US Senators Request Response from CFPB Regarding “Shutting Down” Agency
October 30, 2025 / Source: US Senate, Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs
October 27, 2025
The Honorable Russell Vought
Acting Director
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau
1700 G St. NW
Washington, DC 20552
Dear Acting Director Vought:
We write with serious concern about your blunt admission last week, in an interview across the
street from the White House, that you plan to “close down” the Consumer Financial Protection
Bureau (CFPB) “within the next two or three months.”1
These comments are particularly
concerning given that a federal court has specifically blocked you from illegally shutting down
the agency.2
You have also let the fiscal year pass without having requested any funding for the
CFPB to perform its work, an unprecedented approach that threatens to leave the agency unable
to fulfill its many statutory obligations on behalf of consumers across the country.3
Your
continued attempts to shutter the CFPB are illegal, and American families stand to pay the price.
The Trump Administration’s lawyers have spent most of this year trying to convince federal
courts that you have no plan to eliminate the CFPB.4
But your actions have made it hard for
anyone to take those claims seriously. In February 2025, just after Elon Musk posted “CFPB
RIP” on social media,5
you announced that you would not be requesting any further funding for
the agency to carry out its responsibilities.6
The same day, you issued a series of directives to
CFPB staff instructing them “to ‘cease all supervision and examination activity,’ ‘cease all
stakeholder engagement,’ pause all pending investigations, not issue any public communications
and pause ‘enforcement actions.’”7
A federal district court quickly issued an order blocking you from shutting down the agency after finding that the Administration was “fully engaged in a
hurried effort to dismantle and disable the agency entirely.”8
Then, after the injunction was
modified in April, you tried to fire nearly all of the agency’s 1,700 employees.9
The district court
again blocked that action, finding that there was cause to believe the Administration was
executing a plan that would “decimate the agency and render it unable to comply with its
statutory duties” and could leave “no agency standing.”10
As the litigation has continued, the Administration has insisted that there is no “plan to close the
Bureau and thus prevent it from performing its statutory duties” and that the agency’s
“leadership made clear by early March that CFPB would remain open and continue to perform
all functions required by law.”11 Just this week, they even emphasized your “renunciation of any
intent to shut down the Bureau” earlier this year.12 But your brazen admission last week confirms
what has been apparent all along: You are working to shut down the CFPB in violation of the
law.
Since Congress created the CFPB in the wake of the 2008 financial crash, the agency has
returned over $21 billion directly to working families.13 You should be focused on reducing costs
for Americans across the country, as President Trump promised he would do on Day One of his
Administration. Instead, you are making it easier for big banks and giant corporations to cheat
and scam families across the country, declaring open season on American consumers.
To help us fulfill our legislative responsibilities with regard to the operation of the CFPB, we ask
that you respond to the following questions no later than October 31, 2025:
Despite a federal court order barring you from shutting down the CFPB, you confirmed
that you still plan to try to close the agency in two or three months. Has the agency
What is the current unobligated balance of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau
Fund? Without additional funding, on what date will the Bureau run out of funding at its
current spending rate?
What is the current unobligated balance of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s
Civil Penalty Fund?
prepared specific plans for reductions in force, for terminating contracts, for reducing
enforcement action, or for winding down other work in that timeframe? Please provide
copies of any relevant memoranda.
1Reuters, “White House budget director plans to shut US consumer finance watchdog within months,” Nandita
Bose, Doina Chiacu, and Douglas Gillison, October 15, 2025,
https://www.reuters.com/business/world-at-work/white-house-budget-director-vought-says-over-10000-federalworkers-could-be-laid-2025-10-15/.
2 ABC News, “Judge blocks dismantling of Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, orders employees reinstated,”
Peter Charalambous, March 28, 2025, https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/judge-blocks-dismantling-consumerfinancial-protection-bureau-orders/story?id=120277275.
3Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, “Funds transfer requests,”
https://www.consumerfinance.gov/about-us/budget-strategy/funds-transfer-requests/.
4 National Treasury Employees Union v. Russell Vought, Opposition to Petition for Rehearing En Banc, October 21,
2025, https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cadc.41898/gov.uscourts.cadc.41898.01208787949.0.pdf.
5Tweet by Elon Musk, February 7, 2025, https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1887979940269666769.
6Tweet by Russ Vought, February 8, 2025, https://x.com/russvought/status/1888423503537360986.
7 NBC News, “Russell Vought, CFPB’s new acting head, issues directives to halt parts of bureau activity,” Katherine
Doyle, Raquel Coronell Uribe, and Megan Lebowitz, February 8, 2025, https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/doge/russell-vought-consumer-financial-protection-bureau-trump-rcna191356.
8 National Treasury Employees Union v. Russell Vought, Memorandum Opinion, March 28, 2025,
gov.uscourts.dcd.277287.87.0_1.pdf
9 AP News, “Nearly 90% of Consumer Financial Protection Bureau cut as Trump’s government downsizing
continues,” Chris Megerian, April 17, 2025, https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-doge-cfpb-elonmusk456b747c367fccbcf3b74d2893cd1a35; National Treasury Employees Union v. Russell Vought, Declaration of
Mark Paoletta, April 18, 2025,
https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.277287/gov.uscourts.dcd.277287.109.0.pdf.
10 National Treasury Employees Union v. Russell Vought, Order, April 18, 2025,
gov.uscourts.dcd.277287.113.0_1.pdf
11 National Treasury Employees Union v. Russell Vought, Brief for Appellants, April 25, 2025,
gov.uscourts.cadc.41898.01208734082.0.pdf.
12 National Treasury Employees Union v. Russell Vought, Opposition to Petition for Rehearing En Banc, October
21, 2025, gov.uscourts.cadc.41898.01208787949.0.pdf
13Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, “The CFPB,” https://www.consumerfinance.gov/about-us/the-bureau.