Washington (AP) – President Donald Trump is radically narrowed by the workforce and the mission of the Consumer Financial Protection Office, eviscing an agency created after the great recession in order to protect the Americans against fraud, abuses and misleading practices.
The plan, which is challenged by a union of employees, is the last step of an extraordinary reshape the federal government. Conservatives and companies have often rubbed shoulders with agency surveillance and surveys, and Elon Musk did A higher target of his government’s effectiveness department.
About 1,500 employees should be cut, leaving around 200 people, according to an administration official who was not authorized to disclose the figure publicly and spoke under the cover of anonymity. Fox Business first pointed out the number of layoffs.
Employees began to receive dismissal notices on Thursday. Their access to agency systems, including email, ends on Friday evening.
“The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has identified your eliminated position and your job is subject to termination in accordance with force reduction procedures (RIF),” the emails said.
The Trump administration plans have been the subject of a legal battle. A federal judge initially blocked what she described as “a precipitated effort to dismantle and deactivate the agency”.
However, a court of appeal said on Friday that dismissal opinions could be sent “to employees that the defendants had determined, after a particular assessment, no need for the execution of the statutory functions of the defendants”.
On Thursday, the National Union of Employees of the National Treasury asked a federal judge to intervene by arguing that the officials violated the order.
“It is unfathomable that the reduction of office staff of 90% in just 24 hours, without notice to people to prepare for this elimination, would not interfere with the performance” of its statutory functions, to say nothing about the disability of the defendants who made a “particular evaluation” of each requirement of each employee within the framework of the Union.
Mark Paoletta, the agency’s legal director, sent a message to employees on Wednesday describing the reduced mission of the CFPB.
“To focus on tangible damage to consumers, the office will distance the resources from the application and supervision that can be carried out by states,” he wrote.
Problems with mortgages will be absolute priority, while problems involving medical debt, student loans and digital payments will receive less attention, according to Paoletta.
The change of orientation could benefit the efforts of Musk to offer financial services via X, its social media company. He has long wanted users to make peers by using his platform, and he announced in January that X would be Work with Visa.
These services will now be a lower priority for the CFPB.
Senator Elizabeth Warren, a Massachusetts democrat who helped create the CFPB, said in a statement that Trump prevented the agency from doing “his work from helping Americans who are scammed by large banks and giant companies”.
She described her plans as “yet another assault against consumers and our democracy by this lawless administration, and we are going to retaliate with everything we have.”
The CFPB was trained in 2010, two years after the financial crisis and the risk of risk mortgage scandal. Officials said they had obtained nearly $ 20 billion in financial relief for American consumers since its foundation in the form of canceled debts, remuneration and loan reduction.
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