House Subcommittee to Examine New Allegations of Discrimination and Retaliation at CFPB

The Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee of the House Financial Services Committee will hold a hearing this week as part of a continued investigation of allegations that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) discriminated against employees and subsequently retaliated against the whistleblowers, according to an announcement on the House Financial Services Committee website.

The one-panel hearing, titled "Examining Continuing Allegations of Discrimination and Retaliation at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau," will take place on Thursday, June 25, starting at 10 a.m. Eastern time. Witnesses scheduled to testify are Robert Cauldwell, President of the National Treasury Employees Union Chapter 335 and Examiner at the CFPB, and Florine Williams, Senior Equal Employment Specialist in the CFPB's Office of Civil Rights (the unit that handles the Bureau's Equal Employment Opportunity complaint process).

The hearing will examine new evidence that has surfaced in the last year since allegations of discrimination and retaliation on the part of the CFPB against its employees first came to light in three Subcommittee hearings. Cauldwell will testify about such incidents in the CFPB that he has observed that are alleged by members of his union chapter, and Williams is scheduled to testify on alleged mismanagement in the CFPB's Office of Civil Rights as well as instances of discrimination and retaliation she has observed.

The Chairman of the Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee is Sean Duffy (R-Wisconsin), who has been at the forefront of legislative efforts to reform the CFPB. In March, Duffy introduced a comprehensive package to reform the Bureau, which included proposals to replace the Bureau's director, Richard Cordray, with a bipartisan five-member board; and a proposal to make the Bureau subject to the regular Congressional appropriations process.

One of Duffy's bills, the Bureau Advisory Commission Transparency Act, passed in the House in April by a vote of 401 to 2. The bill calls for each advisory committee and subcommittee of the CFPB to be subject to the provisions of the Federal Advisory Committee Act, making the proceedings of those committees open to the public.