Another day, another scandal for Elizabeth Warren’s brainchild — the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. According to Richard Pollock of the Daily Caller, renovation costs for the agency’s headquarters may place it on the list of top ten most expensive office buildings in Washington, D.C.
Daily Caller reports:
Original cost estimates for the CFPB’s renovation were estimated at $55 million, but the bureau ran up the proposed cost to $216 million. The Federal Reserve Inspector General rejected the proposal in 2014, saying there was no “sound basis” for the figure.
As the CFPB renovation costs continued to escalate, renovation was taken out of the CFPB’s hands and transferred to the General Services Administration (GSA). GSA’s budget, however, was nearly twice the original $55 million, hitting $99 million.
That figure ballooned to more than $124 million, according to a June 30, 2017, GSA document obtained by TheDCNF under the Freedom of Information Act. The document was part of a release of “change orders” and “modifications” submitted by Grunley Construction, the Washington, D.C.-based general contractor selected by GSA to renovate the CFPB building.
Why are costs so high? the CFPB forked over $88,000 just for bike racks and parking lot “striping.” Employees enjoy separate gyms for men and women, “sunken garden areas,” along with premium quartz countertops and an outdoor patio.
The CFPB has been under heavy scrutiny after a whistleblower came forward to allege the agency falsified documents in order to penalize a lender. In a letter to Attorney General Jeff Sessions, former CFPB staffer Cassandra Jackson, accused the agency’s managers of “widespread racism and gender discrimination.” Jackson also accused the agency of forcing her to falsify evidence to justify fines against a pay-day lender.
“I was specifically told to cite Ace Cash Express for a violation for which I had verified the company was in compliance and to state that Ace Cash Express did not provide, and that the CFPB did not receive, documents that would have satisfied the CFPB’s guidelines, despite having received that information from Ace Cash Express,” Jackson wrote to Sessions.
The New York Post’s Paul Sperry recently reported that the CFPB is engaged in a wide-variety of corruption.
Everything from amassing secret ledgers to using penalties to ‘launder,’ funds into left-wing causes. Of course, because the CFPB operates independently of the U.S. Government, a full audit of the agency’s balance sheet have never been done. This sad reality may very well change under Mulvaney’s leadership.
