CFPB's fight to survive is its kind of fight
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The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is holding on to its status as the little agency that could, this week surviving yet another court challenge over layoffs that would effectively gut the agency.
The big picture: The CFPB is a relatively small operation tasked with fighting big businesses on behalf of consumers.
- This case, filed by the National Treasury Employees Union and advocacy groups, is essentially the CFPB's kind of fight, but this time it's their own hides on the line.
Where it stands: After a ruling from a federal appeals court earlier this week, the White House is for now prohibited from carrying out a drastic layoff that would've gotten rid of 90% of the agency's employees.
- In court, lawyers for the White House argue it is merely rightsizing the CFPB and making it more efficient. Even after cutting 90% of the staff, it will be able to fulfill its statutory duties, they say.
- Outside the court, administration officials have been more candid. Elon Musk posted "CFPB RIP" earlier this year. The current acting head of the CFPB, Russ Vought, was the principal author behind Project 2025, which includes plans to abolish the agency.
How it works: Current and former CFPB employees have filed dozens of declarations to the court, detailing how their work fulfills the duties mandated by Congress, contrary to the White House argument.
- "The employees have been at the core of the success of this litigation so far," says Jennifer Bennett, a partner at law firm Gupta Wessler who represents the plaintiffs. "It's very hard to imagine how this litigation would have gone without that."
The White House has "kicked a hornets nests of lawyers, statisticians and economists who are trained on fighting just these kinds of battles," a current CFPB employee tells Axios, speaking on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation.
- CFPB acting leadership has also put a halt to much of the agency's work, leaving many of these folks with time on their hands.
- "What a dumb idea to tell a bunch of lawyers and economists and PhD statisticians and career bureaucrats and extremely smart people to stop working. Now all of a sudden they have all this energy to work on things like fighting back," the current employee says.
For example: Matthew Pfaff, the chief of staff for the agency's Office of Consumer Response, filed one such testimonial last week.
- His office is responsible for fielding consumer complaints, and there have been more than 5 million so far this year, he says.
- The office wouldn't be able to function if the proposed firing happened, reducing staff to 16 employees from 125, he says.
Zoom in: The CFPB's worker union and its highly active Slack group have been key. When the initial round of terminations came in February, union leadership and membership knew the full extent within 30 minutes.
- That rapid response enabled workers to move fast and file their case.
- Their lead lawyer Deepak Gupta is a former CFPB attorney, another person who understands how the agency operates.
For the record: The White House and OMB did not respond to emailed requests for comment, but acting Trump appointees have defended their actions across multiple court filings.
Reality check: It's still early days in this lawsuit.
- Plus, there are other threats. House Republicans just pushed a measure forward to cut the CFPB's budget that would also cripple the agency.
The bottom line: For an agency that's already faced two Supreme Court challenges, it's just another day at work.
