In September 2016, Wells Fargo admitted that its cutthroat culture and hyperrealistic sales goals led employees to open some 2 million fake bank and credit-card accounts in customers’ names without said customers’ permission, a number the bank has now adjusted to roughly 3.5 million. In July, it admitted to charging 800,000 people for auto-insurance they didn’t need, which may have resulted in 20,000 wrongful repossessions. In August, it agreed to pay $108 million to settle allegations that it charged military veterans hidden fees to refinance their mortgages. And last month, it announced that its foreign-exchange business was under “new management” around the same time bankers in its forex operation were revealed to have overcharged hundreds of clients. In short, Wells is the Usain Bolt of ripping off customers. As such, it has also become a prime example of the very real need for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. But now that the guy in charge of the agency is the same one who once co-sponsored legislation to abolish it, the bank can potentially rest much easier.

Reuters reports that Mick Mulvaney, who was named acting director of the C.F.P.B. last week despite the fact that 1) he is gainfully employed as White House Budget Director, and 2) he despises everything it stands for, is currently reviewing whether Wells Fargo should have to pay millions of dollars over alleged mortgage-lender abuse. Back in October, Wells said it would issue refunds to approximately 100,000 homebuyers who were wrongly charged fees to lock in fixed-rate loans between between September 2013 and February 2017, and in November, the C.F.P.B. set settlement terms that were approved by Obama-era appointee Richard Cordray. According to Reuters, that proposal “envisions a Wells Fargo payout of tens of millions of dollars.” Though the conclusions of Mulvaney’s review are still unclear, the fact that he once called the bureau a “sick, sad joke” likely does not bode well for Wells customers hoping to receive payouts.

Mulvaney’s installation at the C.F.P.B. is part of movement by Team Trump to ease up on Wall Street and the banking industry, which they believe has been treated just so, so unfairly. On the campaign trail, Trump told voters, “I know Wall Street. I know the people on Wall Street. . . . Wall Street has caused tremendous problems for us. I’m not going to let Wall Street get away with murder.” But as The New York Times recently noted, Treasury Department officials are working to help firms to avoid being hit with the dreaded “too big to fail” tag, which results in strong oversight. Randal Quarles, regulatory chief of the Federal Reserve, told bankers last month that “changing the tenor of supervision will probably . . . be the biggest part of what it is that I do.” A day later, Keith Noreika, the acting comptroller of the currency whom the White House installed via a brazen backdoor move, criticized Obama-era officials for holding banks to lofty standards. In September, Commodity Futures Trading Commission chief James McDonald announced that his agency would “increasingly look to banks and other financial institutions to come clean on their own about misconduct and problems in the market.” And in what must be a total coincidence, the monetary penalties imposed by the three main groups that police Wall Street have declined sharply in the first half of the year versus “similar stretches” in previous times.

Last week, Mulvaney said that he would “try and limit as much as we can what the C.F.P.B. does to sort of interfere with capitalism and with the financial services market.” That may not be great news for those Wells Fargo has made a cottage industry of ripping off, but for the San Fransisco bank, it’s Christmas come early!