For the second time in three months, acting Director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Russ Vought has tried to fire most of the staff and cripple its functions. The union for CFPB employees has successfully beaten both attacks back, and a hearing today will determine whether the second effort will formally fail. (See the update; the hearing was canceled because the union was victorious, for now, in blocking the mass firing.)

Over the weekend, attorneys for the union issued 19 declarations from CFPB staff, most of whom received a termination notice in the mass reduction in force (RIF) on April 17. Not only do these declarations lay out exactly how Vought and his leadership team violated a court order; they go into detail on what it actually takes to run a federal agency in the modern age, including, ironically, the bureaucracy imposed by Congress on behalf of business interests.

The attempted purge of CFPB is not isolated, of course. Even as Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency is crumbling, the systematic federal workforce destruction has left government unable to react to changing circumstances or carry out important functions. We have a unique window into this at CFPB, but you can extend it across virtually every agency, and better understand the breakdowns and errors to come.

VOUGHT’S TEAM FIRST TRIED to fire about 1,500 CFPB employees in February. U.S. District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson issued a preliminary injunction to stop this. On appeal, the D.C. Circuit Court said that CFPB leaders could get rid of some employees and stop some work, but would have to undergo a “particularized assessment” to ensure that the agency could still carry out statutory obligations.