President Trump’s move to put one of his own top lieutenants as the government’s top Wall Street cop would violate the independence of the agency, the man’s competitor for the job said in legal papers filed early Monday morning.

Leandra English is trying to cement her position as acting director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau by heading off the competing appointment Mr. Trump made of Mick Mulvaney, his budget director, to be acting CFPB director.

The battle is quickly becoming a constitutional clash, with Ms. English saying in court papers that the president is violating the independence of the CFPB.

“The president’s appointment of a still-serving White House official would violate the legal requirement that the CFPB be an independent agency,” her lawyers said in asking a judge to block Mr. Mulvaney from taking office.

Without a ruling, Mr. Mulvaney showed up for work at the CFPB early Monday with doughnuts in hand.

The clash stems from two competing laws, and the anti-Trump movement’s determination to thwart the president.

On Friday the then-director of the CFPB, Richard Cordray, appointed Ms. English his deputy, then sped up his own resignation to Friday night, which under the Dodd-Frank law means Ms. English becomes the acting director.

But Mr. Trump hours later countered by naming Mr. Mulvaney, flexing the federal Vacancies Act that gives him broad powers to name acting directors.

The Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel said Mr. Trump’s move was legal and Mr. Mulvaney has claim to be the director, but Ms. English argues in her new filings that the Dodd-Frank legislation, which was enacted in 2010, supersedes the 1990s-era Vacancies Act.

And even if Mr. Trump had the power under the Vacancies Act, he cannot name someone from within his own inner circle — in this case, the chief of the White House’s Office of Management and Budget.

“In his capacity as OMB Director, Mr. Mulvaney does not enjoy the statutory protections given to the CFPB director, and instead may be fired at the President’s whim. He is thus particularly susceptible to the direct presidential influence that Congress sought to avoid,” Ms. English’s filing says.

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