The Trump administration plans to roll out the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) by dismissing 95% of its staff and canceling the lease on his Washington, DC, head office, according to a federal lawsuit aimed at stopping the movements.
If successful, the mass dismissals would only leave the skeleton of an agency responsible for checking the way large banks and other financial service providers such as payment day providers and credit agencies treat customers.
The CFPB is currently closed after acting director Russell Vought Personnel instructed to stop all the work and stay at home from the office this week. It also started Must take of staff and Cancel contracts With suppliers and witnesses of experts.
Administration officials have been open about their goal to eliminate the agency: after members of his DOGE team arrived at the head office last week, tweeted billionaire Elon Musk “RIP CFPB”, while President Donald Trump told reporters On Tuesday it was “very important to get rid of.”
“It was also a waste,” he said. “There was a bad group of people who ran it. … that was a vicious group of people. They have destroyed many people. ‘
The new lawsuit, submitted on Thursday in Washington by a federal employee union and non -profit organizations that collaborate with CFPB, tries to reverse the STOP work orders of Vought and any additional dismissals. It argues that the mass dismissals are unable to perform its basic functions that are required by law.
“The actions of Trump and Vought to eliminate the CFPB have already caused massive confusion and imposed significant and irreparable damage to consumers throughout the country,” says the lawsuit. “In the absence of immediate exemption, the defendants will continue to increase the lives of countless officials.”
In addition to other tasks required by the articles of association, the CFPB has paused all its supervision of banks and other lenders, the court case notes. The portal of the Agency for Consumers Complaints is also ‘seriously disrupted’. The agency usually receives hundreds of thousands of complaints every month.
According to the suit, Vought is also planning to reduce the operational reserves of the CFPB to the Federal Reserve, which the agency finances. During the weekend he announced the Fed that the consumer watchdog would not require new financing for the coming quarter because he was planning to publish his reserves.
The lawsuit does not mention a source about the massive shoots, but rumors are bent among the current and former staff members that massive dismissals can be on their hands. It states that Trump officials “reportedly informed the general service administration that they end the lease of the CFPB headquarters.”