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Mufarrige Ran Predatory High-Cost Auto Lender, Watered Down Payday Lending Rule As CFPB Attorney

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Building on his efforts to create the most anti-consumer administration in American history, Trump has tapped a former Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) attorney, Christopher G. Mufarrige, to lead the Bureau of Consumer Protection. Mufarrige may not be a household name to most, but his record should concern every American. Reporting from 2020, when Mufarrige was a government employee, paint a corrupt and anti-consumer advocate: 

  • Mufarrige ran a Texas “Buy Here Pay Here” auto dealer, widely considered to be “predatory” for their high-interest loan models similar to payday lenders. 
    • KEY POINT: “Consumer advocates have accused Buy Here Pay Here dealers of profiting off of vulnerable and desperate people. They target poor and vulnerable customers, buying lists of bankruptcy filers and sending them direct mail. Roughly one-quarter of Buy Here Pay Here customers go into default, according to the New Jersey attorney general’s office.”
  • As an employee at the CFPB during Trump’s first administration, Mufarrige was one of “several appointees [that] used false statistics and gimmicks to downplay the value of payday lending regulations” that resulted in a watered down payday lending rule initially designed to protect American consumers from predatory payday lending practices. 
    • KEY POINT: “The memo also alleges that Mufarrige was responsible for senior officials misrepresenting aspects of the payday rule’s evidence and analyses to the press.” 

“Mufarrige’s appointment is the latest reminder that Trump is catering to corporations and special interests over working Americans’ wallets,” said Accountable.US Executive Director Tony Carrk. “Mufarrige has a well-known history of watering down consumer protection efforts, all the while bolstering corrupt, predatory business practices – much like his own. Mufarrige’s appointment is further proof that costs will go up for American families under Trump.

Mufarrige’s appointment comes on the heels of Trump’s efforts to gut consumer protection efforts at the federal level. This weekend, at the direction of Elon Musk, the Trump administration has shut down the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), a lifeline for Americans who have been scammed by big banks and other bad actors for more than a decade – obtaining close to $20 billion in relief for consumers in the short time since its founding. In the first days of his administration, Trump fired the former CFPB Director Rohit Chopra. 

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