Richard Cordray, the former director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, is not taking too kindly to the changes being made by his successor, acting director Mick Mulvaney.
Cordray, who is now running for governor of Ohio, took to Twitter yesterday, calling Mulvaney “putative” and a “squatter,” adding in the line, “the fish rots from the head down.”
In return, a spokesman for the CFPB referenced a poem from Shelley that all fans of “Breaking Bad” will remember, “Ozymandias.” A published report describes the poem as being about the “transient state of political power.”
Cordray was responding to a memo from Mulvaney that was distributed to all CFPB employees earlier this week in which the acting director laid out a new mission for the consumer protection agency, saying that it would no longer “push the envelope” and regulate by enforcement.
Cordray left the CFPB somewhat in a state of chaos by appointing Leandra English as his deputy director in the hours before he resigned from the agency on Nov. 24 last year. That move has sparked a legal battle between English and President Donald Trump and Mulvaney, who are being sued because English believes she should be the rightful director acting of the CFPB until a permanent replacement is nominated and confirmed.