CFPB enforcement lead resigns, slams ‘attack' on core mission in departure email

CNN

a day ago

Cara Petersen, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's acting enforcement director, resigned from the agency on Tuesday. In an email to colleagues announcing her decision, Petersen slammed the Trump administration's efforts to dismantle the agency, which was established as a banking watchdog following the 2008 global financial crisis.
'I have served under every Director and Acting Director in the Bureau's history and never before have I seen the ability to perform our core mission so under attack,' Petersen wrote in an email seen by CNN. 'It is clear that the Bureau's current leadership has no intention to enforce the law in any meaningful way.'
The CFPB, which is tasked with ensuring banks, lenders and other financial companies play fair with consumers, has been thrown into chaos since President Donald Trump took office this year. The agency has faced several mass layoff attempts and abruptly decided to dismiss cases against several companies.
The CFPB was an early target of the Trump administration's downsizing efforts, but its undoing has largely been blocked in federal court. Republicans have long wanted to close down the agency, whose creation was spearheaded by Elizabeth Warren, now a Democratic senator from Massachusetts.
The agency was established as part of the Dodd-Frank Act, a 2010 federal law enacted to address the financial vulnerabilities that contributed to the global financial crisis. As of January 2025, the CFPB has delivered $19.7 billion in consumer relief since its creation, with 195 million people eligible for that relief, according to the agency.
This year, the CFPB abruptly dropped cases against multiple companies that had previously been accused of hurting consumers, like Capital One, Rocket Homes and a unit of Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway, according to court filings. The decision to abandon the cases reflects the Trump administration's hands-off approach to regulation.
Less than two weeks into Trump's second term, he fired Rohit Chopra, the CFPB director appointed by then-President Joe Biden in 2021. The agency's new leadership has been reviewing the agency's activities and staffing since February, Mark Paoletta, the agency's chief legal officer, said in a court filing in April.
Paoletta argued that, under previous administrations, the CFPB's activities have 'pushed well beyond the limits of the law' and the agency has 'engaged in intrusive and wasteful fishing expeditions.'
In February, the Trump administration made its first attempt to gut the CFPB, ordering the agency's employees to cease operations. That directive was challenged by a federal judge the following month.
In April, the CFPB sent layoff notices to nearly 1,500 of its 1,700 staffers soon after an appellate court said the agency could lay off some staffers but not so many that it could not carry out its statutory functions.
A federal judge also halted the mass layoffs. The case is now being considered by an appellate court.
Although courts have so far halted mass layoffs at the agency, one CFPB staffer on the enforcement team said they've worked maybe a total of three days since being brought back in March. Many of their colleagues are in the same situation.
'It's been very frustrating to have active investigations and litigations dropped, as well as negotiated settlements,' said the staffer, who requested anonymity for fear of retaliation. 'We have to be 'work-ready,' but there is very little work. I've maxed out the work I can do.'
Petersen became the agency's acting head of enforcement after Eric Halperin, who previously led the agency's enforcement arm, resigned in February.
'It has been devastating to see the Bureau's enforcement function being dismantled through thoughtless reductions in staff, inexplicable dismissals of cases, and terminations of negotiated settlement that let wrongdoers off the hook,' Petersen wrote.