A federal judge on Friday again stepped in to halt the gutting of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB).
On Thursday, 1,483 of the CFPB’s 1,690 employees received notice that they were being placed on administrative leave as part of a reduction in force (RIF) action, according to a declaration filed in federal court by Mark Paoletta, the CFPB’s chief legal officer. The notice provided a separation date of June 16 but said the employees’ work system access would be cut off at 6 p.m. on Friday.
But U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson said during a Friday court hearing that she would block the government agency from carrying out the mass layoffs until she has resolved the civil lawsuit she is presiding over. The lawsuit was filed in February by the National Treasury Employees Union, which represents CFPB employees, and five other plaintiffs against the CFPB and its acting director, Russell Vought.
“I’m willing to resolve it quickly, but I’m not going to let this RIF go forward until I have,” Jackson said, according to The Associated Press.
Judge Jackson also said she is “deeply concerned” that the Trump administration appeared to ignore her previous injunction that temporarily blocked the CFPB’s dismantling, according to the AP. The federal judge’s March 28 order had strongly rebuked Vought’s previous shuttering of the CFPB in February, calling his actions “in complete disregard for the decision Congress made 15 years ago” to establish the CFPB.
In the court declaration, Paoletta defended the mass workforce reduction.
“The Bureau could have reduced beyond the levels it ultimately decided upon while still performing its statutory duties,” Paoletta wrote. “An approximately 200 person agency allows the Bureau to fulfill its statutory duties and better aligns with the new leadership’s priorities and management philosophy.”
The court filing reveals that nearly every department of the CFPB would be impacted by the layoffs. The biggest reduction would be to the agency’s division of supervision, with 437 planned job cuts.
The next hearing in the case has been scheduled for April 28.
