Senators Write Mulvaney, Urging Reinstatement of CAB Members

A group of more than two dozen U.S. Senators — all of them Democrats — have sent a letter to Mick Mulvaney, the acting director of the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection, urging him to reassemble the Consumer Advisory Board and to provide a plan for how the BCFP will meet its statutory requirements with regards to CAB.

Mulvaney dismantled all of the BCFP’s advisory boards last month. Along with the Consumer Advisory Board, the BCFP maintained a Community Bank Advisory Council and the Credit Union Advisory Council. The decision followed a letter and a series of reports from members of the CAB who expressed concern that Mulvaney was not working hard enough to ensure that the BCFP was meeting the statutory requirements of hosting two CAB meetings per year, as mandated by the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, the law that created the BCFP.

Under former director Richard Cordray, the CAB had been meeting three times per year. But Mulvaney had been postponing meetings and ending scheduled conference calls early, according to published reports.

In the letter, the Senators request that Mulvaney re-hire all 25 members of the CAB, provide a detailed plan for how and when the BCFP will meet with the CAB and facilitate communication between the CAB and Mulvaney, provide details of the one conference call that Mulvaney had with the CAB in March, and account for his whereabouts and schedule on the days where the CAB were scheduled to meet.

“By dismissing the CAB, the CFPB is deliberately rejecting statutorily required advice from qualified professionals who are volunteering their services to the American public, with no credible explanation as to why the present CAB members are not capable of fulfilling their responsibilities,” the Senators wrote. “Additionally, with no justification, you barred any current CAB members from reapplying, raising concerns that his actions are not motivated by a desire to streamline processes but by animus towards the current board members.”

One member of the CAB when it was dismissed had direct ties to the ARM industry — Ohad Samet, the chief executive of TrueAccord.