NEW YORK—A judge has dismissed a lawsuit by a federal credit union in Manhattan that sought to block President Trump from installing Mick Mulvaney as acting director of the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
In a decision made public on Friday, U.S. District Judge Paul Gardephe in Manhattan said Lower East Side People’s FCU lacked legal authority to sue, rejecting what he called the plaintiff’s “fear-based theory of standing,” Reuters reported.
Gardephe said the credit union failed to show that any actual or expected policy changes under Mulvaney would undermine its ability to fulfill its mission of improving the health of underserved communities.
“Organizations advocating for a particular policy goal who have alleged no injury to themselves as organizations may not establish their standing simply on the basis of that goal,” Gardephe wrote, on a decision dated Thursday.
Trump appointed Mulvaney as temporary head of the CFPB in November, replacing Richard Cordray. The credit union had sought to have the court declare CFPB Deputy Director Leandra English, who Cordray designated as his preferred interim successor, as the acting director. English in November filed her own lawsuit in the federal court in Washington, D.C. to block Mulvaney from taking charge.
In seeking to dismiss the credit union lawsuit, the Justice Department said forcing Trump to appoint English would be an “extraordinary intrusion into core Executive Branch operations” and upend the “consensus view” that Mulvaney deserved the job, Reuters reported.
As CUToday.info reported, Lower East Side’s suit alleged that “regulatory chaos” has been caused by the legal dispute over who is rightfully in charge of the agency.
LESPFCU CEO Linda Levy also told CUToday.info in a previous report that the president is “not supposed to be the one who makes the appointment. The CFPB is supposed to be an independent agency. Mulvaney is obviously not going to be independent of the White House. He was appointed by the president. He is an at-will appointment by the president, so he won’t be independent.”