The\u00a0Consumer Financial Protection Bureau\u2019s Trump-appointed leadership plans to fire nearly all its 1,700 employees while \u201cwinding down\u201d the agency, according to testimony from employees.<\/p>\n
In a\u00a0trove\u00a0of statements released late Thursday, federal employees said that the mass layoff was discussed in meetings they attended this month with senior CFPB leaders and members of\u00a0Elon Musk\u2019s Department of Government Efficiency.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy team was directed to assist with terminating the vast majority of CFPB employees as quickly as possible,\u201d said an employee identified as Alex Doe, a pseudonym used out of fear of retaliation.<\/p>\n
Doe said the plan from CFPB leaders and DOGE was to cut the bureau\u2019s workforce in three phases. It would first eliminate\u00a0probationary\u00a0and term employees, then carry out a wave of about 1,200 layoffs, leaving a skeleton crew of a few hundred workers.<\/p>\n
\u201cFinally, the Bureau would \u2018reduce altogether\u2019 within 60-90 days by terminating most of its remaining staff,\u201d Doe said.<\/p>\n
The workers\u2019 testimony comes at a crucial time for the CFPB, the agency created to protect consumers after the 2008 financial crisis was caused, in part, by irresponsible lending. Since DOGE operatives first arrived at the CFPB this month, the bureau has closed its Washington headquarters, initiated the first round of layoffs, and told those who remain to stop\u00a0nearly all work.<\/p>\n
The filings were made in the\u00a0case\u00a0started by a CFPB union that suspended acting Director Russell Vought\u2019s moves to shutter the bureau. After the CFPB fired about 200 probationary and term employees, the agency\u2019s actions were put on hold until a hearing scheduled for Monday.<\/p>\n
The documents show an apparent disconnect between some of the external messaging from Vought and the behind-the-scenes activity at the bureau.<\/p>\n
\u201cCFPB leadership has also been apparently lying to us that it will allow us to follow the law and our statutory obligations to protect consumers,\u2019 said a current CFPB employee who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they feared repercussions. <\/strong>\u2018Those of us employed at the CFPB will not stop fighting for our right to get back to the work of protecting consumers that Congress has required of us.\u201d<\/p>\n In a\u00a0motion\u00a0filed Monday, Vought\u00a0pushed\u00a0back against the idea that he planned to eliminate the CFPB.<\/p>\n \u201cThe predicate to running a \u2018more streamlined and efficient bureau\u2019 is that there will continue to be a CFPB,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n But the Trump administration\u2019s plan was to take the CFPB down to the barest minimum staffing required under law: Just five CFPB employees would remain, either in a standalone office or folded into another regulatory body, the workers testified.<\/p>\n In meetings from Feb. 18 to Feb. 25, \u201cstaff were told by Senior Executives that the CFPB would be eliminated except for the five statutorily mandated positions,\u201d said another current CFPB employee, this one identified as Drew Doe.<\/p>\n \u201cOne Senior Executive said that CFPB will become a \u2018room at Treasury, White House, or Federal Reserve with five men and a phone in it,\u2019\u201d Doe said.<\/p>\n The employees said that, if directed to by the court, they would provide their names and titles under seal.<\/p>\n\n The\u00a0Consumer Financial Protection Bureau\u2019s Trump-appointed leadership plans to fire nearly all its 1,700 employees while \u201cwinding down\u201d the agency, according to testimony from employees. In a\u00a0trove\u00a0of statements released late Thursday, federal employees said that the mass layoff was discussed in meetings they attended this month with senior CFPB leaders and members of\u00a0Elon Musk\u2019s Department of <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":37121,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-37120","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quickassetsmarket.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37120","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quickassetsmarket.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quickassetsmarket.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quickassetsmarket.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37120"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/quickassetsmarket.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37120\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quickassetsmarket.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37121"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quickassetsmarket.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37120"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quickassetsmarket.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37120"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quickassetsmarket.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37120"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}