Kraninger said that Mulvaney's decision actually increased the importance of fair lending issues.

Financial Services Chairwoman Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) said Mulvaney's goal at the agency was to "dismantle the agency from within."

Waters and committee Democrats have introduced legislation that would reverse many of Mulvaney's decisions at the CFPB.

She said, "This committee will not tolerate the Trump Administration's anti-consumer actions."

And she said that committee Republicans supported that effort.

"Congressional Republicans have done everything they can to stymie the agency," Waters said.

But Financial Service ranking Republican Patrick McHenry of North Carolina said that former Director Richard Cordray, an Obama Administration nominee, had "advanced a partisan political agenda."

He added, "The good news is that it's a new day at the CFPB."

Kraninger said that nobody in the Trump Administration, including Mulvaney, are influencing her decisions.

"The decisions I take at the agency are my decisions," Kraninger said.

Kraninger said that the agency continues to examine whether to regulate overdraft fees. And she endorsed legislation that would explicitly give the agency the power to enforce the Military Lending Act.

She said that she believes that the agency does not have the authority to conduct examinations under the Military Lending Act, an assertion that was disputed by several Democrats.

Kraninger said she continues to believe that the agency does not have the power to do that on its own.

Several other witnesses said the CFPB has abdicated its responsibilities.

"The CFPB is but a shell of its former, vibrant, self," Hilary Shelton, director of the NAACP's Washington Bureau and the senior vice president for policy and advocacy, said in written testimony. "In just two years, Congress and the current Administration have neutered the CFPB and in doing so, they have dramatically decreased the few protections we were able to gain."

The agency's former student loan ombudsman, who resigned in protest of the new direction the agency was heading, agreed.

"The last 15 months at the Bureau have been plagued with inaction and incompetence, all under the guise of some supposed ideology," said Seth Frotman, who now runs the Student Borrower Protection Center.

In a letter to the Financial Services Committee, CUNA President/CEO Jim Nussle said that the agency should not be focused on credit unions.

"The Bureau's rulemakings and supervisory efforts should be focused on Wall Street banks and the unregulated and under-regulated sectors of the financial services industry," he wrote.  He continued, "For that reason, the Bureau should work more closely with the [NCUA] in the rulemaking process and use its statutory authority to transfer consumer protection regulation supervision of the largest credit unions to NCUA."

And he renewed his call for Congress to establish a bipartisan commission to run the CFPB, rather than a single director.