April 9, 2018

Add Mick Mulvaney to the List of Big Spenders With Other People’s Money

Tom Williams/Congressional Quarterly/Newscom via ZUMA

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It appears that Scott Pruitt isn’t the only conservative who rails against overpaid bureaucrats unless they’re his overpaid bureaucrats:

Mick Mulvaney, President Donald Trump’s appointee to oversee the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, has given big pay raises to the deputies he has hired to help him run the bureau, according to salary records obtained by The Associated Press. Mulvaney has hired at least eight political appointees since he took over the bureau in late November. Four of them are making $259,500 a year and one is making $239,595. That is more than the salaries of members of Congress, cabinet secretaries, and nearly all federal judges apart from those who sit on the Supreme Court.

….Kirsten Mork, Mulvaney’s chief of staff, got a significant bump in pay for going to work at the CFPB. She made $167,300 in her job working for Rep. Jeb Hensarling on the House Financial Services Committee, according to LegiStorm, a website that tracks congressional salary data. She now makes $259,500 as chief of staff of the CFPB, according to bureau records….Another former congressional staffer, Brian Johnson, who also worked for the House Financial Services Committee, made $164,600 in his role there before going to the CFPB, according to LegiStorm. He now makes $239,595 as a “senior advisor” to Mulvaney, a position that did not exist under Cordray.

Eric Blankenstein, who oversees supervision, enforcement and fair lending for the bureau, previously was a lawyer for the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative making $153,730, according to federal salary data website FedSmith. He now makes $259,500, according to bureau records. Another Mulvaney appointee, Sheila Greenwood, who used to work in the Department of Housing and Urban Development making $179,700 a year, now makes $259,500. Anthony Welcher, who worked outside government before becoming a director of external affairs for the bureau, is also making $259,500 a year. His position also did not exist under the previous administration, according to bureau records.

I hardly even know how to react to this stuff anymore. The federal government under Trump is apparently just a big pot of spoils to be divvied up. Do any Republicans even care about this anymore?

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

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