Consumer Law

Elizabeth Warren Meets With Lobbyists For Big Banks

By Brian Wolfman

We have covered the campaign to urge President Obama to nominate Elizabeth Warren to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here. (Okay, we got a little carried away!) This recent biographical piece in the Washington Post quotes two family members, but Warren herself was not interviewed nor has she otherwise been out in the public campaigning for the job. The Post piece addressed only indirectly Warren's desire for the job:

For her part, Warren has spent much of the summer outside of the public spotlight, declining interview requests and visiting family in California and Oklahoma. "I asked her point-blank, 'Do you want this grubby job or not? Why do you want this thing?' " her brother David Herring said. He said it was clear that if she were to end up leading the consumer bureau, it would be out of a sense of duty.

Today's Post, however, describes a private meeting last Thursday with big bank lobbyists just before she met at the White House with senior Presidential advisors about the CFPB job. The article says that the meeting addressed "the role of the new regulatory agency," but it does not say that discussion concerned Warren's possible appointment to head the agency.

Full post as published by CL&P Blog on August 18, 2010 (boomark / email).