Jonathan McKernan nominated for Treasury role as he awaits confirmation as CFPB director by Chris Clow for HousingWire

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While awaiting Senate confirmation to lead the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), Jonathan McKernan was nominated Friday by President Donald Trump for a key role at the U.S. Department of the Treasury, according to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.

Bessent said in an announcement that the president’s intention is to nominate McKernan as the Treasury department’s undersecretary of domestic finance.

While awaiting Senate confirmation for the role of CFPB director, McKernan has been serving as an adviser to the Treasury department and has “become an integral part of the Secretary’s senior team,” the announcement stated. “His continued service at Treasury will ensure that his experience and expertise are best put to advancing the president’s America First agenda.”

Official portrait of the second Trump administration's Secretary of the Treasury, Scott Bessent. — Scott Bessent

The Treasury position that McKernan has been nominated for was characterized as a “full-time job” by someone familiar with the workings of the department. The announcement does not specify whether or McKernan is out of the running for the CFPB leadership position, but speculation has recently suggested that could be the case.

A recent social media post by a former Fannie Mae executive said that McKernan may not have been consulted on some of the bureau’s recent actions regarding staffing cuts, or a recent memo outlining revised bureau supervision and enforcement priorities.

This could have led to McKernan choosing to withdraw his name from consideration. And that could lead to an outcome that CFPB defenders might lament, considering the high priority and focus on statutory guidance that McKernan outlined in his Senate confirmation hearing. He is perceived by some insiders as a traditional Republican regulator.

“If you care about the mission of the CFPB, you want a guy like Jonathan McKernan in there as soon as possible,” David Dworkin, the president and CEO of the National Housing Conference (NHC), said in an interview with HousingWire last week.

“And Democrats should be bending over backwards to help him get confirmed. He is not going to be their ideal candidate, but he will be the best person they could hope for.”

Editor’s note: This is a developing story and will be updated.

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