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President Trump nominated Jonathan McKernan, who previously served as a board member of the FDIC and senior counsel of policy at FHFA, to be director of the CFPB on Tuesday, capping a chaotic week for the bureau.
McKernan also has experience in the Senate, having served as senior financial policy advisor to Sen. Bob Corker, a Tennessee Republican who served as chair of the influential Senate Foreign Relations Committee, as well as counsel for the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs in 2021-2022. McKernan has also served as senior counsel to the U.S. Treasury.
McKernan inherits a government agency that has been all but shut down over the last week on President Trump’s orders — through acting directors Scott Bessent, Treasury Secretary, and then Russell Vought, Director of the White House Office of Management and Budget.
Vought was named acting director on Friday night and quickly moved to shut down most of the operations of the bureau on Saturday, ordering staff to discontinue supervision activity, investigations and enforcements, and suspending the effective dates of all final rules that have been issued or published but have not gone into effect.
Significantly, Vought also cut off the bureau’s funding, posting this message on his X account Saturday night: “Pursuant to the Consumer Financial Protection Act, I have notified the Federal Reserve that CFPB will not be taking its next draw of unappropriated funding because it is not ‘reasonably necessary’ to carry out its duties. The Bureau’s current balance of $711.6 million is in fact excessive in the current fiscal environment. This spigot, long contributing to CFPB’s unaccountability, is now being turned off.”
On Sunday Vought also shut the CFPB’s headquarters and ordered all staff to work from home this week, before directing them to stop all bureau work on Monday.
McKernan’s nomination has been sent to the Senate for confirmation, where it is likely to be approved.
Interestingly, while a board member at the FDIC, McKernan pushed for stronger oversight of large asset managers. He argued that their size and concentrated ownership could give them improper influence over the management and strategy of domestic banks. His stance had won some support from former FDIC board member Rohit Chopra, the prior CFPB director.
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