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Trump Fires Crusading Director of Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Rohit Chopra

Trump Fires Crusading Director of Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Rohit Chopra

  • The Indian American expected to be fired immediately after Trump took office but stayed for two more weeks, and to impose a $2 million fine on a money transmitter and release reports on auto lending costs.

President Donald Trump has fired Rohit Chopra as the director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The 43-year-old Indian American was confirmed to lead the nation’s most powerful consumer watchdog agency in 2021 to a five-year term that was scheduled to end in October 2026.

In a letter released today, Chopra confirmed that his leadership had “concluded,” adding that he’s “proud that the CFPB has done so much to restore the rule of law.” He highlighted how the CFPB worked to thwart scams, crack down on Big Tech, ensure consumer access to banking and safeguard Americans from corporate abuse. He hoped that “the CFPB will continue to be a pillar of restoring and advancing economic liberty in America.”

Chopra expected to be fired immediately after P Trump took office, but he “improbably hung on for nearly two weeks,” The New York Times noted, “even as the president ousted scores of other agency leaders.” He used that time “to impose a $2 million fine on a money transmitter and release reports on auto lending costs, specialty credit reporting companies and rent payment data,” The Times said. 

With Chopra’s ouster, the bureau will be run by Zixta Martinez, its deputy director, until Trump chooses a new acting leader. “Financial industry officials expect the agency to pare back its oversight, issue fewer new regulations and freeze or rescind some of those imposed by Chopra,” The Times said. 

The CFPB was formed in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis, and helps consumer finance markets work by making regulations more effective, consistently and fairly enforcing rules, and empowering consumers to take more control over their economic lives.

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Chopra was nominated in January 2021 to succeed Kathy Kraninger, a Trump-appointed official who had run the bureau from 2018 until January 2020. He was confirmed by the Senate in September 2021, along party lines. A tie-breaker on a procedural vote from Vice President Kamala Devi Harris, advanced Chopra’s nomination to the final vote.

Before joining the CFPB, Chopra, a strong ally of Sen. Elizabeth Warren, served as a commissioner on the Federal Trade Commission. At the FTC, he “pushed the agency to be more skeptical of private equity buyers and more aggressive in using its rulemaking powers to rein in businesses.” He received a B.A. from Harvard University and an MBA from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania., and then worked at McKinsey & Company. 

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