For all of Elon Musk and Donald Trump’s supposed concern that federal employees doing nothing but collecting paychecks, they sure are going through a lot of effort to keep people who actively want to work from doing their jobs. As part of the back-and-forth of legal filings and testimonies in a case that could decide the fate of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), employees of the agency say they are currently being restricted from working, and requests from workers to continue performing the duties of the consumer watchdog have been ignored by leadership.
Understanding where the CFPB stands is both a bit complicated and incredibly straightforward. The complication stems from contradicting orders and legal obligations that have put the agency into limbo, but the easy-to-understand part is the intention: shut the agency down for good. In fact, on Monday, District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson said on Monday that it seemed like officials were trying to make sure the agency was “choked out of existence” before a case could even be fully heard.
The case in question is where a lot of the uncertainty resides. The National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU), which represents employees of the CFPB, filed a lawsuit in an attempt to stop the agency from being shut down. That followed an order on February 10 from acting CFPB Director Russell Vought to halt agency activity—any agency business would require approval from legal council and employees were told they should otherwise “stand down from performing any work task.” Keep in mind this is a time when Elon Musk’s DOGE is telling federal employees they need to send an email listing five things they accomplished last week.
From that, it seems pretty clear that the expectation is that employees are being kept from doing their jobs. Trump’s folks have tried to argue otherwise to the courts, with agency chief operating officer Adam Martinez submitting a declaration that staff has been allowed to continue performing statutorily required duties.
The staff, though, says that has not been their experience. CFPB employees offered sworn statements that they have been told not to work and have, in fact, been informed by senior staff that most of them will eventually be let go and the CFPB “would exist in name only.” That seems pretty believable, given Elon Musk tweeted “CFPB RIP” the day that Vought was made acting head.
Matthew Pfaff, CFPB chief of staff for the Office of Consumer Response, has also taken a stand with agency employees. In his own statement to the court, Pfaff said that despite Martinez’s claims, CFPB’s work is not being done. Pfaff said consumer complaints against banks and other financial entities are not being monitored or investigated, and no one at the agency has been able to carry out their work since the original shutdown notice on February 10. Pfaff wrote “There is simply no one at the CFPB to help” consumers right now, which is kinda the agency’s whole thing.
According to Pfaff, he and multiple others within the agency have asked Martinez for guidance on “key statutory work” that employees are allowed to do, as well as requests for authorization to perform statutorily authorized work. All of which, he says, “have been ignored.” Judge Jackson, assessing all these claims, said “We can’t have edicts issued with people’s fingers crossed behind their backs,” basically accusing Martinez and Vought of intentionally misleading everyone as to what is happening at the agency.
So, CFPB workers want to do their job. CFBP leadership, at the behest of Trump and Musk, want to keep that from happening. A court date has been set for next Monday, at which Martinez will be required to testify. At this point, it’s just a matter of hoping there is anything left to protect when this is all said and done.
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