The administration’s push on anti-fraud prosecution and consumer protection has transformed the DOJ’s Office of Consumer Protection Litigation from a small, subordinate office into a broadly focused branch of its own – and Assistant Attorney General Tony West wants to keep it that way.
The office has taken on a wider range of litigation under West and the Obama administration, including areas it has historically neglected like mortgage and immigration services fraud.
“I’m trying to strengthen it, certainly,” West told Main Justice in an interview. “To give it the strength institutionally to be a permanent, vibrant part of the Civil Division.”
And with that unprecedented strength, the office could become the force for consumer protection it was originally meant to be, said John R. Fleder, a former director at the office from 1985 to 1992.
“They are cases that did not fit within the bailiwick – the jurisdiction – of the office,” Fleder said. “There has been various efforts in time to make that office into an overall consumer protection office. Now it appears that that’s what the Civil Division has recently been doing.”
If all this seems unremarkable given the office’s stated goal of protecting consumers, it takes on a new significance after a look back at the office’s history.
Since its establishment in 1971, the office’s mission has always been to protect consumers, but the breadth and scope of its efforts have varied widely. Initially named the “Consumer Affairs Section” and housed within the Antitrust Division, it was moved to the Civil Division in the early 1980s and was renamed the “Office of Consumer Litigation.”
The office narrowed its focus to enforcing consumer protection laws governed by its four client agencies – the Food and Drug Administration, Federal Trade Commission, Consumer Product Safety Commission, and National Highway Safety Administration. It enforced the laws of those agencies and protected them from suits.
But it remained at the mercy of the politicians who control the resources needed to take on cases, West said.
“Those resources were often treated like an accordion according to the different administrations that would come through the building,” West said. “What we’re trying to do is expand the resources in order to fulfill the office’s mission.”
Recently broadened casework simply reflects the greater resources and personnel at the office’s disposal, West said, and will not affect the office’s handling of other agency cases.
But Fleder said he sees a definite shift in priorities.
“The fact that they’re sort of branching out into general fraud is new,” Fleder said. “Now it sounds like they’re affirmatively going out on their own to bring cases to protect consumers.”
And the office’s name will soon reflect that shift. In addition to the recent addition of the word “protection,” West said another yet-unannounced name change is in the works – the brainchild of attorneys within the office.
The name has already been approved by Attorney General Eric Holder and will become official if approved by Congress, West said.
Changes are also coming to the office’s leadership. Last week, the Civil Division announced that Michael Blume, currently an Assistant United States Attorney in Philadelphia, will soon head the office. He will replace Kenneth Jost, who served as acting director for just less than two months after the previous director, Eugene M. Thirolf, retired in April.
Blume will be the first director to head the office without first working there, Fleder said, and could be another part of West’s campaign to shake things up.
