IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 

FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF ILLINOIS 

EASTERN DIVISION 

Bureau of Consumer Financial ) 

Protection, ) Case No. 1:20-cv-04176 

 ) 

 Plaintiff, ) 

 ) 

v. ) Judge Franklin U. Valderrama 

 ) Magistrate Judge Gabriel A. Fuentes 

 ) 

Townstone Financial, Inc., et al., ) 

 ) 

 Defendants. ) 

PLAINTIFF’S RESPONSE TO DEFENDANTS’ OBJECTION 

 Defendants’1

 insistence that the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection (Bureau) be 

subject to a burdensome fishing expedition into voluminous collections of privileged internal 

Bureau documents and emails for materials pertaining to alleged political and social views is 

unwarranted and contrary to both the Federal Rules and well-established legal principles. 

BACKGROUND 

The Bureau alleges that Townstone Financial, Inc. (Townstone) unlawfully discouraged 

prospective applicants for credit on the basis of race through both its general business practices 

and discriminatory, race-based statements in podcasts and radio shows.2

 More specifically, the 

Bureau alleges that Townstone’s conduct and statements violated Regulation B, which prohibits 

creditors from “mak[ing] any oral or written statement, in advertising or otherwise, to applicants 

1

 Defendants jointly served discovery and jointly filed the relevant filings. The Bureau only 

asserted Regulation B claims against Townstone, not Mr. Sturner. For ease, the Bureau refers 

throughout to Defendants jointly unless context requires otherwise. 

2

 Am. Compl. ¶¶ 22–52, ECF No. 27.

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or prospective applicants that would discourage on a prohibited basis a reasonable person from 

making or pursuing an application.”3

 

Defendants filed a motion to dismiss on First Amendment and other grounds,4 which 

remains pending while discovery continues. Defendants served 45 requests for the production of 

documents,5 including Requests 41 and 42, which are at issue here. In Requests 41 and 42, 

Defendants sought (1) any documents concerning the “political leaning, political viewpoints, or 

social commentary of Townstone and/or Townstone’s staff” (Request 41); and (2) any 

documents concerning the “political leaning or viewpoints of the AM-radio stations in the 

Chicago M[etropolitical] S[tatistical] A[rea]” (Request 42).6

 The Bureau lodged privilege and 

other objections to these two requests and declined to search for documents in internal Bureau 

records because, even if such documents did exist, they were not relevant and therefore were 

beyond the bounds of permissible discovery.7 

As part of its responses to Defendants’ other document requests, the Bureau has already 

produced or logged all documents relating to Townstone that the Bureau exchanged with third 

parties or that were otherwise released outside of the Bureau. Thus, the only potentially 

responsive documents to Requests 41 and 42 that have not been produced or logged are internal 

Bureau documents (to the extent that responsive documents even exist). 

Both parties filed motions to compel. In support of their motion to compel production of 

internal Bureau documents responsive to Requests 41 and 42, Defendants submitted a 

declaration from Defendant Barry Sturner, Townstone’s CEO, stating that, in addition to public 

3

 12 C.F.R. § 1002.4(b). 

4

 Defs.’ Combined Mot. to Dismiss Pl.’s Compl., ECF No. 31. 

5

 Mot. to Compel, Ex. C, at 8-9, ECF No. 89-3. 

6 Id. 7 Mot. to Compel, Ex. D, at 9-10, ECF No. 89-4. 

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statements on radio shows and podcasts, Mr. Sturner is “outspoken” on both the shows and in 

“daily life” about certain political issues.8

 He claims that he has “strong views” on matters of 

public concern and that he “frequently make[s]” his opinions known and is a “loud critic of the 

Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.”9

 

Magistrate Judge Fuentes denied Defendants’ motion to compel responses to Requests 41 

and 42. The Order characterized Requests 41 and 42 as seeking documents concerning Bureau 

“staff’s political opinions or viewpoints, and relating to the staff’s assessment of or comments 

upon the political leanings of various Chicago AM radio stations.”10 Judge Fuentes held that the 

requests were not permissible because the requests were “simply irrelevant” and because it 

appeared that Defendants “want to argue that CFPB itself harbors some kind of content-based or 

other bias against Sturner or Townstone.”11 Judge Fuentes did not conduct a proportionality 

analysis, finding instead that Defendants failed to state an “adequate theory of discovery 

relevancy through their suggestion that ‘the Bureau filed this lawsuit because it disagreed with 

the content of Defendant Sturner’s speech or his general political view.’”12 

After Defendants filed their Objection, Judge Fuentes noted through a minute entry that 

Defendants’ Objection was “well-taken” as to Request No. 41 “on the ground that the Request 

No. 41 is directed at documents, if any exist, concerning the CFPB’s consideration of 

defendants’ political leanings, and not at documents concerning the leanings of CFPB staff 

members themselves.”13 The minute entry did not amend the Order or address Request 42. 

8 Mot. to Compel, Ex. G, at ¶ 6, ECF No. 89-4.

9 Id. at ¶¶ 6, 11. 

10 Order 15, Dec. 12, 2022, ECF No. 104. 

11 Order 15. 

12 Order 15.

13 Minute Entry, Jan. 3, 2023, ECF No. 107. 

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ARGUMENT 

“Magistrate and district courts enjoy extremely broad discretion in controlling 

discovery,”14 which is limited to matters that are “relevant to the claim or defense of any 

party.”15 A district court can overturn a magistrate judge’s decision limiting discovery if the 

decision is either “clearly erroneous” or “contrary to law.”16 For a decision to be clearly 

erroneous or contrary to law, this Court must be “left with the definite and firm conviction that a 

mistake has been made.”17

I. Even if they exist, internal Bureau emails and documents concerning Defendants’ 

alleged social or political views are not relevant. 

The internal communications and documents sought by Defendants, whether concerning 

the political leanings of CFPB staff members or concerning Townstone’s political or social 

views or those of certain radio stations, are immaterial. None of the sought communications are 

relevant. 

A. The sought communications are not relevant under controlling Seventh Circuit 

precedent and relevant authority from other courts. 

 Nothing about individual Bureau employees’ views—whether their own political 

opinions or their opinions regarding Townstone’s social or political views—changes whether 

Defendants’ conduct was sufficiently discouraging to meet the regulatory threshold or whether 

the speech at issue is constitutionally protected. 

The Seventh Circuit has recognized that “statutory interpretation and constitutional 

analysis . . . [do] not require the court to review the postulations of agency staff members.”18

14 Jones v. City of Elkhart, 737 F.3d 1107, 1115 (7th Cir. 2013). 

15 Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(b). 

16 Fed. R. Civ. P. 72(a). 

17 Weeks v. Samsung Heavy Indus. Co., 126 F.3d 926, 943 (7th Cir. 1997). 

18 United States v. Farley, 11 F.3d 1385, 1391 (7th Cir. 1993). 

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This is consistent with decisions from other courts, which have recognized that governmentemployee opinions “have no legal significance,”19 “are simply not relevant,”20 and “are not 

legally germane.”21 While the Bureau cited these decisions in its initial Opposition,22 Defendants 

avoided addressing these decisions in their reply brief.23 And now, even though the Order is 

wholly consistent with these decisions, Defendants relegate the decisions to a single-sentence 

footnote, where they dismiss the cases as inapplicable because “none of these cases involved 

parties seeking discovery to support a First Amendment defense.”24 

But the reasoning in those cases does apply given the similar issues and holdings. In 

United States v. Farley, for example, the Seventh Circuit agreed with the district court that a 

defendant was not entitled to discovery into individual-government-employee documents to 

determine whether a defendant’s conduct fit into a regulatory definition and whether the 

regulation provided adequate notice to potentially affected individuals.25 The Court held that 

internal documents containing staff-member “suppositions” are “definitely not relevant” to 

statutory interpretation and “reveal nothing about the adequacy of the public notice provided.”26

Similarly in CFPB v. Navient, the Court held that, as to all of a defendant’s defenses to an 

agency enforcement action, internal agency documents were, with the exception of a small 

subset unique to that defendant’s status as a contractor, not discoverable because “these types of 

communications have no legal significance” and “are simply not relevant to Defendants’ 

19 CFPB v. Navient Corp., No. 3:17-CV-101, 2018 WL 2088760, at *4 (M.D. Pa. May 4, 2018). 

20 Id. 21 Int'l Paper Co. v. Fed. Power Comm’n, 438 F.2d 1349, 1358–59 (2d Cir. 1971). 22 Bureau Opp’n 7-8. 

23 Defs.’ Reply Supp. Mot. to Compel Disc. Resp’s (Defs.’ Reply), ECF No. 102. 24 Defs.’ Rule 72(a) Objection 12, n.5 (Objection), ECF No. 105. 25 Farley, 11 F.3d at 1390. 

26 Id. 

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defenses.”27 And in International Paper Company v. Federal Power Commission, which 

involved a challenge to an agency’s jurisdiction, the Court held that documents containing staffmember views were not discoverable because individual-employee views “are not legally 

germane.”28 

Likewise, the documents sought here are beyond the bounds of permissible discovery. 

B. Defendants improperly ignore Rule 26 and the controlling discovery standards 

by seeking documents not relevant to the Bureau’s claims or any defenses. 

 Rule 26 and its contours guide discovery disputes.29 Nevertheless, Defendants rely on a 

number of vague, abstract suppositions untethered to legal principles to support their position. 

For example, Defendants claim that the Bureau should search for the requested documents 

because such documents could somehow “illuminate the issues,”30 or, as Defendants repeatedly 

claim without authority, because Defendants are “entitled to know”31 whether such documents 

exist. But just as the Bureau could not prove its discouragement claim through the type of 

documents that Defendants seek or through testimony of its own employees, Defendants are not 

entitled to discovery into opinions of individual Bureau employees regarding Defendants’ or 

particular radio stations’ political views. 

 As one particularly egregious example, Defendants assert, without any cited authority, 

that they are “entitled to know why CFPB believes its statements are ‘disparaging’ or 

‘discouraging’ when similar comments by others are not.”32 But the relevant question is not what 

certain Bureau employees might believe but instead whether Defendants’ conduct and statements 

27 Navient Corp., 2018 WL at *4. 

28 Int'l Paper Co., 438 F.2d at 1358. 

29 Fed. R. Civ. P. 26. 

30 Objection 6.

31 See, e.g., Objection 4, 5, 6 (twice), 12 (twice), and 15. 

32 Objection 12. 

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would discourage Black people and those living in Black neighborhoods from applying for a 

mortgage loan. Moreover, while Defendants claim that public figures also commented about 

crime in Chicago,33 Regulation B’s prohibition of race-based discouragement applies only to 

creditors, 34 not politicians. 

Defendants assert that, “CFPB is obviously going to present evidence supporting its 

interpretation of the statements and why it believes those statements disparage African 

Americans [and Defendants are] entitled to discovery concerning what that evidence is and what 

other evidence CFPB considered in concluding that Townstone violated Regulation B.”35 The 

Bureau agrees that Defendants are entitled—through appropriate discovery requests, expert 

disclosures, and the Bureau’s initial disclosures—to discover what evidence the Bureau will use 

to support its claims. However, discovery is not advanced by a highly burdensome search for 

non-relevant, internal Bureau documents that will not (and could not) be used to support the 

claims or defenses. 

C. Internal Bureau emails and documents are not relevant to Defendants’ First 

Amendment defenses. 

Defendants’ own motion-to-dismiss filings directly undermine their position that the 

requested documents are relevant to their First Amendment defenses. In those filings, Defendants 

claim that this action is constitutionally barred for four reasons: (1) Regulation B is 

impermissibly content-based because it applies only to a certain kind of speech (i.e., speech that 

discourages),36 (2) Regulation B is “both vague and overbroad such that it should not be applied 

to Townstone or to any creditor,”37 (3) the discouragement prohibition “impacts so much 

33 Objection 11, n.4. 

34 12 C.F.R. § 1002.4. 

35 Objection 12. 

36 Mem. Law Supp. Mot. to Dismiss 14 (Mot. to Dismiss Mem.), ECF No. 32. 

37 Mot. to Dismiss Mem. 17. 

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protected speech that it should not be applied to anyone,”38 and (4) the discouragement 

prohibition is so vague that it fails to give constitutionally required “fair notice of the specific 

conduct that the Bureau arbitrarily interprets to be forbidden.” 39 In their Objection, as in all of 

their briefing on their motion to compel, 40 Defendants fail to articulate how internal Bureau 

emails could affect the analysis of these issues. 

Although Defendants attempt through summary conclusions, inaccurate 

characterizations, and unsupported fragments to claim otherwise, the cases they cite also offer no 

help to their position. Indeed, not a single case cited by Defendants even involves the use of or 

reference to materials like those sought here—internal government documents or emails. 

For example, Defendants incorrectly claim that two Supreme Court cases have “relied on 

precisely the sort of evidence Townstone now seeks.”41 However, the Court in those cases held 

only that Lanham Act provisions prohibiting “immoral or scandalous” or “disparag[ing]” 

trademarks were unconstitutional because the statutory language, on its face, permitted the 

government to “prevent[] speech expressing ideas that offend,”42 or “allow[ed] registration of 

marks when their messages accord with, but not when their messages defy, society’s sense of 

decency.”43 Contrary to Defendants’ assertion, in neither case did the Court give any 

consideration whatsoever to internal government documents or government employee views on 

the characteristics or political views of the entities or individuals seeking the trademarks. 

Defendants quote extensively from one of the decisions, Iancu v. Brunetti, noting that an 

examining attorney and an agency’s review board both considered how the trademark applicant 

38 Mot. to Dismiss Mem. 20. 

39 Id. at 22. 

40 Compare Bureau Opp’n 8, with Defs’ Reply. 

41 Objection 8.

42 Matal v. Tam, 137 S. Ct. 1744, 1764 (2017). 

43 Iancu v. Brunetti, 139 S. Ct. 2294, 2300 (2019). 

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used the mark at issue, “FUCT,” in connection with nihilistic and anti-social images before 

concluding that the mark was “extremely offensive.”44 Defendants then declare, erroneously, that 

the applicant’s “views were relevant to the PTO in deciding his mark was offensive, and relevant 

to the Court in concluding that the PTO’s decision constituted viewpoint discrimination.” But 

what the Court actually held was that the law was unconstitutional on its face, not that the 

application of the law to that specific trademark was unconstitutional.45 More to the point, the 

Brunetti decision contained no discussion about whether the reviewing attorney or board 

members had opinions on the applicant’s personal views (and there was, apparently, no 

discovery on this).46 The only contention was whether the at-issue mark, when viewed together 

with the applicant’s other public expressions made in conjunction with the mark, met a certain 

statutory threshold. Accordingly, it was legitimate for the reviewing attorney and board to look at 

the applicant’s other public expressions made in conjunction with the mark to do that 

assessment. But nothing about that type of assessment, based exclusively on the mark and the 

applicant’s statements made in connection with the mark, indicates that individual employee 

opinions of the applicant’s personal views were considered, relevant, subject to discovery, or 

even known. 

Defendants also erroneously rely on City of Austin v. Reagan National Advertising of 

Austin, LLC, a case involving restrictions on electronic billboards in certain settings, to support 

their claims of relevancy.47 The City of Austin court held only that, if an otherwise contentneutral law was enacted for “an impermissible purpose,” then the law should be treated as 

44 Objection 13 (quoting Brunetti, 139 S. Ct. at 2300). 

45 Brunetti, 139 S. Ct. at 2302. 

46 Id. at 2298-2302. 

47 Objection 9 (citing City of Austin v. Reagan Nat’l Advert. of Austin, LLC, 142 S. Ct. 1464). 

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content-based and ruled unconstitutional.48 That reasoning has no application here, where 

Defendants are not arguing that Regulation B was enacted for an impermissible purpose. 

Defendants’ argument that McGuire v. Reilly49 supports their position is also misplaced. 

McGuire is a 2004 First Circuit decision involving the legislative creation of a speech-free buffer 

zone around abortion clinics. In that case, the First Circuit discussed a particular type of First 

Amendment challenge based “on the idea that [a] law itself is neutral and constitutional in all 

fact situations, but that it has been enforced selectively in a viewpoint discriminatory way.”50

Defendants selectively excerpt a portion of the holding where the court indicates that this type of 

“challenge is dependent on the factual evidence provided as to how the statutory scheme has in 

fact operated vis-à-vis the plaintiffs,”51 claiming that the McGuire court’s reference to factual 

evidence is relevant to Defendants’ discovery requests here. But Defendants ignore the next 

sentence of that opinion, which explained that “[t]he exact claim is that in practice the 

government has engaged in viewpoint discrimination by failing to enforce the statute against 

persons who violate the statute by expressing pro-abortion/pro-choice views . . . while enforcing 

the statutory prohibitions against those in the same position who express anti-abortion/pro-life 

views.”52 Not only have Defendants never raised a McGuire-type defense in this case, but the 

McGuire decision, like every other decision cited by Defendants, also did not consider or 

comment upon the discoverability of internal government emails or documents. 

Defendants do not cite a single case involving a defense based on assertions like those 

they make here. They do not argue that they are being treated differently than any identifiable 

48 City of Austin, 142 S. Ct. at 1475. 

49 Objection 9 (citing McGuire v. Reilly, 386 F.3d 45 (1st Cir. 2004)). 

50 McGuire, 386 F.3d at 61.

51 Objection 9 (quoting McGuire, 386 F.3d at 62). 

52 McGuire, 386 F.3d at 62. 

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creditors, that they are being treated differently based solely on the content of the allegedly 

discouraging comments made during the radio shows and podcasts, or that the Bureau is failing 

to enforce Regulation B against other creditors who are discouraging. Rather, they appear to be 

alluding to a retaliation-like defense based at least in part on alleged political and social views of 

Defendant Sturner that he has never expressed in the radio shows and podcasts.53 Defendants 

have not cited any case where a party has asserted a similar First Amendment defense, they have 

yet to assert such a defense here, and they have failed to articulate what such a defense would 

entail. There is no basis for permitting discovery on a defense that has not been alleged or 

articulated. 

 Defendants also baselessly claim that their requests are enforceable because their First 

Amendment challenge is both facial and “as-applied.”54 An as-applied challenge tests the 

constitutionality of a regulation’s application to a defendant’s “particular form of speech,”55

“specific activities,”56 or specific “expressive activity.”57 The singular focus, not surprisingly, is 

on the expressive conduct sought to be regulated. Internal communications among government 

employees are not relevant to that inquiry. Accordingly, Defendants’ allegation that the 

regulation is unconstitutional both on its face and as-applied does not somehow make the 

requested documents relevant (even if they did exist). 

 Defendants’ remaining arguments merit little discussion. Defendants cite a range of cases 

for various high-level holdings to restate uncontested legal points about the government being 

53 Mot. to Compel, Ex. G. 

54 Objection 12 (“Third, evidence concerning CFPB’s assessment of Townstone’s social and 

political views would be relevant to an as-applied argument that CFPB is enforcing Regulation B 

in a content- or viewpoint-based manner.”). 

55 Ctr. for Individual Freedom v. Madigan, 697 F.3d 464, 475 (7th Cir. 2012). 

56 Surita v. Hyde, 665 F.3d 860, 875 (7th Cir. 2011). 

57 Members of City Council of City of Los Angeles v. Taxpayers for Vincent, 466 U.S. 789, 803 

(1984). 

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prohibited from favoring one type of protected speech over another58 or noting that jury verdicts 

can be overturned if speech is protected.59 None of these cases involved discovery into individual 

employees’ documents, much less indicate that the types of materials sought here are 

discoverable or relevant. 

II. The requests are not proportional considering the substantial burdens associated 

with searching for and potentially logging and producing the requested documents. 

The Order did not discuss the proportionality of the documents sought.60 However, 

should this Court find that either Request 41 or 42 seeks relevant documents that have not yet 

been produced, these Requests are also not proportional to the needs of the case and should be 

denied on that basis.61 Proportionality is measured by looking at “the needs of the case, 

considering the importance of the issues at stake in the action, the amount in controversy, the 

parties’ relative access to relevant information, the parties’ resources, the importance of the 

discovery in resolving the issues, and whether the burden or expense of the proposed discovery 

outweighs its likely benefit.”62 

The complaint, first filed in July 2020 and then amended in November 2020, was the 

culmination of a multi-year, pre-suit investigation led by Bureau attorneys that Townstone knew 

58 See Objection 10-11 (citing, in addition to cases discussed above, R.A.V. v. City of St. Paul, 

505 U.S. 377 (1992); Rosenberger v. Rector and Visitors of Univ. of Va., 515 U.S. 819 (1995); 

Sorrell v. IMS Health, Inc., 564 U.S. 552 (2011); Shurtleff v. City of Boston, 142 S. Ct. 1583 

(2022)). 

59 See Objection 8 (citing Snyder v. Phelps, 562 U.S. 443 (2011)). 

60 Order 15 (“Request Nos. 41 and 42 do not implicate the same privacy interests as the CFPB 

requests, but they are a frolic and detour, and they will be disallowed, before we even reach a 

proportionality analysis.”). 

61 Diamond Servs. Mgmt. Co. LLC v. C&C Jewelry Mfg., Inc., No. 19-CV-07675, 2022 WL 

4466076, at *15 (N.D. Ill. Sept. 26, 2022) (affirming denial of motion to compel where the 

Magistrate Judge found any relevance to be “marginal compared to the substantial burdens 

associated with responding”). 

62 Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(b)(1). 

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about as early as 2017.63 The Bureau has had at least five different Directors or Acting Directors 

during that time and, as a result, just as many different management teams. Several Bureau 

attorneys worked directly and indirectly on the investigation, seven attorneys filed notices of 

appearance in this case, and one of those attorneys has since left the Bureau.64 The vast majority 

of Bureau-generated documents created since the investigation’s inception—whether exchanged 

among Bureau attorneys or staff or submitted for review, approval, or authorization to 

supervising attorneys or Bureau management—would also be protected from disclosure by the 

attorney-work-product doctrine, the attorney-client privilege, or the deliberative-process 

privilege.65 

Defendants’ request is not proportional because the burden of comprehensively searching 

for any responsive documents from all attorneys and staff who worked on the case and any 

supervisors, managers, or senior managers who reviewed filings or authorized actions, along 

with the burden, if any responsive documents are found, of logging documents as privileged or 

otherwise protected, would be undue.66 And the impact on the case of any responsive documents 

would be, at best, negligible. Moreover, it is unclear what Defendants even mean by “political 

leaning or viewpoint” or by “social commentary,” and attempting to search for any such 

documents from the records and emails of all attorneys, staff, and leadership who knew anything 

about the investigation or case at any point in the past several years would be a highly 

burdensome effort with no articulable or discernible fruit. 

63 Defs.’ Resp. Mot. Compel, Ex. A, at 1, ECF No. 100-1, (“In or about 2017, the Consumer 

Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) began investigating Townstone”). 

64 See Reiferson Mot. to Withdraw, ECF No. 75.

65 See, e.g., Navient Corp., 2018 at *5 (noting the privileges and protections that could apply to 

Bureau-generated documents sought during discovery). 

66 See U.S. Bank Nat’l Assoc. v. Triaxx Asset Mgmt., No. 18-cv-4044, 2021 WL 4973611, 

at *2 (Oct. 25, 2021) (noting that proportionality concerns extend to the evaluation of privilege 

logs). 

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III. Defendants’ unsupported requests are impermissible fishing expeditions. 

Defendants not only fail to cite a single case where courts have enforced discovery 

requests for documents like those requested here, they also fail to cite to any legitime reason to 

think that such documents exist. The Seventh Circuit has “often said” that discovery is not 

permitted when it is nothing more than an unsupported “fishing expedition” 67 based only on 

vague assertions or “speculative allegation[s]”68 that responsive documents might exist. This 

Court, similarly, has noted that, even though some fishing “is generally necessary in the pretrial 

discovery process,” “guesswork does not establish relevance,” and discovery is not so broad so 

as to permit inquiry into each “conceivable matter that captures an attorney’s interest.”69 

Through multiple filings in support of their motion to compel, and despite having already 

received all other discoverable documents and interrogatory responses from the Bureau, 

Defendants have proffered no legitimate reason to think that individual Bureau employees were 

considering Defendants’ or radio stations’ social or political views when the Bureau opened the 

investigation in or about 2017, during the multi-year investigation into Defendants’ conduct, 

when the Bureau first filed its complaint in July 2020, when the Bureau amended its complaint in 

November 2020, or at any point since then. 

Instead, Defendants resort to freewheeling speculation, claiming that it “would not be at 

all surprising”70 and would be “entirely plausible”71 that the Bureau created an internal document 

pertaining to Defendants’ political or social views at some point since 2017. Defendants further 

67 Sirazi v. Panda Express, Inc., No. 08-C-2345, 2009 WL 4232693, at *4 (N.D. Ill. Nov. 24, 

2009) (internal quotations omitted).

68 Cent. States, Se. & Sw. Areas Pension Fund v. Waste Mgmt. of Michigan, Inc., 674 F.3d 630, 

637 (7th Cir. 2012). 

69 DeLeon-Reyes v. Guevara, No. 1:18-CV-01028, 2020 WL 3050230, at *7 (N.D. Ill. June 8, 

2020). 

70 Objection 13. 

71 Objection 15.

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reflect that “many people today believe that the police are racist, that criticisms of crime are 

synonymous with race, and that conservatives are dog whistling to racists.” 72 Calling something 

plausible or unsurprising does not make it so, and Defendants’ assumptions about people and 

Bureau employees are distractions from the actual issues in this matter. 

CONCLUSION 

For the foregoing reasons, Defendants seek documents that exceed the appropriate scope 

of discovery, and the Bureau respectfully requests that Defendants’ Objection and their motion to 

compel be denied. 

Respectfully submitted, 

/s/ Jacob A. Schunk 

JACOB A. SCHUNK (IA AT001908) 

Email: jacob.schunk@cfpb.gov 

Telephone: (202) 718-0394 

GREGORY W. JONES (IL ARDC #6313157) 

Email: gregory.jones@cfpb.gov 

MARY OLSON (IL ARDC #6297334) 

Email: mary.olson@cfpb.gov 

230 S. Dearborn St., Suite 1590 

Chicago, IL 60604 

and 

1700 G Street, NW 

Washington, DC 20552 

Attorneys for the Bureau of Consumer Financial 

Protection 

72 Objection 13.

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