Leandra English

Leandra English is an American political advisor serving as an advisor to the Superintendent of the New York State Department of Financial Services. She formerly was the Deputy Director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) from 2017 until her resignation in 2018. She was the plaintiff in the lawsuit English v. Trump, in which she unsuccessfully sought to have herself acknowledged as Acting Director of the CFPB. Career English has served in many capacities as a member of the U.S. federal government. Before joining the CFPB, she worked in both the U.S. Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and the Department of the Treasury. She worked on the transition team that launched the new agency in 2010. She later served as Deputy Chief of Staff. She then returned to OMB, serving as senior advisor to the Deputy Director of Management. She returned to CFPB in 2015, serving as Deputy Chief Operating Officer and then Chief of Staff. CFPB leadership controversy On November 24, 2017, English was appointed Deputy Director of the CFPB by outgoing Director Richard Cordray. Cordray resigned his position as Director effective midnight November 25, 2017, and sent a letter to CFPB staff announcing that English would serve as Acting Director. That same evening, President Donald Trump appointed the Director of the Office of Management and Budget, Mick Mulvaney, as the Acting Director of the CFPB. On November 26, 2017, English filed a lawsuit in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia to block Mulvaney from taking leadership of the CFPB. English was represented in the lawsuit by appellate lawyer and former CFPB official Deepak Gupta. Two days later, 28 November 2017, a federal judge rejected English's emergency request to block President Trump's appointment of Mulvaney. A few weeks later, 10 January, a court ruled against English. English has received backing from a number of current and former Democrat legislators calling her the rightful Acting Director, including Senator Elizabeth Warren, Senator Sherrod Brown, Senator Richard Durbin, Representative Nancy Pelosi, and former Representative Barney Frank, co-author of the Dodd-Frank Act. A number of law professors also support her position, including Laurence Tribe, Martin Lederman, and Nina Mendelson.