Trump team orders work pause at US consumer protection agency
By AFP
February 10, 2025
Image: — © GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA/AFP Brandon Bell
US President Donald Trump’s administration has informed staff at the country’s consumer protection agency that it is temporarily shuttering its headquarters and pausing all work, according to an email shared Monday with AFP.
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) was set up in the wake of the 2008 global financial crisis and is tasked with protecting American consumers from corporate misconduct.
It serves as a watchdog over a variety of consumer issues ranging from mortgages to credit cards to debt collection, and has long been a target of Republican lawmakers and industry.
In the message to staff, acting CFPB director Russell Vought said the agency’s Washington office would be closed this week, and told employees not to show up.
“Please do not perform any work tasks,” said Vought, Trump’s new director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, and a key architect of the conservative plan known as Project 2025 to reform the federal government.
Donald Trump named Russell Vought the acting director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau – Copyright AFP/File SAUL LOEB
Vought added that staff would need to seek written permission from him before doing any urgent work going forward, and should otherwise “stand down from performing any work task.”
Republicans have long accused the independent agency of overreach, with some of Trump’s most ardent supporters — including the tech billionaire Elon Musk — calling for its closure.
The union representing CFPB employees filed two lawsuits against Vought on Sunday, accusing him of trying to shut down the agency — which was created by Congress — and of giving the Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) access to employees’ personal information.
Vought’s actions reflected “an unlawful attempt to thwart Congress’s decision to create the CFPB to protect American consumers,” the National Treasury Employees Union argued in one of the lawsuits.
-‘Weaponization ends right now’ –
The CFPB “has long functioned as another woke, weaponized arm of the bureaucracy that leverages its power against certain industries and individuals disfavored by so-called ‘elites,'” the White House said in a statement published Monday.
“Under the administration of President Donald J. Trump, the weaponization ends right now,” it added.
The decision to pause all work at CFPB and close down its offices appears to be an attempt to curtail its oversight powers without shuttering it entirely — something that would require congressional approval.
“Congress built the CFPB, and no one other than Congress — not the president, not Musk, not Vought — can shut it down,” Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren, who helped create the agency, said in a video message.
In a separate statement, Democrats including Warren announced plans for a protest outside the CFPB’s Washington offices for Monday, to “sound the alarm” against Musk and Vought’s “attempt to kill” the agency.
By AFP
February 10, 2025
Image: — © GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA/AFP Brandon Bell
US President Donald Trump’s administration has informed staff at the country’s consumer protection agency that it is temporarily shuttering its headquarters and pausing all work, according to an email shared Monday with AFP.
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) was set up in the wake of the 2008 global financial crisis and is tasked with protecting American consumers from corporate misconduct.
It serves as a watchdog over a variety of consumer issues ranging from mortgages to credit cards to debt collection, and has long been a target of Republican lawmakers and industry.
In the message to staff, acting CFPB director Russell Vought said the agency’s Washington office would be closed this week, and told employees not to show up.
“Please do not perform any work tasks,” said Vought, Trump’s new director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, and a key architect of the conservative plan known as Project 2025 to reform the federal government.
Donald Trump named Russell Vought the acting director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau – Copyright AFP/File SAUL LOEB
Vought added that staff would need to seek written permission from him before doing any urgent work going forward, and should otherwise “stand down from performing any work task.”
Republicans have long accused the independent agency of overreach, with some of Trump’s most ardent supporters — including the tech billionaire Elon Musk — calling for its closure.
The union representing CFPB employees filed two lawsuits against Vought on Sunday, accusing him of trying to shut down the agency — which was created by Congress — and of giving the Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) access to employees’ personal information.
Vought’s actions reflected “an unlawful attempt to thwart Congress’s decision to create the CFPB to protect American consumers,” the National Treasury Employees Union argued in one of the lawsuits.
-‘Weaponization ends right now’ –
The CFPB “has long functioned as another woke, weaponized arm of the bureaucracy that leverages its power against certain industries and individuals disfavored by so-called ‘elites,'” the White House said in a statement published Monday.
“Under the administration of President Donald J. Trump, the weaponization ends right now,” it added.
The decision to pause all work at CFPB and close down its offices appears to be an attempt to curtail its oversight powers without shuttering it entirely — something that would require congressional approval.
“Congress built the CFPB, and no one other than Congress — not the president, not Musk, not Vought — can shut it down,” Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren, who helped create the agency, said in a video message.
In a separate statement, Democrats including Warren announced plans for a protest outside the CFPB’s Washington offices for Monday, to “sound the alarm” against Musk and Vought’s “attempt to kill” the agency.
By AFP
February 10, 2025
People protest in Washington against President Donald Trump's administration's efforts to shutter the US Agency for International Development and lay off thousands of federal employees - Copyright AFP/File Drew ANGERER
Alex PIGMAN
US federal workers face another deadline Monday to accept a mass buyout from their government jobs as a judge holds a key hearing on whether the offer is legal.
The proposal to two million federal workers is part of an effort by President Donald Trump and his billionaire ally Elon Musk to drastically cut back on spending that they say will transform the government.
In his first three weeks in office, the president has unleashed a flurry of executive orders aimed at slashing federal spending, appointing SpaceX and Tesla CEO Musk to lead the efforts under the newly created Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
Trump’s sweeping plans have now opened legal battles on several fronts, with lawsuits filed across the country aimed at stopping the Trump initiatives that critics say amount to an illegal power grab.
The Democrats are trying to build momentum against the Trump onslaught on government, and on Monday announced a new portal for whistleblowers to report potential law-breaking by Musk and his associates.
The legal battles intensified Saturday when a US judge blocked Musk’s team from accessing Treasury Department data on millions of Americans.
The Trump administration has appealed, calling the order “impermissible” and “unconstitutional.”
Musk’s team has moved aggressively through federal agencies, freezing aid programs and pushing workforce reductions through legally unclear buyouts or threats of termination.
The Trump administration has effectively shuttered the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, an agency long criticized by Republicans as overreaching.
Questions are rife over the buyout, including whether Trump has the legal right to make the offer and whether his administration will honor it.
The plan was first announced on January 28 in an email to much of the vast federal government and titled “Fork in the road” — the same phrasing as the note Musk sent to employees at Twitter when he bought the social media platform in 2022 and renamed it X.
The original deadline was Thursday, but unions representing more than 800,000 civil servants filed a lawsuit against the offer.
Federal Judge George O’Toole last week said he accepted the case and will hold a first hearing in a Boston courtroom at 2:00 pm (1900 GMT) Monday.
In response, the US Office of Personnel Management, which is run by Musk associates, extended the decision deadline until 11:59 pm.
– ‘Not canceled’ –
In a post on X, OPM maintain that the program was “NOT blocked or canceled” and the White House urged workers to keep considering “this very generous, once-in-a-lifetime offer.”
Last week, US media reported that at least 65,000 federal workers had opted into the so-called deferred resignation program.
This represents some three percent of the roughly two million federal employees who received the offer. The White House has said its target is for between five and 10 percent of employees.
Unions warn that without Congress signing off on the use of federally budgeted money, the agreements may be worthless, especially since current government spending is only agreed until mid-March.
“OPM’s Fork Directive is a sweeping and stunningly arbitrary action to solicit blanket resignations of federal workers,” wrote lawyers for the unions.
“Defendants have not even argued — nor could they — that the Fork Directive was the product of rational or considered decision-making.”
No comments:
Post a Comment