The Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) Office of General Counsel has hired Eric Blankenstein to serve as a general counsel for Ginnie Mae. Blankenstein, a former Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) policy associate director, caused a large uproar last September when the Washington Post discovered his racially charged blog posts.
Jesse Van Tol, CEO of the National Community Reinvestment Coalition (www.ncrc.org), made the following statement:
“It is unbelievable that HUD would even consider him as a candidate, let alone hire him to serve in such a high-level capacity. Even though the blog posts in question were from 14 years ago, there is no statute of limitation to racism.
“It was bad enough that the CFPB didn’t fire him when the posts first became public knowledge. Now, he will have an integral voice in an enterprise that is significant to affordable housing with the potential to impact millions of families of color.
“Our government needs to better represent the people in which it serves. A good start would be to not hire people with racist histories.”
