Look, there is nothing to Mick Mulvaney at all. He’s a Tea Party drone from South Carolina, a former congressman who led the fight to make the government shutdown a legitimate tool of political advantage during the Obama years, and who knows less about the federal budget than I know about the mating rituals on Saturn.

Nonetheless, he is the White House director of the Budget and, in his spare time, Mulvaney is transforming the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau into the best friend gougers, sharpers, and grifters—which is to say, Mulvaney’s donor base—ever had. The latest and greatest comes from Reuters, whence he learn that Mulvaney’s CFPB is turning off a full-scale investigation into how Equifax failed to protect the personal data of millions of its customers.

Equifax (EFX.N) said in September that hackers stole personal data it had collected on some 143 million Americans. Richard Cordray, then the CFPB director, authorized an investigation that month, said former officials familiar with the probe. But Cordray resigned in November and was replaced by Mulvaney, President Donald Trump’s budget chief. The CFPB effort against Equifax has sputtered since then, said several government and industry sources, raising questions about how Mulvaney will police a data-warehousing industry that has enormous sway over how much consumers pay to borrow money.

Be prepared. We are now going to venture deep into Beltway weaselspeak. I’m not kidding. This is a masterpiece of the form.

The CFPB has the tools to examine a data breach like Equifax, said John Czwartacki, a spokesman, but the agency is not permitted to acknowledge an open investigation. “The bureau has the desire, expertise, and know-how in-house to vigorously pursue hypothetical matters such as these,” he said. Three sources say, though, Mulvaney, the new CFPB chief, has not ordered subpoenas against Equifax or sought sworn testimony from executives, routine steps when launching a full-scale probe. Meanwhile the CFPB has shelved plans for on-the-ground tests of how Equifax protects data, an idea backed by Cordray.

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Wow.

Translation: We could do this, if our director weren’t a wholly owned subsidiary of the financial services industry, and if we really believed in the mission of the agency we’re trying to destroy from within. Hypothetically, we could do our actual jobs. Hypothetically.

Back when it was operating the way it was meant to operate, the CFPB painted a bright red bullseye on the credit-reporting giants, including Equifax.

Equifax has said it is under investigation by every state attorney general and faces more than 240 class action lawsuits. The Federal Trade Commission is examining the breach and the company may face financial penalties. The last time the FTC penalized a major credit bureau was in 2012, a $393,000 settlement with Equifax. In contrast, the CFPB fined credit bureaus more than $25 million just last year for over-marketing its monitoring services, which generated monthly fees.

So between this act of slow-rolling sabotage, and the appointment of the corn-syrup lobbyist to set the Department of Agriculture’s dietary regulations, we once again face the fundamental philosophical conundrum of the current government of these United States:

How many foxes does it take before a henhouse becomes a foxhouse?

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Charles P. Pierce Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976.

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