Editors Choice: The Big Banks of America Basically Have Control of Congress

Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) said one of her top priorities will be undoing the damage by former Consumer Financial Protection Bureau chief Mick Mulvaney now that Democrats control the House.

In an interview Thursday on “All In with Chris Hayes,” the newly-named House Financial Services Committee chairwoman called Mulvaney’s reforms to the agency, which she says eroded consumer protections, “dangerous” for American consumers.

“I’ve been focused on the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau,” Waters told MSNBC on Thursday. “That was the center piece of the Dodd/Frank reform. And Mulvaney who was sent over temporarily by the president to oversee it after the guy who headed it left to run for governor. And he’s tried to dismantle the consumer financial protection bureau.”

“I’m going to focus on that and we’re going to try and undo the damage that Mulvaney has done,” she added. “The last two years have been very dangerous. I have been appalled and surprised at how blatant it has been. This administration is not at all concerned about the welfare of the average family.”

Waters also criticized fellow members of Congress, especially on influential committees, for accepting money from large banks while largely serving those banks’ interests in the government.

“The big banks of America have basically control of the Congress of the United States as far as their issues are concerned,” Waters says. “Many of our members have failed to even try to rein them in because the way that they have concocted these issues, it makes it sound as if it’s so complicated that nobody else understands or knows what they’re doing.”

As chairwoman of a committee with subpoena power, Waters is expected to launch investigations into the president’s personal finances to determine whether President Trump has been truthful about his financial dealings in Russia, which Democrats criticized Republicans for not pursuing last year during the House Intelligence Committee’s Russia investigation.

Waters has declined to say when those inquiries could occur, telling reporters in November that “we will deal with that when we come to it.”