Leftist Massachusetts Democrat Sen. Elizabeth Warren, in a desperate attempt to protect the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau – an entity she created that, unlike other federal regulatory bodies and enforcement agencies, determines for itself how much money it needs and obtains it directly from the Federal Reserve, as the Heritage Foundation has noted, actually praised President Donald Trump.
In late January, U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) introduced the Defund the CFPB Act, which would zero out the transfer payments from the Federal Reserve to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
“The CFPB is an unelected, unaccountable bureaucratic agency that has imposed burdensome and harmful regulations on American businesses, banks, and credit unions,” Cruz stated. “It is an unchecked Obama-era executive arm and the Federal Reserve should not be transferring funds to it. Enacting this legislation would save American taxpayers billions of dollars and I call on the Senate to expeditiously take it up and pass it.”
“Under Joe Biden–appointed Rohit Chopra, businesses and consumers have found themselves harassed, hectored, and micromanaged,” David B. McGarry has written. “The New York Times summed up the license taken by the agency well, writing that ‘Chopra insists that he always follows the rules,’ but ‘his view is that he’s simply more expansive than others in determining what those rules are.’ As Chopra’s tenure shows, ‘more expansive’ quickly expands into lawlessness.”
On May 24, 2018, President Trump signed into law the Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief and Consumer Protection Act, which exempted numerous banks from the CFPB’s regulations.
On Wednesday, Warren, speaking of debanking, said her staff “found that just four big banks, Bank of America, JP, Morgan, Wells Fargo and Citibank, accounted for half of all the complaints filed at the CFPB.”
She then praised Trump. saying, “Donald Trump was on to a real problem when he criticized Bank of America for its debanking practices.”
Then she made her pitch for her brainchild, arguing, “We can prevent these abuses. I know that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is a favorite whipping boy of the Republicans on this committee, but the CFPB is the main agency in our government that is actively working to stop unfair debanking. Let me say that again, the CFPB is the one agency that is actively working to stop unfair debanking. Right now, the agency has five different rules, either in place or in progress, that would help prevent debanking by addressing some of the root causes, from overdraft fee practices to religious discrimination, and the CFPB is working to hold banks accountable when they close law-abiding citizens and businesses accounts for no good reason.”
“I sent a letter to President Trump today that walks through the CFPB’s work. … I said that the CFPB is the one agency fighting back against debanking, but that may be at risk. Earlier this week, Treasury Secretary and acting CFPB Director Scott Bessent halted all CFPB rule-making enforcement, investigations and litigation against financial institutions that are breaking the law, including the banks that are wrongfully debanking their customers. The freeze Secretary Bessent put on the CFPB means more Americans across this country will be unfairly debanked, and they will lose the one agency that is working to help them.”
