Warren Calls for Ethics Probe of CFPB Acting Director Mulvaney

The firestorm over Acting CFPB Director Mick Mulvaney’s comments about campaign contributors when he was a House member continued blazing Friday, as Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) charged that Mulvaney’s agency work favors industries that gave money to his campaigns.

“Almost every one of your major decisions at the CFPB has fulfilled a request of a lobbying organization that has donated tens of thousands of dollars to your political campaigns,” Warren, a frequent Mulvaney critic charged in a letter to the acting director. “The public deserves to know whether this is a coincidence or is a reflection of the same kind of ‘hierarchy’ you created when you ran your congressional office.”

Warren also asked the CFPB ethics officer to investigate Mulvaney’s actions.

In a speech to the American Bankers Association this week, Mulvaney said he favored lobbyists who gave money to his campaigns over those who didn’t.

“We had a hierarchy in my office, in Congress.,” he said “If you were a lobbyist who never gave us money, I didn’t talk to you. If you were a lobbyist who gave us money, I might talk to you. If you came from back home and sat in my lobby, I talk to you without exception, regardless of the financial contributions.”

Following the speech, Senate Banking Committee ranking Democrat Sherrod Brown of Ohio requested that Mulvaney resign as acting director.

In her letter to Mulvaney, Warren cited a letter she and House Financial Services ranking Democrat Maxine Waters of California sent to the acting director asking about his decision to revisit the agency payday lending rule. In the letter, the Democrats linked Mulvaney’s decision with campaign contributions he had received from the payday lending industry.

At the time, Mulvaney replied, “Civil discourse rests upon our reciprocal understanding that no matter how strongly we may disagree on matters of policy, we are motivated by principle and our mutual desire to serve the American people to the best of our abilities.”

In a separate letter to CFPB Deputy Counsel Sonya White, Warren asked for details about whether Mulvaney was excluded from agency decisions that benefited campaign contributors.

She said she is particularly troubled that lobbyists who contributed to his campaign represent interests affected by his agency work.

“For American families to trust the CFPB, they have to know that lobbyists’ payments to Mr. Mulvaney’s campaign are not putting in play CFPB policies that favor those same lobbyists,” Warren wrote.

The CFPB said it has received Warren’s letter, is reviewing it and has no comment beyond that.