The White House has taken exception to House Financial Services Committee Chairman Jeb Hensarling’s charge that the Obama administration was “stonewalling" on the Wells Fargo phantom accounts investigation.
Hensarling specifically charged “we are not getting cooperation” from the Consumer Fraud Protection Bureau in probing what is very possibly the biggest case of financial fraud since Bernie Madoff’s notorious swindles a decade ago.
“Chairman Hensarling is someone who has repeatedly tried to undermine the effectiveness of the CFPB,” press secretary Josh Earnest said in response to my question about the Texas lawmaker’s criticism. “Questioning their independence, trying to cut their budget, and otherwise questioning the reason for their existence.”
He added that “hearing this criticism from him is not particularly surprising.”
Earnest admitted “it’s hard for me to speak of the work of the CFPB has undertaken in the context of the Wells Fargo investigation because, obviously, they’re independent. So I would refer you to the CFPB for what kinds of things were considered in their investigation of Wells Fargo.”
Not long after Earnest’s remarks, Hensarling’s office took issue with his characterization of the CFPB’s independence and the response of House Republicans to the agency created in President Obama’s first term.
“Washington bureaucracies shouldn't be allowed to write their own budgets,” Hensarling spokesman Jeff Emerson, told me. “Republican reforms simply put the CFPB on budget and replaced its unaccountable director with an accountable bipartisan commission. Why does the Obama White House believe Washington bureaucrats should be allowed to spend whatever they want with no oversight?”
John Gizzi is chief political columnist and White House correspondent for Newsmax.
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