Letter to Dave Uejio, Acting Director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau - Toomey Seeks Answers on Reports of Senior Career Staff at CFPB Being Pushed Out of Agency
Letter
Washington, D.C. -- U.S. Senate Banking Committee Ranking Member Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) is demanding the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) turn over documents in the wake of reports that the Biden administration is removing senior career officials in order to replace them with handpicked activists, calling into question whether the agency has potentially violated civil service protections.
In a letter to CFPB Acting Director Dave Uejio, Ranking Member Toomey wrote:
"According to press reports, the political leadership of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) under the Biden administration has been taking unusual and possibly unlawful actions to push out top-level career civil servants at the CFPB in order to fill those civil service positions with hand-picked loyalists. Such actions reportedly include offering employees extraordinary separation incentives to leave their posts and placing employees on administrative leave after opening up frivolous investigations against them--allegations that, if true, may violate employment and other laws. Moreover, the CFPB notably declined to deny any of the detailed allegations in the report."
Senator Toomey sent a separate letter to Rohit Chopra, President Biden's nominee for Director of the CFPB, requesting information on whether he was aware of--or involved in--any such actions that may have occurred. Mr. Chopra's nomination is expected to be considered by the U.S. Senate over the course of the next month.
The letters request Mr. Chopra turn over information no later than June 21, 2021, and that the CFPB respond no later than June 24, 2021.
In light of the seriousness of the allegations, and the potential violations of civil service protections, Senator Toomey requested the Office of Inspector General for the Federal Reserve Board of Governors and CFPB "promptly review the allegations" and "if found credible . . . open an investigation into whether any CFPB officials--or other officials in the federal government--violated any employment or other laws."
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