Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) Director Kathy Kraninger resigned yesterday at the request of the newly sworn-in President Biden, clearing the way for his nominee to lead the powerful regulatory agency, The Hill reported. Kraninger, a Republican appointed by former President Trump, announced her departure via Twitter roughly an hour after Biden was inaugurated as the 46th U.S. president. “I support the Constitutional prerogative of the President to appoint senior officials within the government who support the President’s policy priorities, which ensures our government is responsive to the will of the people as expressed in presidential elections,” Kraninger wrote. Kraninger was confirmed to lead the CFPB in December 2018 for a term lasting until 2023. She was the second full-time director of the agency, which was created by the 2010 Dodd-Frank Wall Street reform law to oversee how banks, lenders, credit card companies and debt servicers treat their customers. Biden would have been able to fire Kraninger had she not resigned thanks to the Supreme Court’s ruling in a challenge to the CFPB’s constitutionality backed by Kraninger and the Trump administration. The court found the CFPB’s structure unconstitutional in June and resolved the issue by striking down a provision limiting when the president can dismiss the bureau’s director.
