Trump’s acting CFPB chief cuts off funding, suspends some oversight

Russell Vought, US President Donald Trump’s newly anointed head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, says he’s cut off the agency from new funding and has reportedly told staff to suspend all activities.

“I have notified the Federal Reserve that CFPB will not be taking its next draw of unappropriated funding because it is not ‘reasonably necessary’ to carry out its duties,” Vought said in a Feb. 9 X post.

“The Bureau’s current balance of $711.6 million is in fact excessive in the current fiscal environment,” he added.

The agency was set up to regulate financial companies such as banks and money transfer firms to stop them from partaking in abusive and predatory actions, such as those that led to the 2008 financial crisis. It also takes complaints about US-based crypto exchanges.

The CFPB has also been a target of the crypto industry. In 2023, it proposed supervising crypto wallet providers but was later pressured into dropping the idea when it finalized the rule late last year. Still, tech trade groups sued the CFPB last month, alleging the rule was an “unlawful power grab.”

Reuters reported on Feb. 9 that Vought also sent a memo to CFPB staff to “cease all supervision and examination activity.” Politico reported the email told staff to stop all investigations, not to open any new ones, and to stop issuing rules, guidance and any public comments.

Staff were also reportedly told that the CFPB’s office would be closed this week and that they would have to work from home.

The CFPB is financed through budget requests to the Fed, as compared to the typical appropriations process that happens through Congress with other agencies.

“This spigot, long contributing to CFPB’s unaccountability, is now being turned off,” said Vought, who also directs the White House’s Office of Management and Budget and was appointed to head the CFPB on Feb. 7 — taking over from Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.

Related: CFPB proposes crypto firms refund users for funds lost to hacks 

He was also a co-author of Project 2025, an initiative from a right-wing think tank to reshape the US government and give more power to the president.

Dennis Kelleher, the co-founder of financial oversight advocacy group Better Markets, said in a Feb. 9 statement that Trump was throwing his own supporters “to the financial wolves” by “trying to kill the CFPB.”

“This latest attempt to kill the consumer bureau is another slap in the face for all Americans who depend on basic financial products and services, but especially for those in the multi-racial working-class coalition of Americans that helped elect President Trump,” he said.

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