Consumer Financial Protection Bureau director to step down early amid gubernatorial run rumors

(Image credit: Pete Marovich/Getty Images)

published 15 November 2017

The Democratic director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Richard Cordray, will step down at the end of the month, The New York Times reports. Cordray was appointed by former President Barack Obama as the first director of the bureau, established as a part of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street regulations, and his five-year term was not due to expire until the summer of 2018.

Cordray's job consists of "scour[ing] the financial marketplace for misbehavior like that of Wells Fargo, which CFPB fined $100 million for opening unauthorized accounts in what has become the bureau's signature enforcement action," CNBC writes. Despite the tension of his job under President Trump, Cordray insisted in a March interview that "I think that the independence of a consumer watchdog is very much worth fighting for. It's really important work."

Cordray is expected to run for governor in his home state of Ohio, although he didn't allude to his plans in an email to the agency's employees. "It has been a joy of my life to have the opportunity to serve our country as the first director of the consumer bureau by working alongside all of you here," he wrote. "I am confident that you will continue to move forward, nurture this institution we have built together, and maintain its essential value to the American public. And I trust that new leadership will see that value also and work to preserve it."

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Jeva Lange was the executive editor at TheWeek.com. She formerly served as The Week's deputy editor and culture critic. She is also a contributor to Screen Slate, and her writing has appeared in The New York Daily News, The Awl, Vice, and Gothamist, among other publications. Jeva lives in New York City. Follow her on Twitter.

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