2 'leaders' send dueling emails amid an awkward battle for control of the top consumer watchdog agency

• Two people began Monday with the idea that they were serving as acting director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
• One of the two people named as acting director, Leandra English, filed a lawsuit to assert her authority.
• OMB Director Mick Mulvaney, the other individual named acting director, told CFPB staffers to ignore any directives from English.
• The skirmish is the latest in what is becoming a heated battle over the agency's future.

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The ongoing brouhaha over who is the rightful interim leader of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau spilled over into the start of Monday's workday, as the two people who were individual tasked with leading the independent agency sent dueling emails asserting their authority.

First on Monday, The New York Times reported, was an email from Leandra English, who was named Friday by departed director Richard Cordray as acting director. She called herself "acting director" and expressed gratitude to her CFPB colleagues "for your service."

That was followed up by a memo from Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney, who was tapped by President Donald Trump to serve as acting director of the agency shortly after Cordray announced English as his interim successor.

"Please disregard any instructions you receive from Ms. English in her presumed capacity as Acting Director," the memo to staffers read.

CNBC published a full version of the email, which read:

"If you receive additional communications from her today in any form, related in any way to the function of her actual or presumed official duties (i.e. not personal), please inform the General Counsel."

"I apologize for this being the very first thing you hear from me. However, under the circumstances I suppose it is necessary."

"I look forward to working with all of you. If you're at 1700 G Street today, please stop by the 4th Floor to say hello and grab a donut."

The dueling emails represented the latest development in what's become a tug-of-war over the agency's leadership. On Sunday, English, calling herself the "rightful acting director," sued Trump and Mulvaney in federal court seeking a judge to issue a temporary restraining order and prevent Mulvaney from fulfilling Trump's appointment.

Either English or Mulvaney would serve as acting director until the Senate can confirm a Trump nomination to the post.

On Monday, Mulvaney, who once called the agency a "sick, sad joke," showed up at the CFPB amid the legal battle to take control, even bringing doughnuts.

Both Trump's and Cordray's sides have claimed legal authority in being able to name the successor at the agency, which was championed by Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts following the financial crisis.

The legal battle centers on a handful of words

This skirmish centers on language in the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act and whether it usurps the 1998 Federal Vacancies Act. Trump and his allies say the 1998 law gives him the authority to make the appointment, not Cordray, who was nominated by President Barack Obama to head the independent agency. The general counsel for the CFPB has sided with the Trump administration on the matter

But Warren and others on the left said the language contained in Dodd-Frank was written with the Federal Vacancies Act in mind and explicitly calls for Cordray to name an acting director, not the president.

The relevant section of Dodd-Frank reads that the deputy director "shall be appointed by the director; and serve as acting director in the absence or unavailability of the director." The heart of the dispute is whether "absence" or "unavailability" means a vacancy.

Warren's allies, including one of Dodd-Frank's authors, say it does.

"I think unavailability might suggest otherwise, but I think a vacancy is an absence," former Democratic Rep. Barney Frank, one of Dodd-Frank's authors, told Business Insider. He said that the bill was written to give "structural protections against political interference."

White House officials argued in a Saturday conference call with reporters that the Federal Vacancies Act permits Trump to override Cordray's selection. The Federal Vacancies Act allows for Trump to appoint any Senate-confirmed official, such as Mulvaney, as acting director of such an agency.

"The common objections that you hear in these various blog posts online is that, 'Oh, the CFPB statue said the CFPB deputy director shall serve as the director," one White House official said, according to The Hill. "That's clear in lots of these statues that the Vacancies Act trumps."

If the Trump administration prevails in this fight, Mulvaney will remain in charge of OMB while running the bureau, which has long been chastised by the right.

In terms of the agency's intended independence from an administration, Frank said Mulvaney "would be at the very top" of the list of people who wouldn't fit that bill.

"It's just ridiculous that he could run the CFPB in his lunch hour," Frank said. "It's an indication that they don't want it to do anything at all. But of all the people, he has the least independence of anybody."

Warren is set to meet with English on Monday, her office said.