Well, it’s been expected. President Trump, who said he’d help consumers, fired Rohit Chopra, the director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, on Saturday. Chopra’s appointment was scheduled to end in October 2026, but he said he would resign if Trump asked him to.
The agency, which was created after the Great Recession, combined some of the consumer functions of federal agencies to better address consumers’ financial needs.
Trump took advantage of a 2020 Supreme Court ruling to allow the president to appoint a new director for any reason. The agency had been headed by a single director, nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate for a five-year term. The director could only be removed by the president for “inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office,” unlike Cabinet officers, who serve at the pleasure of the president.
As director of the CFPB since Sept. 30, 2021, Chopra has aggressively pursued big banks and other corporations. For example, under his leadership, the agency:
• Limited excessive bank overdraft fees.
• Gave consumers greater access and control of their financial data so they can more easily switch banks.
• Provide borrowers the right to dispute charges and get refunds when they take out buy now pay later loans.
• Capped exorbitant credit card late fees.
• Banned medical debt from appearing on credit reports.
• Required U.S. Bank to pay $37.5 million, Wells Fargo $3.7 billion, Regents Bank $191 million, Trident mortgage company $22 million, and Cash App $175 million.
Industry opponents have sued to stop the CFPB’s limits on overdraft and credit card late fees from going into effect, Delicia Hand, senior director of digital marketplace at Consumer Reports, said in a statement.
Hand said congressional opponents of the CFPB are expected to try to repeal the new medical debt and overdraft rules through the Congressional Review Act.
“An administration that retreats from the many advances the agency made while under his [Chopra’s] leadership will betray working Americans,” Lisa Gilbert, co-president of Public Citizen, a public interest group, said in a statement. “That Trump’s oligarchs want this agency ‘deleted’ attests powerfully to Chopra’s effectiveness and the need for the CFPB – and Trump’s firing of Chopra is as clear a sign as there could be of whose side Trump is on.”
Gilbert said the intensity of consumer protection at the agency with Chopra at the helm has been unmatched, and the American people deserve this level of focus as they wage David and Goliath battles against corporate America.
