President Trump has named Jonathan McKernan as the director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and Jonathan Gould as the comptroller of the currency, amidst the agency’s turmoil. The bureau’s supervision and enforcement offices resigned on Tuesday in protest, following an acting director who ordered a halt to all operations.
McKernan, a former board member of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, has experience in Senate Banking Committee, the Federal Housing Finance Agency, and the Treasury Department. Gould, a financial regulation attorney, previously worked at Jones Day and served as chief legal officer for the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency.
The bureau’s probationary employees were fired on Tuesday, despite an internal notice citing legal grounds for retaining them. Employees reported receiving hastily written dismissal letters. The firings came after the agency’s general counsel cited legal grounds for retaining the workers, who helped the bureau obtain over $30 million in remedies for consumers.
The leadership change may address concerns from Senator Elizabeth Warren about whether Elon Musk and Trump would allow the agency to fulfill its mission as a consumer watchdog. Musk has joked about closing the consumer bureau, while Mr. Vought, the acting director, called for its abolition.
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/11/us/politics/trump-financial-regulators-jonathan-mckernan-gould.html