Trump to announce nominee to lead CFPB

President Donald Trump plans to nominate Office of Management and Budget official Kathy Kraninger to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the White House announced Saturday.

“The President intends to nominate Kathy Kraninger to be the next Director of the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection,” White House deputy press secretary Lindsay Walters said in a statement.

If confirmed, Kraninger will replace Mick Mulvaney, who has been filling the job temporarily. Kraninger, who currently works under Mulvaney, is expected to face a tough Senate confirmation battle. Under Mulvaney, the bureau has undergone major changes opposed by Democrats and consumer advocates.

Walters added that Kraninger, an associate director at OMB, “will bring a fresh perspective and much-needed management experience to the BCFP, which has been plagued by excessive spending, dysfunctional operations, and politicized agendas. As a staunch supporter of free enterprise, she will continue the reforms of the Bureau initiated by Acting Director Mick Mulvaney, and ensure that consumers and markets are not harmed by fraudulent actors. The White House hopes that she will be promptly confirmed by the Senate.”

The CFPB, a government watchdog agency charged with consumer protection in the financial sector, was created after the financial crisis with the passage of the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act.

Last fall, a leadership showdown unfolded at the agency between Leandra English, whom the outgoing director, Obama appointee Richard Cordray, named to head the agency when he resigned from his position, and Mulvaney, whom Trump tapped to lead the agency shortly after Cordray’s move.

Mulvaney has defended his leadership at the CFPB — an agency he once referred to as a “joke” while serving as a Republican lawmaker — in the face of Democratic criticism.

“I have not burned the place down,” he said in April during a House committee hearing.