Only racial discrimination cases deserve a hearing
Democrats on the House Financial Services Committee have quietly attempted to scuttle a congressional hearing looking into whistleblower allegations of discrimination at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
Rep. Patrick McHenry, a North Carolina Republican, slammed the Democratic effort, calling it an “attempt to silence and intimidate whistleblowers.”
Rep. Maxine Waters of California and Rep. Al Green of Texas, two ranking Democratic members of the House Financial Services Committee, last week wrote a letter urging the cancellation of Wednesday’s scheduled hearing about Angela Martin, a CFPB employee scheduled to testify about employment discrimination and retaliation.
The Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations had originally invited three CFPB officials to testify at the hearing, including a federal employee union official. Democrats urged cancellation after the CFPB barred the officials from testifying before the subcommittee.Without CFPB participation, Waters and Green wrote, the hearing would focus instead on “a confidential and on-going grievance resolution process, and a discussion of which jeopardizes the disclosure of the privacy of other CFPB employees,” according to the letter obtained by the Washington Examiner.
The public break between Democrats and Republicans occurs as members of the subcommittee examine allegations of racial disparities at the consumer agency.