Rep. Michael Capuano says the Trump Administration has quietly ended a six-month investigation into last year’s giant data breach at Equifax, which exposed the sensitive financial information of millions of Americans.
Capuano told WGBH News he believes that Mick Mulvaney, President Trump’s appointee to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, ended the investigation into one of the largest data breaches in US history, in an effort to side with corporations over consumers.
“He didn’t come out with a big announcement, he just simply killed the investigation,” Capuano said in an interview with Boston Public Radio Thursday. “It’s over. So now Equifax, having done what they did, has nothing to pay for it, and there will be no regulations coming out of this administration that will prevent it from happening again tomorrow.”
Equifax announced Thursday that an additional 2.4 million Americans were affected by the data breach, which brings the total number to roughly 148 million. It remains the largest data breach of personal information in history.
In a post on Capuano’s website, “A Look Behind The Curtain,” Capuano accused Mulvaney of not being “interested” in investigating Equifax thoroughly.
“This is not because Equifax is suddenly in the clear or the investigation is complete,” the post reads. “This is more bad news for the average consumer. Companies like Equifax know the CFPB is more like the Corporate Financial Protection Bureau under Mulvaney.”
Equifax claims it is under investigation by every state attorney general and faces more than 240 class action lawsuits.
“The question is, do you or do you not stand with consumers — particularly, in this case, consumers who have been clearly wronged? And when you don’t stand with them, I think it says a lot about you,” Capuano said. “This is the kind of thing we all screamed, we all yelled, America was jumping up and down about this, and now quietly, almost a year later, it’s just kind of, well, no big deal, we’ve dropped the case.”
