Richard Cordray to leave from Consumer Bureau

The director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau said on Wednesday that he would leave the federal agency this month.

Removing a major opponent to the Trump administration’s efforts to dismantle business regulations and unfetter Wall Street.

As the bureau’s first director, Richard Cordray, a Democrat appointed by President Barack Obama, has been an active watchdog whose role took on outsize significance in an increasingly partisan Washington.

To many Republicans, he embodied the kind of overaggressive policing that they contend hamstrings businesses and quashes innovation.

To Democrats, he was a champion of the public, fighting predatory companies and abusive practices that rip off ordinary people.