Chopra Hints He Won’t Resign From CFPB Before Trump Takes Office

Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Director Rohit Chopra indicated that he has no plans to resign his post ahead of President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration.

A 2020 US Supreme Court ruling in Seila Law LLC v. CFPB gave the president the power to fire the CFPB’s director without cause by eliminating removal protections that were put in place in the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act, which created the CFPB.

When asked whether he planned to resign before Trump takes office next month, Chopra made clear the president-elect is likely going to have to use the powers the Supreme Court granted him.

“We serve and are confirmed for a five-year term,” Chopra, who was confirmed to his post in September 2021, said at a Wednesday Senate Banking Committee hearing. “The president can remove us at any time, any day. And we obviously completely respect that right.”

Kathy Kraninger, the CFPB’s director during Trump’s first term, resigned hours after President Joe Biden’s inauguration in January 2021.

Trump has yet to name a replacement for Chopra. The nominee to lead the CFPB would require Senate confirmation, but Trump would have the power to name an acting director to replace Chopra in the interim.

Chopra also defended his agency’s continued rulemaking activity during the lame duck period.

The CFPB has finalized a larger participant rule bringing the biggest nonbank digital payments companies under CFPB supervision and issued two proposals—one targeting data brokers and the other to address credit reporting issues for domestic violence and elder abuse victims—since the November election.

Chopra said Wednesday the CFPB continues to work on a rule barring the placement of most medical debt on credit reports and several other rules, including capping overdraft fees, remain in the works.

Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.), who is set to take over as chairman of the Senate Banking Committee when the new Congress is sworn in next month, asked all financial regulators to suspend rulemaking prior to Trump’s inauguration.

Scott asked why the CFPB hadn’t done the same.

“I don’t think it makes sense for the CFPB to be a dead fish,” Chopra said.