Banking Committee Democrats Call for Statutorily Required Hearing with Acting CFPB Director Vought
“Despite his sweeping and illegal actions for the last ten months to shut down the CFPB, Vought has yet to testify before Congress in his role as Acting Director … The Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee is required to hold this hearing.”
Warren presses Vought in an additional letter on failing to provide Congress with statutorily required reports on the CFPB
Letter to Chairman Scott | Letter to Acting Director Vought
Washington, D.C. – U.S. Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Ranking Member of the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee, and all Democratic members of the Committee urged Committee Chairman Tim Scott (R-SC) to immediately schedule a statutorily required hearing with Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) Acting Director Russell Vought to be held before the end of the month.
The Committee Democrats’ letter comes as Ranking Member Warren is also pressing Vought in a second letter on his failure to provide Congress with statutorily required reports, including the major semiannual report that the agency must submit to inform the CFPB Director’s semiannual testimony before Congress.
“By statute, the CFPB Director must appear twice a year before the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs,” wrote the Banking Democrats in their letter to Chairman Scott. “Later this week, however, it will have been a full year since the CFPB Director last appeared before our committee. Particularly in light of Acting Director Vought’s egregious, unlawful efforts to shut down the CFPB—making it easier for big banks and giant corporations to cheat and scam American families across the country—it is essential that this Committee conduct oversight of the agency and that its leadership face questions in public.”
The Senators raised concerns over Vought’s illegal attempt to shutter the CFPB: “Last month, Acting Director Vought indicated that he intends to furlough nearly all staff by December 31 and bleed the agency of any remaining funds in the coming weeks. Almost simultaneously, news broke that the CFPB is in the process of transferring all remaining, active litigation to the Department of Justice. These new plans build on Acting Director Vought’s earlier attempts to fire most CFPB employees and his issuing a series of directives that effectively froze all agency work, instructing staff ‘to ‘cease all supervision and examination activity,’ ‘cease all stakeholder engagement,’ pause all pending investigations, not issue any public communications and pause ‘enforcement actions.’”
The Banking Democrats concluded: “In order to fulfill our constitutional duty to perform oversight of the Executive Branch, we request that you immediately schedule a hearing with Acting Director Vought, to be held before the end of the month.”
Signers of the letter to Scott include Senators Jack Reed (D-RI), Mark Warner (D-VA), Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV), Tina Smith (D-Minn.), Raphael Wanock (D-GA), Andy Kim (D-NJ), Ruben Gallego (D-AZ), Lisa Blunt Rochester (D-DE), and Angela Alsobrooks (D-MD).
###
Next Article Previous Article