names being floated to run the CFPB on an interim basis include Craig Phillips, a counselor to the Treasury secretary, who had been a managing director and member of the operating committee at the asset manager BlackRock; and Jared Sawyer, a deputy assistant secretary of financial institutions policy at Treasury, who had been a special counsel to Senate Banking Committee Chairman Mike Crapo, R-Idaho.
