Rohit Chopra Ousted as CFPB Director
Commentary by Steven Lofchie
President Trump removed Mr. Rohit Chopra as the Director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
Mr. Chopra acknowledged the dismissal in a letter to the President, and highlighted the record of the agency under his tenure. He posted the letter on social media.
Commentary
Despite Mr. Chopra's inappropriate attempt to stay on as Director of the CFPB, his resignation letter was largely graceful. However, his boast that the CFPB, under his leadership had "implemented dormant legal authorities," is both revealing and absurd. It would be equally fair to say that the CFPB under Mr. Chopra's leadership had invented and arrogated to itself legal authorities not given to it by statute—which would be, at least on one issue, the position of the federal court. (See, Court Rejects CFPB's Argument that "Discrimination" is Subsumed in "Unfairness.")
The CFPB under Mr. Chopra did not have a healthy culture of leadership that respects the primacy of statutory authority and elected officials over its own rulemaking. Since its creation, the CFPB has been the poster boy for regulatory authorities that believe that they exercise powers beyond those given them by statute or by political process. This is, in part, because the agency was created in the Dodd-Frank legislative torrent. If the agency is to continue, at least its enabling legislation should be re-examined, so that its scope is more carefully defined, its ability to impose fines is made less draconian, and its funding process is normalized. While legislative change alone cannot remediate culture, that and leadership changes would be steps in the right direction.