CFPB Director Richard Cordray says a House committee staff report that accused him of failing to cooperate with the panel’s Wells Fargo probe is inaccurate and misleading.
In that report, the Republican staff of the House Financial Services Committee recommends that the committee consider holding Cordray in contempt of Congress because of his lack of cooperation.
Cordray, in a letter to Chairman Hensarling (R-Texas), said the CFPB has turned over some 57,000 pages of documents and has cooperated with the panel’s probe.
The charges and counter charges are the latest chapters in a high-stakes battle between Cordray and congressional Republicans, most notably Hensarling.
Hensarling told Cordray in a committee hearing earlier this year that President Trump should fire him. And the House has passed Hensarling-sponsored legislation that would, among other things, neuter Cordray’s agency.
The House committee has been investigating how Wells Fargo employees were able to open millions of unauthorized or unneeded accounts and whether federal agencies should have discovered the fraud earlier.
Federal and California officials fined Wells Fargo $185 million as a result of the misconduct, with the CFPB fine totaling some $100 million.
The panel’s GOP staff said that Wells Fargo and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency have cooperated with the panel’s probe, but the CFPB has refused to do so. As a result, the committee’s probe is at an impasse.
In the letter, Cordray defends his agency’s Wells Fargo probe, saying that the CFPB didn’t open its doors until July 2011 and was not fully staffed until about 2014. That, he said, is some 10 years after Wells Fargo began its improper conduct.
Cordray said that the agency worked with the Los Angeles City Attorney and the OCC on the Wells Fargo probe, but made decisions independent of those agencies.
Despite that work, the GOP report “devolves into various misstatements and allegations about the extent of the Consumer Bureau’s cooperation with the committee’s investigation.”
Hensarling spokesperson Jeff Emerson disputed Cordray’s assertions, saying that the CFPB did not conduct an independent probe and disputing the claim of agency cooperation with the House committee.
“Director Cordray’s response indicates he has different definitions for ‘independent,’ ‘comprehensive’ and ‘supervisory activity’ than everyone else,” he said.
He said OCC documents contradict Cordray’s statements.
“This calls into question whether Director Cordray misled Congress,” he said. “Perhaps this explains why the CFPB refuses to cooperate with the committee’s investigation, even in the face of a subpoena.”
He said that the Financial Services Committee can’t complete its probe until the CFPB produced documents subpoenaed by the committee.
“If Director Cordray truly wishes to correct the record, he should stop ignoring his legal obligations,” Emerson said. “What is he trying to hide?”
House Financial Services ranking Democrat Maxine Waters said that Hensarling is simply playing politics with the agency.
“Republicans have been clamoring to weaken, impede, and ultimately destroy the Consumer Bureau since its creation,” she said, adding that the CFPB levied Wells Fargo with a $100 million fine.
She added that “committee Republicans haven’t done anything to hold Wells Fargo accountable. This report is an insult to the millions of Americans who were harmed by Wells Fargo.”
