More than 1,400 employees who were about to be launched from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) will be able to continue working for at least a week after a federal judge was intervened in the dismantling of the independent regulator on Friday.
Judge Amy Berman Jackson in Washington, DC, said that Trump administration could not go ahead with layoffs, which reached approximately 90% of the agency, until it presents more evidence on how the layoffs were carried out. Employees learned Thursday that they were going to lose access to agency systems the following evening and that their last job date would be on June 16. Now, an audience on the issue is scheduled for April 28. Jackson had previously issued a decision slowing the layoffs of CFPB probationary employees in February.
Since its creation by the Congress in 2010, the CFPB has helped consumers to fight against banks and other companies for doubtful costs, racial discrimination in loans and a certain number of scams. But some conservatives have called for the agency to be dismantled to limit business regulations, and certain companies, including technology giants, have questioned its expansion surveillance. This week, an agency official told staff that cases of medical debt, student loans, consumer data and digital payments would be uprooted.
Groups such as the National Treasury Employees Union, which represents part of the CFPB workforce, continued the Trump administration in February in order to preserve the agency after its acting director Russell Vought sought to dismiss workers and end projects. This prompted the initial decision of judge Jackson calling for a break on the initial cuts until the Trump administration provides more information. Part of his decision was canceled by a court of appeal, and the Trump administration could also call on its Friday order blocking the dismissals widespread.
For the moment, two current CFPB employees say they continue to work on their cases, including current disputes.
On Friday, in a legal file in Jackson, an anonymous employee said that Gavin Kliger, a member of the so-called Ministry of Government, managed the disputed dismissals of nearly 1,500 workers. “He kept the team for 36 consecutive hours to ensure that opinions go out yesterday (April 17),” wrote the anonymous worker. “Gavin shouted on people whom he did not think of working quickly enough to make sure they could go out on this compressed chronology, calling them incompetent.”
Mark Paoletta, the agency’s legal director, wrote in a separate file on Friday that he and two other CFPB lawyers evaluated “line by line” how “right size” of the office. They determined that around 207 employees would be sufficient to exercise tasks required by law, according to the file, which justified the establishment of the rest of the agency’s 1,700 employees.
“Leadership has discovered many cases in which the activities of the office have exceeded the limits of the law,” wrote Paoletta, citing cases pursued “without the slightest proof of intentional discrimination” and “in new areas beyond its jurisdiction such as the loan by peers, rent for obtaining and discrimination.”
