Judge blocks Trump administration from dismantling CFPB
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A judge blocked the Trump administration from dismantling the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau on Friday.
Why it matters: The reversal of the firings at the CFPB is a blow to DOGE, which had targeted the watchdog agency early in its cost-cutting campaign.
Driving the news: In a preliminary injunction, U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson reversed much of Trump's February 11 executive order.
- That includes halting the administration from terminating CFPB employees or making them stop their work, as well as also ordering the reinstatement of fired employees and contracts cancelled on or after February 11.
- Jackson also blocked the destruction, removal, or impairment of CFPB data, or records.
Zoom in: "The court cannot look away or the CFPB will be dissolved and dismantled completely in approximately thirty days, well before this lawsuit has come to its conclusion," Jackson wrote in the 112-page decision.
- Emails and testimony from two CFPB employees show that the administration was planning to cut nearly 1,200 workers (out of the staff of 1,700) on the day that Jackson's order went into effect.
Catch up quick: The National Treasury Employees Union and other groups sued acting CFPB Director Russell Vought last month, arguing the firings violated the separation of powers between government branches.
- The February 11 executive order targeted tens of thousands of probationary government employees across the government.
- Two other federal judges ordered the reinstatement of employees this month.
- According to U.S. court filings data, the firings impact 117 CFPB employees.
Zoom out: The move is also — at least in the interim — an affront to Trump's attempts to reshape historically independent agencies.
- Trump signed a separate executive order, pending legal challenges, seeking more White House control of agencies, including the FDIC, SEC and CFTC.
