Employees at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau were abruptly informed Sunday afternoon that the watchdog agency’s Washington, DC, headquarters will be closed this week.
In an email obtained by CNN, Adam Martinez, the CFPB’s chief operating officer, instructed all employees and contractors in Washington to “work remotely unless instructed otherwise from our Acting Director or his designee.”
No reason was stated for the sudden closure. The CFPB did not respond to CNN’s request for comment.
“The DC Headquarters Building will be closed this week (2/10-2/14),” the Sunday email said.
The move comes days after Elon Musk tweeted out: “CFPB RIP” with a tombstone emoji.
Officials from Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency deleted the CFPB’s X account on Friday night, a person familiar with the matter told CNN, after Russell Vought, who leads the Office of Management and Budget, took over as acting director of the CFPB.
DOGE officials have been granted administrative access to CFPB systems, including content management system, back-end systems for the bureau’s website and the active directory of personnel, the source told CNN.
On Sunday night, the employees’ union at the Treasury Department filed two lawsuits against Vought, adding to a pile of challenges against DOGE and the Trump recent administration’s decisions to shut down parts of the federal bureaucracy.
The new lawsuits, which seek to save the agency and protect employees’ data from DOGE, were filed in the US District Court in DC. Many of the fresh court cases have moved very fast, and judges have initially blocked some of the changes being made within agencies, especially when the cases have dealt with data privacy concerns. Several of the court challenges also test the power of the executive branch when funding decisions were already made by Congress.
Vought had sent an email Saturday night ordering all employees at the consumer watchdog to stop virtually all work — including fighting financial abuse.
“Effective immediately, unless expressly approved by the Acting Director or required by law, all employees, contractors and other personnel of the bureau shall…cease all supervision and examination activity,” Vought wrote in the email, a copy of which was viewed by CNN.
In practice, this means the nation’s top consumer financial watchdog has effectively been pulled off the street, prevented from providing oversight over big banks, payday lenders and other financial institutions that could be hurting consumers.
“This means that nobody is actually overseeing $18 trillion in consumer debt right now to make sure millions of Americans aren’t getting ripped off,” one former CFPB official who spoke on the condition of anonymity told CNN.
Vought posted on X on Saturday night that he “notified the Federal Reserve that CFPB will not be taking its next draw of unappropriated funding because it is not ‘reasonably necessary’ to carry out its duties” and that the CFPB had an “excessive” balance of $711.6 million.
This order from Vought goes a step further than the one sent by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on February 3 that ordered CFPB staff to stop issuing rules, suspend rules that have not yet been issued or published, not to issue public communications and to stop making court filings other than to seek a pause.
Vought on Saturday night reiterated the tasks that Bessent ordered employees to stop, adding supervision to the freeze.
Vought said in his email that President Donald Trump designated him acting director on Friday.
“As Acting Director, I am committed to implementing the President’s policies, consistent with the law, and acting as a faithful steward of the Bureau’s resources,” he wrote.
A letter signed by dozens of House Democrats on Saturday called on Bessent to “rescind what appears to be an illegal stop work order.”
“This administration cares more about billionaires than working people,” New York Attorney General Letitia James posted Sunday afternoon on X. “The CFPB has done crucial work to protect Americans from fraud, end junk fees, and combat another subprime mortgage crisis. We will never stop fighting to protect consumers.”
Democracy Forward, a nonprofit watchdog legal group that successfully blocked an OMB grant freeze, issued a statement Sunday about efforts to revoke the CFPB’s authority.
“Today’s attack on the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is a concerted effort to dismantle protections for American consumers against predatory financial practices and put all consumers at risk,” said Skye Perryman, Democracy Forward President and CEO. “Our priority must be protecting American working families rather than powerful special interests, and a strong CFPB is vital to that goal. We will swiftly pursue all legal options to defend the CFPB and protect the American people from financial harm.”
This story has been updated with additional content. CNN’s Katelyn Polantz contributed reporting.
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