Trump names former CFPB official Brian Johnson to be agency’s next permanent director

NEW YORK (AP) — President Donald Trump has named Brian Johnson as his choice to be the next director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, turning to a former official who helped run the CFPB during his first term to now run the bureau for the test of his second term in office.

Johnson was the deputy director of the bureau under Trump’s first CFPB director, Kathy Kraninger, and was known for being a powerful aide to Kraninger during her tenure who had significant leeway in deciding what the bureau should or should not work on.

If confirmed by the Senate, Johnson will inherit a bureau that’s largely been inoperable since Trump came back into office and put his budget director, Russell Vought, in charge on an acting basis. Much of the bureau’s recent activity has directed at unwinding its previous work.