On President Trump’s 100th day in office, members of his cabinet gathered to report on their accomplishments.
The Treasury and commerce secretaries talked about tariffs, Secretary of State Marco Rubio gave an update on foreign aid cuts and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth boasted about troop deployments at the nation’s borders.
When it was his turn, Russell T. Vought, the White House budget office director and interim head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, highlighted a more obscure accomplishment.
“We found this small mortgage lender in Chicago. His name is Barry Sturner,” Mr. Vought told the president. “He had a firm called Townstone, and C.F.P.B. had gone after him because he complained about crime in Chicago.”
For years, Mr. Sturner had battled a lawsuit by the consumer bureau accusing the company he founded, Townstone, of “redlining” — the practice of illegally limiting the ability of nonwhite people, especially Black households, to obtain mortgages and buy homes in certain areas.
A linchpin of the bureau’s case were comments Mr. Sturner made years ago on his Chicago talk radio show. On a few episodes, he criticized several predominantly Black neighborhoods as crime-ridden and filled with “scary” people.
Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.
Thank you for your patience while we verify access.
Already a subscriber? Log in.
Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
The post Trump Questions Discrimination Claims, Even One His First Administration Brought appeared first on New York Times.
