Politics

A Federal Court Blocked Trump From Eliminating Two-Thirds of the Consumer Watchdog’s Staff

By Mike Harper · June 22, 2026

The Trump administration wanted to cut the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s workforce by roughly two-thirds. A federal appeals court said no.

The US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit on Friday blocked the administration’s latest plan to slash CFPB staffing, delivering another legal setback in the White House’s protracted campaign to shrink or eliminate the agency. The CFPB’s pre-inauguration workforce stood at approximately 1,200 employees. The administration’s most aggressive proposal would have reduced that to as few as 200. A revised plan, submitted in March after earlier legal defeats, targeted roughly 556 positions. The court rejected both.

The ruling keeps intact the agency that was created after the 2008 financial crash to police consumer financial products — mortgages, credit cards, student loans, bank accounts, and debt collection practices. When a consumer disputes a charge, faces aggressive debt collection, or believes a lender acted unfairly, the CFPB is one of the few federal agencies with the power to step in.

The administration’s efforts to gut the bureau have been methodical. Acting Director Russell Vought closed the agency’s headquarters building on his first day and ordered staff to stop working. Later, the agency reassigned all remaining employees to its Washington headquarters — a move expected to trigger resignations from staff who cannot relocate. Trump nominated a vocal CFPB critic to lead the agency permanently. Congress cut the bureau’s budget in half.

Senator Elizabeth Warren, who conceived the agency before it was created by Congress, responded to the ruling.

“Courts will have a full chance to review Vought’s most recent unlawful plan to sideline the CFPB by firing most of its remaining staff.”

Trump and senior officials have called the CFPB a “politicized burden on free enterprise” and argued it should be abolished. Democrats and consumer advocates say dismantling the agency amounts to a giveaway to the financial industry at the expense of ordinary Americans.

The case now returns to the district court, where the administration will continue arguing that its revised staffing plan should be allowed to proceed. For CFPB employees, the ruling buys time. For consumers who rely on the agency’s enforcement actions against junk fees, predatory lending, and illegal debt collection, it keeps the bureau’s structure intact — for now.

The Supreme Court ruled in 2020 that the CFPB’s structure is constitutional. What remains unresolved is whether the executive branch can effectively kill an agency Congress created — not by repealing it, but by firing everyone who works there.