Racial bias

The uproar over the incendiary writings of a Consumer Financial Protection Bureau official have led to calls for his removal, but the agency’s interim chief says he won’t “let any outside group dictate who works here.”

Senate Democrats on Wednesday called for acting CFPB Director Mick Mulvaney to reveal the vetting process that led to the hiring of a political appointee whose past incendiary writings have caused an uproar at the agency.

The head of the National Treasury Employees Union said the appointment of Eric Blankenstein to a senior role “reflects poorly on CFPB management.”

Eric Blankenstein, a political appointee overseeing fair-lending policy at the agency, said in an email to staff that his blog posts from 14 years ago that used a racial epithet “reflected poor judgment.”

What started as a single senior official at the CFPB voicing concerns about blog posts written 14 years ago by Eric Blankenstein, a top agency political appointee, is rapidly becoming a rising chorus of discontent.

The head of the agency’s fair-lending office cast doubt on a proposed reorganization of her office and raised concerns about blog posts written years ago by the political appointee overseeing the project.

JPMorgan Chase has reached a settlement with financial advisers who say they were treated poorly because they're black.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau issued an interpretive rule Friday to clarify changes made to the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act that were mandated by President Trump's regulatory relief law.

Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, D-Mo., released a survey of lending practices that he said point to practices such as forced arbitration clauses and extracting a customer’s credit score to determine creditworthiness.

The Trump administration has argued that the Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing rule, issued in 2015, was too prescriptive.