Democrats Angered by HUD’s Hiring of Trump Aide Who Quit After Racist Posts

WASHINGTON — Senate Democrats are calling for Housing Secretary Ben Carson to justify his hiring of a former Consumer Financial Protection Bureau official who resigned this year after the disclosure of racially provocative comments he made spanning more than a decade.

Last month, White House officials placed Eric Blankenstein, a former policy supervisor at the bureau who had been responsible for enforcing the country’s fair lending laws, in a relatively low-profile position in the general counsel’s office at the Department of Housing and Urban Development. He was to work on issues related to Ginnie Mae, a government corporation that guarantees mortgage-backed securities.

But his hiring has infuriated Democrats.

“Mr. Blankenstein has a history of racist and sexist statements that appear to have contributed to his recent resignation from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau,” Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee, wrote in a letter signed by five other Democrats.

[Read the letter from the Democratic senators.]

Mr. Blankenstein resigned in May after blog posts he wrote in 2004 as a University of Virginia law student surfaced in which he repeatedly used a racial slur. In a more recent exchange, he argued that the movement to deny that President Barack Obama was born in the United States was not racist.

Mr. Blankenstein’s allies in the administration pushed for the hiring. Mick Mulvaney, the interim White House chief of staff — who was ideologically aligned with the conservative Mr. Blankenstein during his tenure as the temporary head of the bureau — knew about the appointment and supported it, according to three senior administration officials with knowledge of the situation.

The housing department’s chief of staff, Andrew Hughes, initially objected to hiring Mr. Blankenstein but relented after White House officials presented him with vetting documents that showed Mr. Blankenstein had nothing objectionable in his record beyond what had already been publicly reported, the officials said.

Mr. Carson, who could have vetoed the appointment, did not. He prepared to be grilled about it before appearing before congressional committees, but the topic was never discussed in depth, a department aide said.

“We all are human, we all make mistakes and learn from them — especially 15 years later — and we all deserve second chances,” Mr. Carson said in a statement. “Eric’s impressive career and experience will be a great asset to the agency.”

Mr. Blankenstein, 39, never apologized for the posts, one of which suggested that someone who uses a racial slur for a black person is not necessarily racist. When they surfaced, he said the incident gave him no insight into how he should perform his job, adding that “reading snippets of 14-year-old blog posts that have nothing to do with consumer protection law” offered “exactly zero” guidance.

The senators argue in their letter that Mr. Blankenstein’s past blog posts are especially troubling given that he would be in an agency that oversees fair access to credit and mortgage markets.

“Any normal administration would have sent Eric Blankenstein and his reprehensible, racist and sexist opinions packing a long time ago,” Senator Robert Menendez of New Jersey said in a statement. “Instead the Trump administration is handing this bigot a six-figure, taxpayer-funded job as legal counsel for one of the agencies charged with fighting discrimination and enforcing fair housing laws.”

In their letter, the senators requested that the housing department answer a series of questions by July 11, including what the department knows about the investigation the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s inspector general conducted after the blog posts surfaced.

“Eric Blankenstein left the C.F.P.B. in the midst of controversy over racist and sexist comments,” Senator Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada said. “His rehiring by this administration is reprehensible, calls into question the judgment of Ginnie Mae’s political leadership, and once again signals to people of color and women that this administration doesn’t have their interests at heart.”

Black homeownership rates have declined to levels not seen since the 1960s, when explicit discrimination in the housing market was legal. Since 2001, the black homeownership rate has dropped 5 percent, compared with 1 percent for white families. And black Americans who lost their homes during the 2008 recession have struggled to regain their standing.

The senators hope to also learn whether anyone in the executive office of the president or in the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau requested that the housing department hire Mr. Blankenstein.

“We don’t comment on personnel, other than to confirm that Eric Blankenstein has been hired by HUD’s office of general counsel as a senior counsel working on Ginnie Mae matters,” a housing department spokesman said in an email.

The Democrats have already rendered their judgment. “Not only does Secretary Carson owe Congress and the taxpayers answers,” Mr. Menendez said, “but he also needs to immediately fire Blankenstein.”

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