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Tuesday, November 28, 2017

No Surprise; Mulvaney is the Acting Director According to Court

A federal judge in DC has ruled that President Trump's pick to be acting director of the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau is indeed to be seated in that role.  A woman who had been 'named" as deputy director by the prior director when he resigned a few days ago brought the suit seeking an emergency order to accept her as the proper acting directory.  She has now lost and the judge held that she was unlikely to be successful on the merits.

The decision today is not appealable at the moment.  There will need to be further proceedings before any appeal will be possible.  In all likelihood, that will take a while and by that time a new director will be nominated and confirmed by the Senate, something that will make this case moot.

The outcome today is not a surprise.  Even the general counsel of the agency itself sided with the Trump appointee, and that counsel is a Democrat named to his position by the prior director.  More important, the interpretation pushed by the losing side would have made the agency one that was not subject to any control by the Executive or Legislative branch of the federal government.  Simply put, that would be unconstitutional.

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