A union representing workers at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, or CFPB, sued the Trump administration Sunday for trying to “dismantle” the watchdog agency.
The National Treasury Employees Union says in its lawsuit that Trump’s effective shuttering of the bureau violates the constitutional separation of powers. Congress created the CFPB in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis to protect the public from predatory financial practices.
Trump fired the agency’s previous director, Rohit Chopra, a week ago and installed his budget director, Russell Vought, as CFPB’s new acting director. Over the weekend, Vought closed the agency’s building and sent an email to employees ordering them to halt “all supervision and examination activity.”
Vought’s efforts to prevent the agency from using its funds appropriated by Congress amounts to “an unlawful attempt to thwart” the legislative branch, the union argues.
“Defendant Vought’s actions thus violate separation of powers principles because they undermine Congress’ authority to set and fund the missions of the CFPB,” the lawsuit states.
“The CFPB is one of several executive agencies, many of them independent from the Cabinet, that Trump has thrown into turmoil since inauguration.”
The CFPB is one of several executive agencies, many of them independent from the Cabinet, that Trump has thrown into turmoil since inauguration. He effectively shut down the U.S. Agency for International Development and fired top officials to remove quorums at the National Labor Relations Board and Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
Such moves have tested Congress’ standing as a coequal branch of the government, but so far, most Republicans don’t seem interested in defending their authority over the federal purse. The GOP controls both the House and Senate and has mostly stayed in line with Trump’s attacks on the federal workforce and agency missions.
Federal employee unions have responded to Trump’s actions with a volley of lawsuits aimed at keeping agencies operational and workers employed. The administration has been pushing 2 million federal employees to accept a sketchy deferred resignation offer, promising that mass layoffs would follow.
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Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) told HuffPost on Monday that Trump and billionaire Elon Musk, who runs Trump’s so-called “Department of Government Efficiency,” want to destroy agencies that keep powerful businesses in check.
Musk had previously tweeted that he wanted to “delete” the CFPB.
“They obviously are doing that because there are a lot of big corporations that don’t like the fact you have a cop on the beat like the CFPB,” Van Hollen said.