Kraninger Resigns as CFPB Director

Kathleen L. Kraninger has submitted her resignation as Director of Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) following the announcement by President Joe Biden to nominate Rohit Chopra for the position.

Kraninger used the CFPB director’s Twitter account to announce her decision, tweeting, “As requested by the Biden administration, today I resigned as Director of the CFPB. I am proud of all that we accomplished on behalf of consumers. It has been an honor to lead the agency during these challenging times.” Kraninger’s letter also included to the new president where she cited the agency’s achievements during her tenure, adding that she hoped “my legacy will be the maturation of the CFPB itself and its role within the financial services regulatory framework.”

Kraninger was Associate Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) when she was nominated by President Trump in the summer of 2018 to fill the CFPB leadership role left vacant when the agency’s first director, Richard Cordray, resigned to pursue an unsuccessful campaign to become governor of Ohio; Mick Mulvaney, the OMB Director, has served as CFPB Acting Director after Cordray’s departure. Kraninger’s nomination was met by a rancorous partisan split on Capitol Hill: The Senate Banking Committee voted 13-12 along party lines to confirm her nomination and in December 2018 the full Senate voted 50-49 along party lines on her confirmation.

The role of CFPB director was originally intended by the Dodd-Frank Act to be a five-year position, with the president being unable to remove the director except for a specific cause. Kraninger would have remained in office until 2023, but the 2020 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Seila Law v. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau gave the president to remove the CFPB leader at will—the Trump administration supported that ruling.

Chopra is an ally of Sen. Elizabeth Warren, working with her during the creation of the CFPB and taking on the agency’s roles of Student Loan Ombudsman and later Assistant Director. In 2018, Chopra was unanimously confirmed by the Senate to serve on the U.S. Federal Trade Commission.