The Trump administration is moving rapidly, destroying the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), halting institutional work, cutting funds, and closing its headquarters.
This push is defanging the agency, unlike the efforts launched early in President Trump's first term, which faces solid opposition from Republicans through its short existence.
However, as Elon Musk's Government Efficiency (DOGE) is sweeping one after another towards institutions with directives directed to broadly cut government funding, the new attacks on the CFPB are engaging in consumer advocacy groups and democratic This sparked concerns from lawmakers. This time, management will be carried out.
“I think everyone thinks this is a USAID playbook. I think everyone is manipulating the way they were wiped out, assuming we're trying to wipe out,” International Development.
The behavior in CFPB is similar to that of USAID. There, staff members were also told to leave headquarters and quit their jobs before the Trump administration tried to place thousands of employees on administrative leave. The effort was put on hold by a federal judge on Friday night.
Under President Biden, Graham Steele, former deputy director of financial institutions at the U.S. Treasury Department, said:
“The idea of essentially trying to close agents with everything but the name is a step further,” he added. “It's an escalation.”
The Trump administration launched a blitz attack on government agencies over the weekend shortly after Russell Voat, director of the newly confirmed Business and Budget Office (OMB), was appointed acting CFPB director on Friday.
He replaced Treasury Secretary Scott Bescent, who had been appointed acting superintendent a few days ago. Bessent reportedly directed staff to halt work on enforcement actions, rulemaking and litigation.
Vought similarly ordered employees to “stop all supervisory and testing activities” and “stop stakeholder engagement” on Saturday, according to the Washington Post. That same day he announced he would not take the next drawdown of funding from the Federal Reserve.
“In the current fiscal environment, the bureau's current $716.6 million balance is actually excessive,” Vought wrote in X's post.
Adam Martinez, the agency's chief operating officer, reportedly told staff on Sunday that its headquarters would be closed that week. On Monday, Vought ordered employees to “facing off from performing any work task.” According to Business Insider.
The CFPB X account has since been deleted and the website homepage shows a note saying “404: Page not found” but the site is working.
Musk's Doge employees are also accessing CFPB's data systems, according to Bloomberg News. Despite initially limited access, you can now access the full range of information stored in the institution, including confidential bank examinations and enforcement records.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), a top Democrat on the Senate Banking Committee, blames MUSK and claims “another fraud” in a video posted to X for attempting to “kill” the CPFB. I was called.
“So why are these two guys trying to gut CFPB?” Warren asked. “It's not rocket science. Trump has campaigned to help people who work, but now that he's in charge, this is in return for the rich people who invested in his campaign and fooled his family. is.
Maxine Waters (D-Calif), a ranking member of the House Financial Services Committee.
“It's easy why the world's wealthiest people are working to gut the agency that has returned $21 billion to American consumers,” she said in a statement Saturday.
She pointed to the multi-billion dollar government contracts held by the mask company and plans to turn social platform X into a digital payments platform.
“Platforms like this are regulated by the CFPB,” Waters said. “So, in addition to having access to consumer data for millions of Americans, masks can illegally steal sensitive business information about other American companies in the same industry. More corruption, You won't be anti-American.”
Mask's large network of companies, including Tesla, SpaceX and X, is increasingly questioning conflicts of interest, especially as his Doge team digs holes in every part of the administrative department.
Doge employees quickly moved from one agency to the next, with an emphasis on gaining access to technology infrastructure.
At the Treasury, Doge staff members received access to a sensitive federal payment system, sparking protests from Democrats and spurring several lawsuits. A federal judge ultimately blocked Musk and his Doge team from accessing the system late Saturday.
The National Treasury Employees Union filed two separate lawsuits against Vought against the CFPB push on Sunday. The first case aims to prevent the agency from pushing forward with demolition, while the other attempts to block access to personal information for Doge's CFPB employees.
The Trump administration's efforts to target the CFPB are not entirely surprising, considering GOP history as an agency.
“It's not surprising that we're interested in trying to effectively sabotage the CFPB in some way, in some way, at a very early stage in the Trump administration,” Steele said. “The CFPB has been a conservative vetenoir for a long time.”
Conservatives have been opposed to the CFPB since their founding in 2010, in the wake of the 2007-08 financial crisis. They argue that agencies have stepped over regulatory and constitutional boundaries and have not achieved great success and frequently leveled such arguments against the CFPB in court.
The CFPB cannot be eliminated without Congressional actions, so Trump's first administration appointees have tried to limit the power of the institution.
Former OMB Director and acting director of CFPB Mick Mulbany set up a freeze on employment and new rulemaking when he controlled the agency in 2017.
“This is the situation in Dejavi,” said Joe Linnick, a financial services partner at the law firm Dorsey & Whitney. “But I think Vought is probably a more keen tactician when it comes to using the authorities.”
In the second Trump administration, they “take a step further” of things in a way that would allow them to be exposed to lawsuits if they didn't fulfill certain legally necessary duties, Steele said.
“It's a more dramatic change that raises some of these core legal questions about the separation of power, and faithful to what Congress should do and the law that they should be doing. I think we'll tell the agency that will carry out the work,” he told the hill.
Lynyak warned that the push to effectively dismantle the CFPB can be “more powerful” than its response to Doge's efforts to shutter the USAID.
“If CFPB is effectively repaid and prevented from standing up for consumers, the consequences can be serious,” Delicia Hand, senior director of Digital Marketplace, Consumer Reports, said It stated in a statement.
“If the CFPB is likely to be on the sidelines and fall victim to predatory practices, hidden fees and data privacy violations, consumers will pay the price,” she continued. “Without beat-aggressive cops looking for consumers in the financial market, the administration essentially says that consumers are on their own.”
