A federal judge on Friday temporarily blocked the Trump administration’s attempts to dismantle the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), ordering the government agency to reinstate fired employees and preserve the agency’s existence at least until a pending lawsuit is resolved.
U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson ruled that the preliminary injunction was necessary to prevent the CFPB from being completely disbanded within the next month.
Calling the court’s action an “extraordinary step,” Judge Jackson wrote in her ruling that “the Court cannot look away or the CFPB will be dissolved and dismantled completely in approximately 30 days, well before this lawsuit has come to its conclusion.”
The civil lawsuit that Judge Jackson is presiding over stems from a complaint the National Treasury Employees Union, which represents CFPB employees, and five other plaintiffs filed against the CFPB and its acting director, Russell Vought.
“Neither the president nor the head of the CFPB has the power to dismantle an agency that Congress established,” the complaint stated.
On Feb. 10, Vought shuttered the CFPB and told the agency’s nearly 2,000 employees to cease all work activities. A Feb. 27 court filing that included testimony from anonymous CFPB staffers stated that the employees were told in a meeting with the agency’s chief operating officer of plans to “wind down” the CFPB and “carry out the closure of the agency.”
The district judge’s 112-page opinion opens with quotes from high-profile public figures involved with the CFPB matter, including Vought, President Donald Trump and Elon Musk, the tech billionaire whom Trump has tasked with running the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
“The CFPB has been a woke and weaponized agency against disfavored industries and individuals for a long time. This must end,” the Vought quote, from Feb. 8, reads.
Said Trump on Feb. 10, in reference to the CFPB: “That was a very important thing to get rid of.”
And Musk posted on X on Feb. 7: “CFPB RIP.” He added a tombstone emoji to the end of the post.
In her ruling, Judge Jackson called Vought’s moves after taking over as acting CFPB director — including closing offices, terminating contracts and firing probationary employees without cause — “in complete disregard for the decision Congress made 15 years ago” to establish the CFPB, “which was spurred by the devastating financial crisis of 2008.”
The district judge’s order also calls for the agency to reinstate and preserve its “contracts, workforce, data and operational capacity” while the case proceeds.
