President Trump himself came up with the unusual idea of naming Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney to serve simultaneously as acting director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the White House told Newsmax on Monday.
“Whose idea was this?” I asked at the regular briefing for White House reporters. “Did the president decide to give the dual positions to Director Mulvaney?”
“Look, I think the president felt like he was the right person to lead this agency, and he made that decision,” replied Sarah Sanders, press secretary, adding, “I don't think there's more to it than that.”
I noted that several historians have observed that the last time someone held two presidential appointments at once was before World War I. That was when the secretary of the treasury served simultaneously as chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, which was created in 1913.
This practice was ended by the Banking Act of 1935, which began the current process of the President appointing Federal Reserve Board governors and a chairman with no other office.
Since this simultaneous appointment had not been done in so long, I asked if it seemed “a little odd” to be naming the OMB chief to another full-time appointment. “We're an administration that likes to break new ground,” replied Sanders.
John Gizzi is chief political columnist and White House correspondent for Newsmax. For more of his reports, Go Here Now.
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