Hatchet Job on CFPB Even Worse in the Details

Declarations in a case reveal a haphazard hobbling of the consumer protection agency.

by David Dayen April 29, 2025

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.

SNIP
The idea that a particularized assessment of every employee and statutory authority could be done in less than a week stretches credulity. The leadership team got key facts wrong in representations to the court, like misnaming what division the Office of Community Affairs sits in, suggesting that the process was less than meticulous. And attorneys who worked on the RIF literally copy-pasted from Google the results of a search for “CFPB organic statute” when asked what CFPB was required to carry out.
https://prospect.org/justice/2025-04-29-hatchet-job-cfpb-musk-doge/


Did you see that? Copied and pasted from Google regarding what was required to be carried out...no words!