- CFPB employees received an email on Sunday telling them not to come into the office next week.
- Workers in DC were instructed to work remotely until further notice.
- CFPB’s new acting director, Russell Vought, halted the agency’s work on Saturday.
A key federal consumer watchdog might be the next target of President Donald Trump’s cost-cutting agenda.
On Sunday, employees at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau received an email from Adam Martinez, the agency’s chief operating officer, telling DC-based employees to work remotely next week.
“The DC Headquarters Building will be closed this week (2/10-2/14). Employees and contractors are to work remotely unless instructed otherwise from our Acting Director or his designee,” the email, viewed by Business Insider, said.
It’s unclear when, if at all, the DC headquarters will reopen. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment from BI.
Trump fired Rohit Chopra, the CFPB director under former President Joe Biden, on February 1. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent took on the role of acting director of the agency up until Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought took over the role on Saturday night.
The CFPB was established in 2011 to protect consumers from financial crises. It’s taken enforcement and oversight actions on big banks and lenders, returning billions of dollars to consumers. Vought ordered employees to stop nearly all of the agency’s work in an email on Saturday, including its supervisory activities that ensure companies are complying with the law.
A CFPB employee told BI that the order caused nearly all of the agency’s ongoing work to stop.
Vought also wrote in a post on X on Saturday that the CFPB “will not be taking its next draw of unappropriated funding because it is not ‘reasonably necessary’ to carry out its duties.”
The CFPB receives its funding from the Federal Reserve rather than through Congress’ annual appropriations process, which has been criticized by many GOP lawmakers who have said Congress should oversee the agency’s funding.
“This spigot, long contributing to CFPB’s unaccountability, is now being turned off,” Vought said.
Adam Rust, director of financial services at the nonprofit Consumer Federation of America, previously told BI that shutting down the CFPB would have “real ramifications for people’s pocketbooks.” The agency had rules to cap overdraft fees and remove medical debt from credit reports, which are now suspended.
Elon Musk, the leader of Trump’s DOGE commission tasked with slashing government waste, has targeted a range of agencies over the past two weeks. A federal judge temporarily blocked Trump’s administration from placing over 2,000 USAID workers on paid leave as the administration took steps to shut down the agency.
“CFPB RIP,” Musk wrote on X last week.
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