More than 1,400 Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) workers were fired from their position Thursday amid wider Trump administration reforms in independent agencies, sources told Wired. There were about 1,700 employees total With CFPB.
A massive amount of power reduction, or RIF, comes almost a month after a federal judge is issued Temporary restraint order It prohibits the Trump administration from removing probation employees at the CFPB and other agencies. on friday, The Court of Appeals has ruled CFPB allows the end to begin again as long as a “personal evaluation” is carried out for each employee who has completed it. Approximately 200 employees will be left at CFPB, effectively thwarting the agency Elon Musk previously said You need to delete it. ‘
In an email sent to CFPB staff on Wednesday, CFPB Chief Legal Officer Mark Paletta announced that he would shift his focus from the role of supervision to “tangible harm to consumers.” Medical debt, student loans, consumer data and digital payments are all identified as topics that CFPB “deprive them.” document.
“As far as I know, it had at least some effect on all offices, at least some of which have been wiped out completely,” says one CFPB worker. “My guess is that some leadership positions remain due to the very clearly legally required functions of the Bureau.
The CFPB was established by the Dodd Frank Act of 2010, a vast law that imposed the resulting regulatory reforms in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. Agents were created to protect consumers from unfair or deceptive financial practices. claim Since its establishment, it has been responsible for $19.7 billion in consumer relief and $5 billion in civil penalties.
“They didn’t follow the CBA [collective bargaining agreement]not chasing Dodd Frank and did not provide sufficient notice to anyone,” a CFPB employee who lost his job on Thursday claims.
Musk and other conservatives are asking for the CFPB to be destroyed for a while. The Project 2025 chapter on Financial Regulatory Authorities describes it as “a highly politicized, damaging, and incompletely inexplainable federal agency” and calls for it to be abolished. In February, Musk wrote “RIP CFPB” on his X-Post with gravestone emojis. In November, he posted “Delete CFPB”.
In February, Wired reported that three Doge operatives, including Gavin Kliger and Nikhil Rajpal, have access to CFPB’s HR, procurement and financial infrastructure. Doge workers were later granted access to all agencies’ systems on Friday. Bloomberg reportedincluding bank reviews and execution records. Further requests for Doge access continued throughout the month.
“Don’t pay attention to what they’re saying about the CFPB. Be careful about what they’re doing,” Emily Peterson-Cassin, corporate power director for the Demand Progress Education Fund, said in a statement in response to the cuts on Thursday. “And what they’re doing is to allow Wall Street, big banks and big technology from the hook at the same time, while systematically stripping all efforts to protect service members and all Americans from fraud and fraud.”
Additional reports by ZoëSchiffer.
