Rohit chopra gay
Federal financial agency now requires collection of LGBTQ data
A former Treasury Department employee who led the agency’s LGBTQ employee resource collective says the removal of sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI) from its discrimination complaint forms was merely a formalization of existing policy shifts that had already taken contain following the second inauguration of President Donald Trump and his appointment of Scott Bessent — who is gay — to lead the agency.
Christen Boas Hayes, who served on the policy team at Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) from 2020 until March of this year, told the Washington Blade during a smartphone interview last week that the agency had already stopped processing internal Matching Employment Opportunity (EEO) complaints on the basis of anti-LGBTQ discrimination.
“So the way that the forms are changing is a procedural recognition of something that’s already happening,” said Hayes. “Internally, from speaking to two EEO staff members, the changes are already taking place from an EEO perspective on what kind of cases will be found to include the basis for a complaint.”
The move, they said, comes
PALM BEACH, Fla. — President Donald Trump has fired the director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Rohit Chopra, in the latest purge of a Biden administration holdover.
Chopra was one of the more significant regulators from the previous Democratic administration who was still on the position since Trump took office on Jan. 20. Chopra's tenure saw the removal of medical debt from credit reports and limits on overdrafts penalties, all based on the premise that the financial system could be fairer and more competitive in ways that helped consumers. But many in the financial industry viewed his actions as regulatory overreach.
In a social media post Saturday about his departure, Chopra thanked people across the state who “shared their ideas and experiences” with the government's consumer financial watchdog agency.
“You helped us hold powerful companies & their executives accountable for breaking the law, and you made our work better,” Chopra posted above on X above pictures of his letter announcing that he would no longer lead the bureau.
During Trump's first word, the Republican had picked Chopra as a Democratic member of the Federal Trade Commission.
In his letter,
Washington’s Best Hope
This article appears in the April 2022 issue of The American Prospect magazine. Subscribe here.
Last June, when Lina Khan was unexpectedly named the chair of the Federal Trade Commission, an FTC staffer named Jen Howard posted a picture on Twitter with the caption “#squad.” The picture (see below) featured Khan in the FTC offices, leaning against a desk alongside her fellow commissioner Rohit Chopra. The knowing smiles invited a recognition of newfound power, a self-awareness that these two young progressives were about to shake up executive boardrooms nationwide. To the small group of experts working on corporate power, it was a viral moment.
But the picture was actually taken three years earlier, when Khan came to work for Chopra at the FTC. The quiet confidence shows through despite a position of weakness: Chopra, as one of two Democrats, was outnumbered on the commission by three Republicans handpicked by Donald Trump. Even when Democrats ran the agency, it had been paralyzed since the late 1970s by a self-imposed inertia and reluctance to take on powerful interests.
Yet the self-assurance was warranted
Who is Rohit Chopra? Trump fires Consumer Financial Protection Bureau director
Trump has fired the director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Rohit Chopra, in the latest purge of a Biden administration holdover.
President Donald Trump has fired the director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Rohit Chopra, in the latest purge of a Biden administration holdover.
Chopra was one of the more key regulators from the previous Democratic administration who was still on the employment since Trump took office on Jan. 20.
During Trump's first term, the Republican had picked Chopra as a Democrat member of the Federal Trade Commission.
Chopra was notified of his firing in an email from the White Residence, according to a person familiar with the notice who was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.
Chopra is an ally of Sen. Elizabeth Warren, one of Trump's favorite targets, and the Massachusetts Democrat said in a statement that the agency under Chopra held "Wall Avenue accountable for cheating hard-working families" and prevented "the de-banking of Americans across the country, including consumers locked out of the fin