Consumer bureau deputy chief to resign, ceding legal challenge to Trump

Leandra English, deputy director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), said Friday that she will resign from the agency and end her legal bid to claim control of the regulator.

English said in a statement that she will leave the CFPB “early next week,” citing President Trump’s nomination of a permanent director for the bureau. She will also end her lawsuit against Trump and acting CFPB Director Mick Mulvaney, whom the president appointed to lead the bureau in November, said her attorney, Deepak Gupta.

“I want to thank all of the CFPB’s dedicated career civil servants for your important work on behalf of consumers,” English said in a statement released by Gupta on Twitter. “It has been an honor to work alongside you.”

Gupta said he and English would file paperwork Monday to end their lawsuit against Trump and Mulvaney. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia heard arguments for the case in April.

Trump nominated Kathy Kraninger, an associate director at the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), to be the CFPB’s permanent director last month. The Senate Banking Committee is scheduled to hold a hearing on her confirmation on July 19.

English’s resignation will end her unsuccessful claim to be the bureau’s chief that began with the departure of former CFPB Director Richard Cordray on Nov. 24. Cordray appointed English, his former chief of staff, to be the CFPB’s deputy director moments before he resigned from the agency to run for Ohio governor.

Cordray’s elevation of English was an attempt to handpick his successor and defend five years of aggressive regulation of the financial services industry. Under the Dodd-Frank Act, the 2010 bank reform law that established the CFPB, the bureau’s deputy director is charged with leading the bureau until the Senate confirms a permanent chief.

Trump sought to override the CFPB line of succession and nominated Mulvaney, director of the OMB, to serve as the bureau’s acting director hours after Cordray resigned.

Mulvaney’s appointment set up a partisan showdown over who was the CFPB’s rightful acting director. Democrats and liberal groups previously aligned with CFPB backed English and refused to recognize Mulvaney’s legitimacy. Republicans and financial services industry advocates backed Trump’s authority to supercede the CFPB’s line of succession.

English sued Trump and Mulvaney for control of the CFPB on Nov. 26, and Mulvaney took the helm of the bureau a day later. The District Court for the D.C. Circuit ruled against English on Nov. 28, clearing the way for Mulvaney to lead the CFPB.

Updated at 4:12 p.m.