President Trump on Friday named his budget director as the acting director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, moving to take control of the agency hours after its departing leader had taken steps to install his own choice for acting chief. 
 
 By the end of the night, an agency born of the financial meltdown — and one Republicans have tried to kill from the start — had dueling directors, and there was little sense of who actually would be in charge Monday morning. 
 
 The bureaucratic standoff began Friday afternoon when Richard Cordray, the Obama-appointed leader of the bureau, abruptly announced he would leave the job at the close of business, a week earlier than anticipated. He followed up with a letter naming his chief of staff, Leandra English, as the agency’s deputy director. 
 
 The announcement came with a twist. Under the law, he said, that appointment would make the new deputy director the agency’s acting director. The move was seen as an effort to delay Mr. Trump from appointing his own director, whose confirmation could take months. 

 WEST PALM BEACH, Fla./WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A battle between the White House and Democrats over warring appointments to head up the top U.S. regulator for consumer finance is likely headed for the courts, opening any interim actions by the agency to legal challenges, lawyers said on Saturday. 
 
 Richard Cordray, a Democrat, stepped down on Friday as director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), which was created after the financial crisis to protect consumers from abusive lending practices, and he named staffer Leandra English as acting director. 
 
 A few hours later, President Donald Trump named someone else to lead the agency: Mick Mulvaney, the White House budget director and one of the CFPB’s fiercest critics. 
 
 The CFPB, the brainchild of Senator Elizabeth Warren, a Democrat and a liberal firebrand, has long been in the crosshairs of Republicans, who say it has had too much unchecked power. 
 
 On Saturday, Trump tweeted that the CFPB - which has imposed steep penalties on banks, auto dealers, student lenders and credit card companies for predatory lending practices - had “devastated” financial institutions. 
 
 Democrats and Republicans agree that Trump may nominate a permanent CFPB chief, but they disagree over who may lead the agency in the interim, a dispute which could drag on for months until the Senate confirms a permanent Trump appointment. 
 
 The dispute is over which federal law prevails in naming an interim director. According to Democrats, the relevant law is the 2010 Dodd-Frank Wall Street reform law that created the CFPB, which stipulates that the agency’s deputy director is to take over in the short term. 
 
 Cordray, in announcing his resignation on Friday, said he had named English as deputy director and that she would become the acting director. 
 
 Related Coverage Justice Department says White House may name new consumer watchdog 
 
 But administration officials say the 1998 Federal Vacancies Reform Act gives the president the power to temporarily fill agency positions, except for those with multi-member boards - an exemption they said did not apply to the CFPB. 
 
 On Saturday evening, the Justice Department said in a memo that the White House was right to name a new CFPB director. 
 
 The Dodd-Frank language about changing CFPB directors is “unusual” but the White House may name an interim chief, according to the memo. 
 
 Such advice from the Justice Department is open to legal challenge. 
 
 Alan Kaplinsky, head of the Consumer Financial Services Group for law firm Ballard Spahr LLP, said the issue will likely have to be decided in the courts. In the meantime, he said, “This enormous cloud of uncertainty” will hang over the CFPB. 
 
 Kaplinsky said he believes that Dodd-Frank provides for the deputy director to take charge during the short-term, but Congress did not explicitly list the resignation of the director as a situation where the deputy would step up. 
 
 “I think Trump wins, but unfortunately it is going to take a while,” Kaplinsky said. 
 
 Quyen Truong, a partner at law firm Stroock & Stroock & Lavan who was the assistant director and deputy general counsel for the CFPB until early 2016, said the industry should expect CFPB staff to continue their work, but that the “agency’s actions during this period almost certainly will be subject to legal challenge.” 
 
 Despite the legal uncertainty, Mulvaney is expected to “show up Monday and he will go into the office and start working,” a senior administration official said on Saturday. White House officials said English was also expected to turn up on Monday and serve as Mulvaney’s deputy. 
 
 Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney attends the daily briefing at the White House in Washington, U.S., July 20, 2017. REUTERS/Carlos Barria 
 
 English could not be reached for comment. 
 
 FIRST SUCCESSION 
 
 Cordray is the only person to have led the young agency, making this the first time that succession of the director has been tested. 
 
 Administration officials said the appointment of Mulvaney was “routine” and that the White House had sought guidance from the Justice Department before Friday’s announcement. 
 
 “This needs to be decided in the courts,” Warren said in a tweet on Saturday. 
 
 Industry critics said the succession battle underlined that the agency lacks proper Congressional oversight. 
 
 “The CFPB’s current governing structure is a dictatorship, period,” Richard Hunt, head of the Consumer Bankers Association, a trade group for retail banking, said in a statement. 
 
 Democrats and consumer advocates said it was unfair and inappropriate to put Mulvaney - who once described the CFPB as a “joke” - in charge. 
 
 Maxine Waters, the top Democrat on the House of Representatives’ Financial Services Committee, said Mulvaney would have too much power, as the CFPB director also sits on the boards of two other financial regulatory agencies. 
 
 U.S. President Donald Trump visits U.S. Coast Guard Station Lake Worth Inlet in Riviera Beach, Florida, U.S., November 23, 2017. REUTERS/Eric Thayer 
 
 “The White House would have an alarming degree of direct control over financial regulation, supervision, and enforcement,” Waters said in a statement.
– While consumers were fighting over fancy televisions on Black Friday, the US government was fighting over consumers. The New York Times reports Richard Cordray suddenly left his position as director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau on Friday—a week ahead of schedule. One of his final moves before heading out the door was to name his chief of staff, Leandra English, as deputy director. Cordray says that would legally make her acting director until such a time as President Trump nominates a new director and gets that nominee approved by the Senate. Instead, Trump immediately named budget director Mick Mulvaney as acting director of the CFPB, which regulates companies that lend money to consumers. It's now completely unclear which acting director will be in charge of the bureau come Monday morning. Citing the 1998 Federal Vacancies Reform Act, administration officials tell Reuters that Trump has the power to install his own acting director and that the administration expects Mulvaney to be in charge with English working under him next week. But in a Facebook post, Sen. Elizabeth Warren—who was responsible for the creation of the CFPB—says Trump "can't override" the Dodd-Frank Act, which states the CFPB deputy director becomes acting director until a permanent replacement is approved. The battle of who controls the CFPB has real stakes, as Trump has been on a mission to mold financial regulators to his liking and Republicans have been trying to kill the CFPB since its formation. In fact, Mulvaney once called the bureau—which has punished banks, student lenders, and others over predatory lending practices—a "sad, sick joke."