WASHINGTON, D.C. - Kathy Kraninger, the current Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Associate Director and President Donald Trump’s nominee for Director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), is scheduled to have her nomination hearing tomorrow before the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs. Prior to her role at OMB, Kraninger's experience in the federal government has been focused on security issues, having worked at the Department of Homeland Security and the U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee. Throughout her government career, Kraninger has had limited to no experience in protecting consumers from harmful financial practices. Congress created the CFPB in the wake of an unprecedented financial crisis that resulted from inadequate oversight of lending practices that caused foreclosures to ripple through our economy. We need a CFPB leader with the experience to hold lenders accountable for abusive practices that endanger our economy.
Kraninger’s history of mismanagement includes failing to properly oversee the terrorist watch list, participating in President Trump’s family separation immigration policy, and overseeing agencies that abandoned Puerto Rican evacuees after Hurricane Maria.
Center for Responsible Lending Executive Vice President Debbie Goldstein released the following statement ahead of Thursday’s hearing:
Kathy Kraninger’s nomination is just a political play for Mick Mulvaney to cement his anti-consumer agenda at the CFPB. She has no experience in protecting Americans from predatory lenders and has a record of mismanagement that’s harmed families across the country.
We need a CFPB Director that’s going to hold Wall Street accountable and transparent to the public, someone with a proven track record of going to bat for consumers – Kathy Kraninger is not that person.
The Senate panel at tomorrow’s hearing should urge Kraninger to declare whether or not she will manage the CFPB to win relief for people who were ripped off by financial predators, or if she will continue to take orders from Mick Mulvaney and his friends, payday lenders, and abusive lenders who precipitated the Great Recession.
For more information or to arrange an interview with a CRL spokesperson, please contact Ricardo Quinto at ricardo.quinto@responsiblelending.org or 202-349-1866.