It’s another one of President Trump’s flawed appointments to oversee an important federal agency.
This time, it’s the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, an agency created in 2011 to safeguard American consumers against some of the financial losses they suffered in the mortgage crisis and Great Recession.
On Thursday, the U.S. Senate voted to confirm Kathy Kraninger as the new director of the bureau.
During the confirmation process, consumer advocates expressed skepticism over Kraninger’s lack of experience in financial services and consumer protection.
She served as an assistant to Mick Mulvaney at the U.S. Office of Management and Budget, where he is the director. Mulvaney also served as the temporary acting director of the bureau, and while there, he weakened the agency and reduced substantially the fines wrongdoers were assessed.
“Watch your wallets, protect your purses and batten down your bank accounts,” said Bartlett Naylor, financial policy advocate for Public Citizen’s Congress Watch division. “With the confirmation of Kathleen Kraninger, Trump and Senate Republicans are putting Americans at the mercy of predatory lenders and abusive financial firms.”
Kraninger has no training or experience in consumer protection, Naylor said.
“It’s clear that Kraninger is being installed to look out for powerful and greedy Wall Street banks, not Main Street Americans,” he said.
President Donald Trump picked Kraninger because she’s committed to continuing Mulvaney‘s demolition of the agency, said Lisa Gilbert, vice president of legislative affairs for Public Citizen.
“It’s revealing that the only support for Kraninger comes from the banking industry,” said Lisa Gilbert, vice president of legislative affairs for Public Citizen.
“Americans deserve a proven veteran of consumer protection,” Gilbert said.
Gilbert said Kraninger refused to denounce violations of human rights – showing a clear lack of interest in protecting the victims of abuse. Asked at her confirmation hearing about the child separation policy on the Mexican border, a policy she oversaw in her current position at OMB, Kraninger declined to comment.
