More than 1,400 employees who will be able to fire from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) for at least one week will be able to continue working for at least one week after a federal judge stepped in to remove independent regulators on Friday.
Judge Amy Berman Jackson of Washington, DC, said the Trump administration was unable to cut employees forward, which accounted for about 90% of the agency until it provided more evidence on how to enforce the termination. Employees learned Thursday that they will lose access to the proxy system the next night, with their final employment date on June 16. Now, a hearing on the matter is scheduled to take place on April 28. Jackson had previously issued a ruling in February at CFPB’s CFPB to slow down.
Since the inception of Congress in 2010, the CFPB has helped consumers compete with banks and other companies for suspicious fees, racial discrimination in loans, and many scams. But some conservatives called for the removal of the agency to limit corporate regulation, with some companies, including tech giants, questioning their expanding surveillance. This week, an agency official told staff that cases of medical debt, student loans, consumer data and digital payments will be cancelled prioritized.
The National Treasury Employee Union, which represents part of the CFPB workforce, sued the Trump administration in February to maintain the agency after its acting director Russell Vourding tried to lay off employees and stop some projects. This prompted Judge Jackson’s initial ruling to stop initial layoffs before the Trump administration provides more information. Part of her ruling was overturned by the appeals court, and the Trump administration could also appeal her orders from locking down widespread layoffs from Friday.
Currently, two CFPB employees say they are continuing to handle cases, including ongoing litigation.
An anonymous employee said that in court filed with Jackson on Friday, Gavin Kliger, a member of Trump’s so-called administration efficiency division, managed the controversial layoffs of nearly 1,500 workers. “He kept working for 36 hours in a row to ensure notification yesterday (April 17),” the anonymous worker wrote. “Gavin screamed at people he didn’t think work was working quickly to make sure they could be on this compressed schedule, saying they were incompetent.”
Mark Paoletta, the agency’s chief legal officer, wrote in another filing Friday that he and two other CFPB lawyers evaluated how the “line” “right” bureau was “in the right.” They determined that, under the filing, about 207 employees were sufficient to perform the duties required by law, and the document proved that the application made sense that the remaining 1,700 employees of the agency were ruling.
Paoletta cited the case “without the slightest evidence of intentional discrimination” and “entering new areas outside its jurisdiction, such as peer loans, rent to rent, and discrimination as unfair practices, leading the case found many instances that brought the bureau’s activities far beyond the scope of the law.”
