Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent is picking up another leadership role as President Donald Trump named Bessent Acting Director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). As Bessent steps in, Rohit Chopra, the Director under the Biden Administration, is now without a job.
Bessent issued a brief statement on his new job:
“I look forward to working with the CFPB to advance President Trump’s agenda to lower costs for the American people and accelerate economic growth.”
House Financial Services Committee Chairman, Representative French Hill quickly welcomed the selection of Bessent as Acting Director.
“I applaud the selection of Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent as Acting Director of the CFPB. Former Director Chopra’s repeated regulatory overreach wreaked havoc on our financial system to the detriment of the consumers his agency was created to protect. His removal is a critical step in restoring Americans’ faith in our financial regulators. I look forward to working with Acting Director and Treasury Secretary Bessent to finally rein in this unaccountable agency by putting the CFPB under the appropriations process, making it a bipartisan commission, and providing appropriate statutory guardrails.”
The CFPB has been a controversial entity since its inception. Created under the Dodd-Frank Act, the agency quickly became a political football, with the first Director, Richard Cordray, emerging as a controversial figure after attempting to appoint his own replacement during the first Trump administration. While Codray lost, the fiasco was an embarrassment for the agency. Some have called for the CFPB to be shut down, with its responsibilities rolled into another established federal entity, as there are already too many financial regulators in the mix, increasing the cost to these firms as well as to consumers. Perhaps by appointing Bessent, Trump is messaging this is his intent.
