The New York Post posted an article today about the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

The article reports:

Newly uncovered internal memos reveal the Obama administration knowingly exaggerated charges of racial discrimination in probes of Ally Bank and other defendants in the $900 billion car-lending business as part of a “racial justice” campaign that’s looking more like a massive government extortion and shakedown operation.

So far, Obama’s Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has reached more than $220 million in settlements with several auto lenders since the agency launched its anti-discrimination crusade against the industry in 2013. Several other banks are under active investigation.

That’s despite the fact that the CFPB had no actual complaints of racial discrimination — it was all just based on half-baked statistics.

A confidential 23-page internal report detailing CFPB’s strategy for going after lenders shows why these companies are forking over millions of dollars in restitution and fines to the government despite denying any wrongdoing.

Ally Bank was willing to settle on paying $98 million rather than the $204 million the government had initially requested. Why were they willing to pay at all? The FDIC was looking at charges of ‘red lining’ at the time the suit was brought. Ally Bank needed to pass its Community Reinvestment Act exam. If the suit had not been settled, it probably would not have passed the exam.

This bears a striking resemblance to a mob shakedown. Someone would come into a business and say, “You have a nice place here, it would be a shame if something bad happened to it.” Now the government is doing that. It gets worse.

The article concludes:

In fact, CFPB still has not been able to definitively ID the race of any borrower it claims Ally victimized — which is why it has taken more than two years to send remuneration checks to alleged victims. Desperate to find them, the bureau recently had to mail 420,000 letters to Ally borrowers to coax at least 235,000 into taking the money, and to allow Cordray (CFPB chief Richard Cordray) to save face.

Checks started going out this month to the fictitious victims — just in time for the election. So what if some recipients are white? They will all no doubt thank Democrats for the sudden, unexpected windfall of up to $520 in the mail.

When the government becomes a thug, it is time to shrink and replace the government. Who exactly was the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau set up to protect?