Employees at the nation's consumer financial watchdog say it's become toothless under Trump

Boston Globe

5 days ago

Advertisement
One current employee, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the directive forbids staffers from speaking publicly about their jobs, said outsiders would be amazed at how little work is being done. Employees are reluctant even to talk to one another, out of fear that a conversation between two employees would be considered a violation of the directive.
Get Starting Point
A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday.
Enter Email
Sign Up
Another employee described the drastic shift in mission, from trying to protect consumers to doing nothing, as 'quite demoralizing.'
To gain an understanding of what is happening inside the CFPB, The Associated Press spoke with 10 current and former employees, as well as bankers and policymakers who used to interact with the bureau nearly every day but now say their emails and voicemails go into a black hole. The agency's press office doesn't respond to emails.
Advertisement
The CFPB took a lighter approach to its mission in Trump's first term but continued to pursue enforcement actions. Under President Joe Biden, the agency took an expansive view of its authority, targeting profitable practices by banks such as overdraft and credit card late fees, as well as investigating companies over credit reporting and medical debt.
The bureau also turned a spotlight on Big Tech companies that have made inroads into financial services. For example, the CFPB ordered Apple to pay $89 million in fines and penalties for problems related to the Apple Card.
Banks and the financial services industry felt the Biden CFPB acted too aggressively, particularly with a proposal to cut overdraft fees to $5 from the industry average of $27 to $35. The bureau estimated the move would save consumers roughly $5 billion a year. The proposal was overturned by Congress in April with Trump's backing.
Once Trump 2.0 began, the bureau became a main target of the Department of Government Efficiency, then run by Elon Musk, who posted on X that the CFPB should 'RIP' shortly after DOGE employees became embedded at the agency. Through the bureau's acting chief, Russell Vought, the White House issued a directive that CFPB employees should " not perform any work tasks. "
The administration then tried to lay off roughly 90 percent of the bureau's staff, or roughly 1,500 employees. Courts have blocked those layoffs, but there is a feeling inside the bureau that the court rulings are only a temporary reprieve.
Companies that committed wrongdoing, or had open investigations, have lobbied the bureau and the White House for their punishments to be rescinded. Last month, the CFPB rescinded an agreement under which Navy Federal Credit Union agreed to pay $80 million to settle claims that it illegally charged overdraft fees to its members, who include Navy servicemen and women, and veterans.
Advertisement
In mid-May, the agency scrapped an order for the auto financing arm of Toyota to pay customers a total of $48 million for illegally bundling products onto car buyers' auto loans.
'Companies are lining up to get out of repaying harmed customers,' said Eric Halperin, former enforcement director at the bureau, who resigned earlier this year.
The Associated Press sent a list of questions to the White House regarding President Trump's vision for the CFPB. The White House did not respond.
While the lack of new initiatives and the scuttling of old ones frustrate employees the most, they also note that even everyday tasks have largely fallen to the wayside.
A report from the office of Sen. Elizabeth Warren, the senior Democrat on the Senate Banking Committee, found that the bureau is uploading roughly 2,200 complaints a day to its complaint database, compared to the roughly 10,500 complaints it was doing in the months before Trump took office again. Warren came up with the idea for the bureau when she was a law professor at Harvard University.
The bureau did take an enforcement action on Friday. The pawn shop chain FirstCash Inc. agreed to pay $9 million to settle claims that it charged excessive interest rates on loans to armed service members, in violation of the Military Lending Act. FirstCash operates more than 1,000 stores.
The bureau is going to be even further diminished in the coming months. The new budget law signed by Trump earlier this month cuts the CFPB's funding by roughly half, meaning the bureau will be forced into mass layoffs. Senate Democrats are looking for ways to restore that funding.
Advertisement
In the meantime, employees go about their mundane routine: They continue to check their email once or twice a day to see if any of their previous work has been slated for being undone. They wait to be laid off. The only constants are the silence from bureau political appointees or the 'mini funerals' that happen every Friday, when another batch of employees who have decided to leave the bureau voluntarily have their last day.
'I don't think I'll ever work in public service again,' said one current employee, who has been looking for a new job for the past three months.