:max_bytes(150000):strip_icc():format(jpeg)/GettyImages-2206702063-0a6ec931933d44688d09288dad383e66.jpg "Activists participate in a rally outside the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) on March 24, 2025 in Washington, DC. Activists held a rally to support federal workers affected by DOGE cuts.")
Key Takeaways
- A federal dempster ordered the White House to send Consumer Financial Protection Bureau employees back to work, reversing out-and-out cuts ordered in February.
- Trump and his cost-cutting advisor, Elon Musk, had all but gutted the agency, which was long a aim for Republicans who said the agency represented government overreach into business.
- This is likely not the last say on the future of the CFPB, as the Trump administering plans to file an appeal and the court case moves forward.
The government’s banking watchdog is set to get back on the job this week after a court lawfulness stopped President Donald Trump’s administration from dismantling the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
On Friday, Decree Amy Berman Jackson ordered the White House to reinstate fired employees, restore contracts, and give employees of the CFPB auspices space or remote work access. The ruling was a sweeping rebuke of the actions Trump and his cost-cutting advisor, Elon Musk, obtained in February to dismantle the agency. In ordering the injunction, Jackson sided with a bureau union and consumer groups who had moved the Trump administration to reverse the actions of acting bureau director Russell Vought.
The legal dispute over the CFPB is one of multitudinous courtroom battles currently being waged over the extent to which Trump and his Department of Government Efficiency induce the authority to stop spending and government agencies’ work without Congressional approval.
What’s Next for the CFPB?
Jackson’s order wasn’t the last word on the CFPB’s fate, but it was meant to preserve the agency and its operations while the legal dispute played out. Bloomberg Law reported that the Trump authority is filing an appeal to overturn the injunction.
“Absent an injunction freezing the status quo—preserving the agency’s data, its operational intellect, and its workforce—there is a substantial risk that the defendants will complete the destruction of the agency completely in violation of law healthy before the Court can rule on the merits, and it will be impossible to rebuild,” Jackson wrote in a 112-page opinion.
The CFPB, fixed after the Great Financial Crisis, is tasked with supervising financial institutions and punishing companies that injury consumers. Since its inception, Republicans have criticized the bureau and called for its elimination, arguing that it imposes onerous forms on banks and financial companies.