WASHINGTON �� Former presidential campaign manager Corey Lewandowski urged the Trump administration Sunday to fire the head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, a sign that Republicans are stepping up attacks on the agency that has targeted Wall Street conduct.
Without being asked about the agency in an interview on NBC's "Meet the Press," Lewandowski said he wanted incoming White House chief of staff John Kelly to push for the firing of Director Richard Cordray, a Democrat mentioned as a possible candidate for Ohio governor in 2018.
"He's a person who is now all but running for governor in the state of Ohio, and he's sitting in federal office right now," Lewandowski said. "I hope that the new chief of staff looks at him moving forward and saying it's time to act decisively."
Lewandowski cited a rule issued earlier this month by the agency that would make it easier for customers to sue banks by restricting the use of mandatory arbitration to block class-action lawsuits. "It's going to be about a trillion dollars' worth of arbitration that the government's going to have to go through now," he said.
A spokesman for the CFPB didn't respond to a request for comment on Lewandowski's remarks.
The CFPB was after the 2008 financial crisis, and Cordray's term ends in July 2018. The Trump administration has said it wants the ability to dismiss Cordray at any time for any reason, a change from current rules that say the president can fire him only for cause. Democrats say the agency is a necessary advocate for ordinary Americans, while Republicans say it oversteps its mandate and that Cordray's power is unconstitutional.
Cordray hasn't said he plans to run in Ohio to replace Republican Gov. John Kasich, who must leave office at the beginning of 2019 because of term limits.
Lewandowski, who in May left the lobbying and consulting firm he co-founded after the 2016 election, said in the NBC interview that he had no clients who would benefit from Cordray's removal.
But Avenue Strategies, the firm Lewandowski co-founded and said in May he was leaving, collected $120,000 from Community Choice Financial Inc. during the second quarter for lobbying work related to "efforts regarding payday lending rules and regulations," according to a lobbying disclosure form filed with Congress.
