WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal judge has ruled in favor of President Trump in his effort to appoint the acting head of nation’s top financial watchdog agency, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
In a ruling from the bench Tuesday afternoon, Judge Timothy Kelly declined to stop on an emergency basis the president from putting in place Mick Mulvaney, currently the White House’s budget director. In doing so, Kelly ruled against Leandra English, the CFPB’s deputy director. English had requested an emergency restraining order to stop Mulvaney from becoming the acting director of the bureau.
The leadership of the bureau had been thrown into chaos over the weekend after its permanent director, Richard Cordray, resigned and appointed English as his successor. Both Mulvaney and English claimed to be the rightful acting director.
The Donnie appointee ruled in favor of Donnie…
This is so not good news.
I assume this will be appealed.
Judge Timothy Kelly is a Trump appointee.
Nuff Sed.
Question: You’ve got 1 person doing what is supposed to be 2 full time jobs. Does he get paid for both?
Of course realistically the CFPB will probably get about an hour a week, but still…
Nah. He denied the temporary restraining order (very preliminary step in litigation), which is not a ruling on the merits or a final judgment, so an appeal is premature. It’s even before the “preliminary injunction” stage. TRO is usually what you get ex parte on a very short term basis to maintain status quo while the defendant can be given notice and a hearing scheduled on the preliminary injunction itself. Status quo is already borked here. She could maybe take an interlocutory appeal, but that’s probably just a waste of time. Better off just getting her hamfisted Trump-appointee nonsense decision on the merits and appealing it for real.
To make room for the possibility that he’s not just a shill for the guy who appointed him: his ruling may be based on the idea that there is really no way to show irreparable harm (a requirement for the TRO) if she’s forced to step aside temporarily, but manages to later win back her position.
I tend to doubt it though. He’ll cook up some reason the Vacancies Reform Act overrides a piece of legislation that was enacted AFTER it was and which specifically states that the appointments for the agency it creates are handled differently, as if Congress literally wasted all its time creating procedures it never intended go into effect.