Mulvaney to Senate Banking Committee: ‘I Have To Be Here... I Don’t I Have to Answer Your Questions’

EXCERPT:

MULVANEY: “I am excited to be here today to answer questions. I think it's important that we bring some transparency and accountability to this bureau, to the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection.  The bureau is not designed structurally to be accountable by its very DNA, by its very nature it is not accountable to you, it's not accountable the public, it's not accountable to anybody other than itself. And I hope today we've got a chance to explore how to fix those things and why those things are not beneficial, that independence, to Mr. Kildee's point that is not necessarily or not have to mean unaccountable to everyone. I will give you just one example and I hope we get a chance to talk more during the course of the day. I have to be here, the statute requires me to be here, and I’m happy to be here. I do not have to answer a single one of your questions. I will and I look forward to doing that, but I don’t have to. The statute says that I shall appear before Congress and I’m doing that today and doing it tomorrow in the Senate. Again, happy to do it, doesn't say a word about answering your questions, doesn't say a word about testifying, which is interesting because elsewhere in Dodd-Frank other people do have to appear and testify or appear and answer questions. For some reason the director of the bureau does not. The director of the bureau only has to appear. So I believe it would be my statutory right to simply sit here and twiddle my thumbs for the next four hours while you all ask questions. I think that’s wrong. And again, I’m not going to do it, but I use that as just one of many examples of what's broken in the way the statute is written."