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Article snippet: WASHINGTON — A politically charged legal dispute has engulfed the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, with two officials each claiming to be its rightful acting director. The fight is raising questions about the scope and limits of President Trump’s power to impose control over an agency that Congress created to regulate the financial industry with an unusual degree of independence from political interference. Last week, the bureau’s director, Richard Cordray, an Obama appointee, resigned and told the staff that he had appointed his chief of staff, Leandra English, to be the deputy director, which he said made her the agency’s acting director until a permanent successor was confirmed. But the White House said Mr. Trump was instead immediately installing his budget director, Mick Mulvaney, as acting head. Mr. Mulvaney denounced the agency in 2014 as a “joke” and suggested he would like to “get rid of it.” On Sunday, Ms. English sued Mr. Trump and Mr. Mulvaney “in his capacity as the person claiming to be acting director” of the bureau. On Monday, Mr. Mulvaney showed up at the bureau bearing doughnuts and took over the director’s office, instructing agency staff to ignore Ms. English’s directions. While there are several legal issues, the dispute probably boils down to how to interpret an ambiguous clash between two statutes. Congress created the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in 2010 as part of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act.... Link to the full article to read more