On June 6, the Consumer Advisory Board's twenty-two members were informed that they would no longer serve on the CAB and could not reapply for their former positions.
Through June 5, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau had four advisory bodies: the Academic Research Council, the Community Bank Advisory Council, the Credit Union Advisory Council, and the Consumer Advisory Board. By law, the CFPB must meet twice a year with the CAB to discuss trends in the financial industry, regulations, and the impact of financial products and practices on consumers. Tellingly, the CFPB's acting director, Mick Mulvaney, has canceled several meetings between the CFPB and its advisory groups during his short tenure.
For the CAB's former members, the coup de grace came on June 6 when, in an afternoon call, Anthony Welcher, the Bureau's recently hired Policy Associate Director for External Affairs, informed them that they were terminated. This move came after several members criticized Mulvaney's leadership and implored him to keep this week's scheduled—and just cancelled—meeting on the books.
"We're going to start the advisory groups with sort of a new membership, to bring in these new perspectives for these new dialogues," Welcher said on the call. "We're going to be using the current application cycle to populate these memberships in the new groups. So we're going to be transitioning these current advisory groups over the next few months."
In the memo announcing the members' terminations, the CFPB defended this "[r]evamping" as necessary to "increase high quality feedback" and mentioned plans to hold more town halls and roundtable discussions and reduce the new CAB's ranks. As a later released statement argued, "[b]y both right-sizing its advisory councils and ramping up outreach to external groups, the Bureau will enhance its ability to hear from consumer, civil rights, and industry groups on a more regular basis." In response to press queries, a CFPB spokesman not only denied the members' characterization of the agency's action—"The Bureau has not fired anyone"—but also accused these "outspoken" officials of "seem[ing] more concerned about protecting their taxpayer funded junkets to Washington, D.C., and being wined and dined by the Bureau than protecting consumers."
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