More power grab

The Trump administration urged the U.S. Supreme Court to give the president more control over the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the agency that regulates mortgages and credit cards.

Asking the court to take up a pending appeal, administration lawyers said the Constitution requires that the president be allowed to fire the agency’s director for any reason. The 2010 law that set up the CFPB says the director can be removed only for “inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office.”

The administration’s position increases the chances the court will take up the issue in the nine-month term that starts in October. A ruling would come by June, only months before the 2020 presidential election.

The filing was a response to an appeal filed by a Seila Law, a California law firm being investigated by the CFPB over its sales pitches to indebted consumers. The firm is trying to derail the investigation by arguing that the CFPB was set up in violation of the constitutional separation of powers.

In a brief filed Tuesday, U.S. Solicitor General Noel Francisco agreed with the law firm that the CFPB’s structure is unconstitutional. But Francisco said the court should leave the bureau intact, and his brief left open the possibility that the CFPB could continue to press the investigation.

Francisco said the constitutional issue “has broad implications for the president’s ability to supervise the executive branch.“