Before the Trump/Vance administration obliterated it, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) – created after the 2007-2009 Financial Crisis as part of the Dodd-Frank Act – provided “a single point of accountability for enforcing federal consumer financial laws and protecting consumers in the financial marketplace.”

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The CFPB has played an extremely important role in protecting U.S. citizens. Since its creation in 2011, the agency established clear rules to add fairness and transparency to the financial marketplace and continually developed ways to safeguard consumers from emerging threats.

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In its 14-year history, CFPB returned over $20 billion to consumers, including by monetary compensation, principal reductions and canceled debts, and ordered companies to pay $5 billion in fines for bad behavior. Out of the 6,400,000 consumer complaints the agency had received before the Trump/Vance administration suppressed all the data, over 95 percent had experienced timely responses from the companies involved. Plus, the agency had helped millions of consumers settle complaints with financial firms, fighting for – and receiving – billions of dollars for consumers who have been victimized.

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From the beginning, the CFPB has been under attack by certain segments of the financial industry and politicians who seek to protect predatory practices over the well-being of the American consumer. The first Trump administration was particularly aggressive in its fight against the CFPB, but the Trump/Vance administration has now blown the entire agency apart.

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In February 2025, Russell Vought, the director of the U.S. Office of Management and Budget and acting head of the CFPB, closed the bureau’s Washington headquarters and instructed staff and contractors they could not “perform any work tasks” in preparation for a complete dismantling of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Even though CFPB staff have remained on the payroll as many lawsuits challenging the Trump/Vance administration’s actions make their way through the legal system, there have been virtually no investigations.

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Russell Vought has said he intends to completely shutter the CFPB by the end of 2025 or early 2026. In addition to imminent mass firings, the administration is moving to systemically rescind rules and regulations – including the NBR Orders Rule that requires businesses subject to federal regulatory orders to submit those for listing on CFPB registries – and has permanently dismissed 22 CFPB enforcement actions, including one against Toyota (who had been ordered by the CFPB to give customers back $48 million and pay a $12 million fine for misleading consumers) and the credit union Navy Federal (who had already agreed to give $80 million back to consumers for improperly charging overdraft fees while they showed a positive balance).

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By dismissing these 22 actions, the Trump/Vance administration has denied the American consumer $120 million that was already earmarked for them by negligent companies. If the administration continues to cancel enforcement actions, it could cost consumers another $240 million.

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Unsurprisingly, this is a Godsend for big banks like JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America and Wells Fargo – who have each had a potentially very expensive lawsuit against them dismissed – as well as the three credit bureaus Equifax, Experian and TransUnion – who now don’t have to be concerned about fixing errors on consumers’ credit and tenant-screening reports. 

 

This is outrageous. The CFPB must be brought back to protect the American consumer from predatory practices and corporate abuses.

 

Upon its return, the CFPB should remain an independent watchdog and retain its autonomy from both the White House and Congress. However, the CFPB should not be independent of congressional appropriations. When the CFPB was created, it was given the power to fund itself and set its own budget – a number that could legally reach up to 12 percent of the Federal Reserve’s yearly operating expenses.

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However, this arrangement violated the Appropriations Clause set forth in Article 1, Section 9, Clause 7 of the U.S. Constitution (“no money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in consequence of appropriations made by law”) as well as the Non-Delegation Doctrine, a principle of constitutional and administration law (“Congress is not permitted to abdicate or to transfer to others the essential legislative functions with which it is thus vested”).