On Friday, a judge placed a preliminary injunction on plans to shutter the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
This comes just one month after U.S. Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought announced that he had been made the acting director of the CFPB and that he would be suspending most of its operations.
Court documents allege that Vought quickly began efforts to dismantle and disable the agency entirely just two weeks after Trump named him as acting director, "firing all probationary and term-limited employees without cause, cutting off funding, terminating contracts, closing all offices, and implementing a reduction in force, or RIF, that would cover everyone else."
Created in 2010 in response to the foreclosure crisis, the bureau’s mission is to make sure consumers have access to reliable finances. It’s also not funded by taxpayer dollars.
WMAR-2 News spoke with Becky Coleman, who expressed the importance of the bureau's work.
“We get lots of money back into Americans pockets, individual Americans pockets. More money than it costs to run the agency really.”
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Coleman told WMAR that she had received an email to "stop all work," in accordance with direction from President Trump.
She said those kind of emails were not out of the ordinary, but this one just felt different.
“Stopping all work whatsoever is very abnormal. They also immediately closed the building.”
Since taking office, President Trump has expressed his desire to completely get rid of the agency, claiming it "was a very important thing to get rid of."
DOGE head Elon Musk agreed with Trump, and Vought claimed the agency has been a "woke and weaponized agency against disfavored industries and individuals for a long time."
On February 8, Vought took to X to state that the CFPB would not be taking its next draw of unappropriated funding because it is not "reasonably necessary" to carry out its duties.
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Under this injunction, the agency's existence will be maintained.
All of the agency's contracts, work force, data and operational capacity will be reinstated and preserved.
The employees' ability to perform statutorily required activities will also be protected.
