Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who played a key role in establishing the Consumer Financial Protection Agency as a watchdog over banks and credit card companies 15 years ago, is calling for an investigation into efforts by the Trump administration to weaken it.
On Tuesday evening, Sen. Warren and fellow Democratic Sen. Andy Kim, who both sit on the Committee of Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, demanded investigations into a push to slash the CFPB’s workforce and cancel its contracts.
“Despite the critical importance of the CFPB and its statutory requirements, the Trump Administration has taken steps to dismantle the agency,” says a letter they sent to the Comptroller General of the United States, Gene L. Dodaro, and reviewed by Coins2Day. The letter argues it “is essential that Congress and the public understand how the Trump Administration’s recent actions have affected the CFPB’s ability to carry out its mission and statutory obligations.”
The letter asks Dodaro to investigate any actions taken by CFPB leadership and the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, to interfere with CFPB work, cut staff, cancel contracts, and reduce its budget. The senators also asked that the inquiry examine how those actions have affected the agency’s enforcement and supervision, monitoring of market risks, and consumer complaint program, among other things.
Warren and Kim sent two similar letters to the CFPB’s acting inspector general, Fred Gibson, asking him to investigate the cancellation of nearly 200 CFPB contracts as well as the job cuts. It also asked him to determine whether those actions complied with federal laws and regulations or had impacted the agency’s ability to fulfill its statutory duties.
Representatives from the CFPB and the Government Accountability Office, under which the comptroller general operates, did not respond to immediate requests for comment.
The letters mark the latest effort by Warren to defend the CFPB after conceiving of the agency while she was a Harvard University law professor as a way to centralize consumer protection efforts following the 2008 financial crisis. Former President Barack Obama had appointed Warren to oversee the agency’s creation after Congress passed the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act in 2010. The agency has been active, returning more than $21 billion to consumers via enforcement actions against the financial services companies it supervises.
Republicans and, more recently, Silicon Valley investors have accused the agency of burdening banks, credit unions, and other financial institutions with unnecessary regulations, as well as overstepping its reach. It has been an early target of the Trump administration’s cost-cutting efforts and, in early February, was among the first agencies to give inside access to DOGE, led in all but name by billionaire Elon Musk.
Around the same time as DOGE’s arrival, Trump named Russ Vought, director of the Office of Management and Budget, as the CFPB’s acting director. He closed the CFPB’s headquarters, fired employees, cut contracts, and slashed its budget. In public court filings, CFPB employees have suggested that DOGE staffers had wanted to cut nearly all of the agency’s 1,700 staffers as part of a three-phase plan.
Since DOGE’s arrival, Warren has vocally defended the agency, including leading a coalition of more than 200 legislators to send letters to CFPB leadership and the Treasury Secretary. The coalition demanded that DOGE employees leave the agency.
In the letters sent by Warren and Kim on Tuesday, the senators assert that the terminations “appear to have already had a significant impact on the agency’s ability to comply with its statutorily required functions.” They argue the CFPB has dropped “key enforcement actions” in the weeks since DOGE entered the agency, including a lawsuit against Capital One for allegedly overcharging customers $2 billion in interest payments.
Meanwhile, the CFPB has also been under attack by Republicans in Congress. In recent weeks, both the Senate and House of Representatives voted to overturn the CFPB’s supervisory authority of payments companies like PayPal, Google, and Apple—further crippling the agency’s authority.
A federal judge has temporarily reversed some of the initial cuts at the agency. As part of a lawsuit between a union representing CFPB employees and Vought, a judge ordered the CFPB to reinstate all its probationary and term employees. The order also blocked the agency from terminating employees without cause, issuing a reduction-in-force, or directing employees to stop work or take administrative leave while the case moves forward—though an appeals court said last week that the CFPB could allow work stoppages that didn’t interfere with its statutory duties.
Do you work at the CFPB? Have more information? Reach out via Signal or email to Jessica Mathews at 479-715-9553 or [email protected].