WASHINGTON, D.C. - A New York Times story has reported that Mick Mulvaney, the unlawful Acting Director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) and the current Director of Office and Management and Budget (OMB), told more than 1,000 bankers and lending industry officials at the American Bankers Association’s (ABA) Government Relations Summit in Washington, D.C., that when he was a U.S. Congressman he would only meet with lobbyists if they contributed to his campaign.
“We had a hierarchy in my office in Congress...If you’re a lobbyist who never gave us money, I didn’t talk to you. If you’re a lobbyist who gave us money, I might talk to you,” said Mulvaney at the ABA summit.
Center for Responsible Lending Executive Vice President Debbie Goldstein released the following statement:
Mick Mulvaney’s pay-to-play politics is what’s wrong with our political process. What he said is disturbing and it undermines the public's faith in our leaders’ ability to do what's right for working families. Bragging about only meeting with wealthy donors is one of the swampiest things he's said, and it demonstrates his inability to lead the CFPB and OMB impartially without undue influence. We need the Administration and Senate to nominate and confirm a qualified CFPB Director who’s going to make consumer protection a top priority, not someone who’s admitted to being beholden to the payday lenders and industry lobbyists.
Additional Background
As a Member of Congress, Mulvaney received more than $60,000 in campaign contributions from payday lenders and called for the elimination of the bureau. He also co-authored an industry sponsored bill to repeal the 2010 Wall Street reform bill, a law that created the CFPB following the 2008 financial crisis. He’s voted to politicize the CFPB’s funding resource, supported the effort to dismantle the agency’s effective leadership structure, and he’s carried water for payday lenders — having previously introduced a proposal in 2016 to undermine the CFPB’s recent payday and car title lending rule while the agency was still undergoing its rule-making process.
For more information, or to arrange an interview with a CRL spokesperson on this issue, please contact Ricardo Quinto at ricardo.quinto@responsiblelending.org.