Published: October 2018

Trump’s anti-discrimination official uses hate speech as recent as 2016

Controversial blog posts written by senior Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) official, Eric Blankenstein, have caused outrage from advocates and CFPB staffers who are calling on interim director, Mick Mulvaney, to fire the official. Blankenstein is in charge of enforcing fair-lending laws that are intended to prevent discrimination and is facing criticism for a series of racially provocative comments spanning the last 14 years.

Eric Blankenstein, head of the supervision, enforcement and fair lending division at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), comes under fire after anonymous blog posts he wrote as recently as 2016, dismisses hate crimes and questions whether using the n-word is racist. In response, Consumer Action joined coalition advocates in urging acting director, Mick Mulvaney, to fire the official, as many CFPB staffers explain that they can no longer trust Blankenstein to carry out the bureau’s anti-discrimination mission.

Lead Organization

Public Citizen

Other Organizations

Allied Progress | Americans for Financial Reform | California Reinvestment Coalition | Center for American Progress | Center for Global Policy Solutions | Center for Justice & Democracy | Center for Responsible Lending | Consumer Action | Empire Justice Center | Housing Choice Partners | Human Rights Campaign | Institute for Agriculture & Trade Policy | Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law | The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights | Main Street Alliance | NAACP | NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund, Inc. | National Association of Consumer Advocates | National Community Reinvestment Coalition (NCRC) | National Consumer Law Center (on behalf of its low income clients) | National Fair Housing Alliance | Protect All Children's Environment | Public Citizen | Public Justice | Tennessee Citizen Action | Woodstock Institute

More Information

For more information, please visit Public Citizen.

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Trump’s anti-discrimination official uses hate speech as recent as 2016   (MulvaneyBlakenstein.pdf)