36 Hours After Russell Vought Took Over Consumer Bureau, He Shut Its Operations

The day before Linda Wetzel finalized the purchase of her retirement home in Southport, N.C., in 2012—a cozy place where she could enjoy the ocean breeze through open windows at night—her lending bank unexpectedly hit her with an undisclosed fee. Searching through her mortgage documents, Ms. Wetzel found no mention of the charge.

Although frustrated, she paid the fee and promptly filed an online complaint with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The bank quickly launched an investigation, and within a month, she received a $5,600 refund check.https://svtoday.org/

“My first thought was just ‘thank you.’ I was in tears,” she recalled. “That money covered a year or two of mortgage savings—it was my little nest egg.”

Ms. Wetzel’s case represents just a small fraction of the bureau’s impact since its founding in 2011. Over the years, it has recovered $21 billion for consumers, reduced overdraft fees, reformed student loan servicing, overhauled mortgage regulations, and compelled banks and financial institutions to compensate fraud victims.

Now, however, the bureau’s future is uncertain.

On Friday, President Trump appointed Russell Vought as the agency’s acting director, just a day after Vought was confirmed to lead the Office of Management and Budget. Vought, a key architect of Project 2025—a conservative plan to reshape the federal government—had previously advocated for dismantling the consumer bureau.

Within 36 hours of taking charge, Vought threw the agency into disarray. On Saturday, he ordered its 1,700 employees to halt nearly all operations and announced plans to cut off its funding. By Sunday, he had shut down the bureau’s headquarters for the week. Employees attempting to retrieve their laptops were turned away at the door, according to agency staff.

“The bureau has long been a woke and weaponized agency targeting disfavored industries and individuals,” Vought wrote on X. “This must end.”

Established by Congress in the wake of the housing crisis that triggered the Great Recession, the consumer bureau quickly became one of Wall Street’s most formidable regulators, wielding the power to introduce new financial rules and penalize companies for violations in areas like mortgages, credit cards, student loans, and credit reporting—critical aspects of American consumers’ financial lives.

Its aggressive oversight made it a frequent target of criticism from banks and Republican lawmakers, placing it squarely in the sights of the Trump administration.

Opponents of the bureau have long pushed for its dissolution, though only Congress has the authority to dismantle it. On Friday, Elon Musk, a billionaire leading a government efficiency task force that has disrupted federal operations, posted “CFPB RIP” on X. Just hours earlier, his associates had reportedly gained access to the bureau’s headquarters and computer systems.

During Trump’s first term, despite Republican control of Congress, lawmakers failed to gather enough votes to eliminate the agency. However, some now appear eager to try again. On Sunday, Senator Bill Hagerty of Tennessee, a member of the Senate Banking Committee, criticized the bureau on CBS News’ Face the Nation, calling it a “rogue agency.”

“It’s been operating recklessly, far beyond its intended mandate,” Hagerty argued. “It’s time to rein it in.”

Senator Elizabeth Warren, a Massachusetts Democrat and a key advocate for the bureau’s creation—who even refers to herself as its “mom” on X—has spent years defending it against efforts to weaken or dismantle it.

“President Trump ran on a promise to help working families, but Russ Vought just signaled to Wall Street that it’s open season to scam them,” Warren said in a written statement on Sunday. “What Vought is doing is both illegal and dangerous, and we will fight back.”

The bureau’s policies have had a tangible impact on American finances. Its mortgage regulations curbed risky lending practices that contributed to the financial crisis, while its pressure on major banks led to significant reductions in overdraft fees. A recently finalized rule aims to cap most of these fees at $5.

Additionally, the agency has introduced measures to remove medical debt from credit reports and limit most credit card late fees to $8 per month—though legal challenges have delayed these rules from taking effect.

“The irony is striking: economic dissatisfaction led to the creation of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and economic dissatisfaction also led to Trump,” said Shayak Sarkar, a law professor at the University of California, Davis.

Sarkar noted that the Trump administration has prioritized attacks on agencies like USAID and the consumer bureau—both of which serve vulnerable populations—while bolstering agencies such as Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which has ramped up immigration crackdowns.

Although only Congress can fully dismantle the consumer bureau, its director has considerable power to reshape its operations. During Trump’s first term, he appointed Mick Mulvaney—then head of the same budget office Vought now leads—as the bureau’s acting director. Mulvaney, who once called the agency “a joke” in “a sick, sad kind of way,” drastically scaled back its enforcement and regulatory efforts.

The agency’s influence has fluctuated depending on which party controls the White House. Under Democratic administrations, it has pursued aggressive oversight, whereas during Trump’s first term, Mulvaney and his successor, Kathleen Kraninger, effectively placed the bureau in a state of dormancy, rolling back payday lending protections and cutting down enforcement actions.

However, current employees say Vought’s orders go far beyond the rollbacks of the previous Trump administration.

Of particular concern was his directive to “cease all supervision and examination activity.” While several federal regulators—including the FDIC, Federal Reserve, and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency—oversee banks, the consumer bureau is the sole regulator for nonbank lenders, which hold a significant share of the $13 trillion mortgage market.

Vought also declared his intent to sever the bureau’s funding, which comes directly from the Federal Reserve rather than the congressional budget process. The agency’s budget for the 2025 fiscal year is approximately $800 million, and the Fed transferred $245 million to it in January per its latest funding request.

On X, Vought stated that he had instructed the Fed to withhold the next funding allocation, arguing that it was “not ‘reasonably necessary’ to carry out its duties.”

Adam Levitin, a Georgetown Law professor specializing in financial regulation, suggested on Sunday that Vought’s actions may be unlawful. The statutes governing the consumer bureau mandate specific oversight responsibilities, making it unclear whether the acting director has the discretion to halt such activities.

“Vought is attempting a death blow rather than a slow bleed,” Levitin remarked. “He may lack the legal authority to do so, but that may not matter. The Trump administration has often relied on a blitzkrieg approach—creating fear, uncertainty, and chaos to dismantle regulatory agencies.”

On Saturday, a rally organized by the bureau’s staff union drew hundreds of participants outside its headquarters. Among them was a Maryland resident who, fearing retaliation from Trump allies, requested anonymity. She attended with her husband, a federal employee, to show solidarity with the agency’s workforce.

“I don’t think most people realize what the CFPB actually does,” she said. “The administration claims they’re shutting it down due to fraud, but the bureau’s entire mission is to protect people from fraud, junk fees, and predatory lenders.”

For retirees like Ms. Wetzel, the agency’s work has been a lifeline. With her $5,600 refund, she was able to replace the flooring in her new home. More importantly, the bureau’s swift response made her feel heard.

“It was such a relief to have the government say, ‘What the bank did was wrong—this is not how the law works,’” she said.