Pat Toomey Probes Biden Administration for Reportedly Replacing Officials with Hand-Picked Activists

Sen. Pat Toomey (R-PA) has asked the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) to turn over documents in an effort to determine if the agency is replacing career senior officials with hand-picked activists, as Biden promised to be nonpolitical with the agency.

Toomey wrote in a letter to CFPB Acting Director Dave Uejio:

According to press reports, the political leadership of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) under the Biden administration has been taking unusual and possibly unlawful actions to push out top-level career civil servants at the CFPB in order to fill those civil service positions with hand-picked loyalists.

Such actions reportedly include offering employees extraordinary separation incentives to leave their posts and placing employees on administrative leave after opening up frivolous investigations against them—allegations that, if true, may violate employment and other laws. Moreover, the CFPB notably declined to deny any of the detailed allegations in the report.

Toomey’s letter noted Government Executive Media Company’s article, stating, “one current career worker still at the agency said of the Biden team after it arrived at the bureau. […] ‘It was very clear that there was no respect for senior executives that worked at the agency. […] The way they’re treating career executives is terrible.'”

“It’s accurate to say there has been a push to get rid of top career people there,” the employee said. “I don’t think it’s a coincidence.”

“I voted for Biden and I’m getting ousted because I was hired by the previous people,” the employee said. “It’s not my fault.”

“It’s ruining the careers of really quality people who came from decades at other agencies,” the employee asserted.

Toomey therefore asked the Office of Inspector General of the CFPB to “promptly review the allegations” and “if found credible… open an investigation into whether any CFPB officials—or other officials in the federal government—violated any employment or other laws.”

The request for answers comes as President Joe Biden said in his first week of office to federal employees that “You’re the ones running the show.”

“We’re a team,” Biden said in the video. “You’re patriots. You could’ve done a lot of other things with your careers, but you chose public service.”

“I know this transition was a little more challenging than usual to say the least,” Biden said. “I commend you for your honor, your professionalism, your integrity.”