Trump’s Nominee for CFPB Director Advances to Senate Floor (1)

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is one step closer to having a Senate-confirmed director even as the agency is locked in litigation over moves meant to shut it down.

The Senate Banking Committee voted 13-11 on Thursday to advance the nomination of Jonathan McKernan, a member of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.’s board, to serve as CFPB director.

“As the director of the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection, Jonathan McKernan will ensure accountability and much needed reforms to curtail the weaponization of this rogue agency,” Committee Chairman Tim Scott (R-S.C.) said in a statement.

The vote was along party lines, with all Democrats opposing McKernan.

McKernan “is clearly being sent in by co-presidents Trump and Elon Musk to unleash the scammers, the fraudsters, and the cheats on the American people,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren (Mass.), the committee’s ranking Democrat, said at the hearing.

The committee also advanced the nominations of Stephen Miran for chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, William Pulte to serve as director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, and Jeffrey Kessler for undersecretary of Commerce for industry and security.

McKernan, if confirmed, will be tasked with rebuilding an agency thrown into turmoil under the leadership of acting Director Russell Vought, who was appointed to the post on Feb. 7.

The White House in a March 4 press release said President Donald Trump had ordered the CFPB “to halt operations.”

Vought issued a series of escalating directives to the CFPB’s staff resulting in a broad stop-work order on Feb. 10. The acting CFPB director has also shut down the agency’s headquarters and field offices around the country and moved to cancel the agency’s lease on its Washington office.

The CFPB last month also fired probationary employees, including enforcement attorneys on active cases, and term employees who had fixed end-dates on their contracts. Among the term employees Vought fired were technologists studying the impact of Big Tech on consumer finance markets.

Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency has also been accessing sensitive CFPB data during the agency freeze. Musk plans to add financial services to his X social media platform.

The National Treasury Employees Union, which represents many CFPB employees, and co-plaintiffs in litigation seeking to halt many of Vought’s actions alleged in a Feb. 13 filing that he planned to fire up to 95% of the agency’s staff.

The CFPB hasn’t contradicted those claims, though it agreed to hold off while Judge Amy Berman Jackson of the US District Court for the District of Columbia considers a preliminary injunction that would prevent Vought from following through on those plans. Much of the CFPB’s staff remains on administrative leave in the meantime.

The CFPB is scrambling to bring back employees who are tasked with legally mandated work, such as consumer response and some research reports. But that effort began only as the NTEU’s case proceeded.

Warren asked McKernan ahead of the confirmation hearing if he planned to conduct a thorough review of all positions already eliminated or slated for future elimination to see if the CFPB has enough to staff to carry out its congressional mandates.

“If confirmed, I will review and otherwise assess the extent to which the CFPB’s staffing levels are sufficient to ensure that the CFPB fulfills its statutory obligations,” he said in a written response to Warren.

McKernan also said he made no promises to Trump or any other member of the administration to shut down the CFPB and didn’t sign a loyalty pledge, although he said he wouldn’t reveal confidential conversations.