Mulvaney tells bankers if they make more campaign donations, watchdog group might go away

Mick Mulvaney.
(Image credit: Getty Images)

He just came right out and said it — on Tuesday, in front of 1,300 bankers and lobbyists at the American Bankers Association conference. Mick Mulvaney, head of the White House Office of Management and Budget and acting director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, let the financial lobbyists know that if they want lawmakers to vote in their favor, they had better make some campaign donations, The New York Times reports.

Before joining the Trump administration, Mulvaney used to be a Republican congressman from South Carolina. During his speech at the conference in Washington, Mulvaney shared that there was a "hierarchy in my office in Congress. If you're a lobbyist who never gave us money, I didn't talk to you. If you're a lobbyist who gave us money, I might talk to you."

Mulvaney and banks are both critical of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which was created in 2010 in order to keep banks from exploiting vulnerable consumers. He has asked Congress to pull funding of the independent watchdog group from the Federal Reserve, and told the audience on Tuesday that he needs their help to make this happen, and that's where their donations come into play. Since becoming acting interim director, Mulvaney has frozen new investigations and slowed down existing ones, the Times reports, and he's curtailed efforts to go after payday lenders — an industry that donated to his congressional campaigns — and other financial services companies that prey on the poor.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

Mulvaney was just "making the point that hearing from people back home is vital to our democratic process and the most important thing our representatives can do," spokesman John Czwartacki told the Times. "It's more important than lobbyists and it's more important than money."

To continue reading this article...
Continue reading this article and get limited website access each month.
Get unlimited website access, exclusive newsletters plus much more.
Cancel or pause at any time.
Already a subscriber to The Week?
Not sure which email you used for your subscription? Contact us
Catherine Garcia, The Week US

Catherine Garcia is night editor for TheWeek.com. Her writing and reporting has appeared in Entertainment Weekly and EW.com, The New York Times, The Book of Jezebel, and other publications. A Southern California native, Catherine is a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.