Latest to Draw DOGE Scrutiny: Consumer Financial Protection Bureau

In its latest frontal attack on the federal bureaucracy, the Trump administration is moving to drastically downsize the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

The agency, created during the Obama administration, has been temporarily rendered ineffective, as a Trump appointee ordered its employees to stop working Sunday.

Created by a 2010 act of Congress as an agency, the CFPB has long been accused by detractors of a lack of accountability, political bias, and unconstitutionality. Now, the agency appears to be on the chopping block.

On Friday, Russell Vought, the newly appointed head of the Office of Management and Budget, took over as acting director of the CFPB. One of his first actions as head of the agency was to turn down the hundreds of millions dollars it receives from the Federal Reserve.

“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,” wrote Vought on X. 

“The Bureau’s current balance of $711.6 million is in fact excessive in the current fiscal environment. This spigot, long contributing to CFPB’s unaccountability, is now being turned off.”

Unlike with other agencies, the Trump administration is able to easily turn off funding for CFPB because of one peculiar feature of the agency: It does not receive money directly from Congress’ appropriated funds, but rather from the Federal Reserve.

Onetime Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, who has criticized the CFPB for years, applauded Vought’s cancellation of the funding, writing on X, “The CFPB was funded by the Fed, not Congress, to avoid transparency & accountability. But the beauty is, that makes it possible to defund & wind down through executive action alone. A thing of beauty right here. Well done”

But why is the Trump administration trying to gut the CFPB?

Shortly after announcing his move to cut funding to the agency, Vought posted a Washington Examiner article, “Trump must cancel CFPB censorship ,” writing, “The CFPB has been a woke & weaponized agency against disfavored industries and individuals for a long time. This must end.”

The article argues the CFPB can easily apply heavy fines to any company it accuses of racial discrimination, with little accountability and a low burden of proof.

During the first Trump administration, the president undid the CFPB’s anti-racial discrimination regulations on auto loans, with his fellow Republicans arguing that the agency’s regulations were arbitrary and burdensome.

Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought on Friday became acting director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau as well. (Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images)

The CFPB has also come under fire in years past, with claims that its independent status is unconstitutional.

In 2020, the Seila Law LLC v. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau court case came before the Supreme Court, and the majority ruled that protections against the agency’s director being fired violated the constitutional separation of powers.

Vought went a step further in his reform of CFPB on Sunday, halting most operations and ordering approximately 1,700 CFPB workers to stay home.

Those actions, much like the downsizing of USAID before, have attracted the ire of Democrats.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., took to X on Monday, accusing Trump of trying to kill the CFPB as a favor to wealthy donors.

“President [Donald] Trump campaigned on lowering costs. But he’s letting billionaire Elon Musk and Project 2025 Architect Russ Vought kill the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau,” Warren wrote. “If they succeed, CEOs on Wall Street will once again be free to cheat you out of your savings.”

Republicans have remained mostly quiet on the move, although Elon Musk applauded it on X, writing, “CFPB has $711M? That money should be returned to taxpayers.”

The CFPB, for the moment virtually powerless, is just the latest federal agency to be put on the chopping block, as Trump grants Vought and Musk broad authority to restructure the federal bureaucracy.

The post Latest to Draw DOGE Scrutiny: Consumer Financial Protection Bureau appeared first on The Daily Signal .

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FEMA Diverting $59M to House Illegal Aliens Is ‘Betrayal of Highest Order,’ Lawmaker Says

Elon Musk claims that the Federal Emergency Management Agency allocated $59 million last week to house illegal aliens in New York City.  

The Department of Government Efficiency, an agency established to root out government waste, “discovered that FEMA sent $59M LAST WEEK to luxury hotels in New York City to house illegal migrants ,” Musk wrote on X on Monday.  

Rep. Mark Harris , R-N.C., called FEMA’s action a “betrayal” as residents of his state continue to recover from the devastation of last fall’s Hurricane Helene.   

“While North Carolinians are still struggling to rebuild their communities in the wake of Hurricane Helene , FEMA sent $59 million to New York for illegal aliens to be housed in luxury hotels. This is a betrayal of the highest order,” Harris told The Daily Signal.  

“FEMA is not only neglecting its mission to help Americans, but it is blatantly ignoring orders from the president,” the North Carolina congressman said. “The reckless bureaucracy and maladministration of this agency is disgraceful. An immediate and complete overhaul of FEMA is necessary.” 

On Jan. 24, Trump signed an executive order establishing the Federal Emergency Management Agency Review Council to review FEMA’s effectiveness in responding to natural disasters and to recommend needed changes to the agency.  

During a visit Saturday to western North Carolina to see the progress of the recovery efforts and the damage that still remained from Helene, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said major changes may be coming to FEMA.  

The Trump administration may eliminate “a lot of what FEMA is at the federal level and giving the authority, the dollars, and the money to the states so that they can deploy that,” Noem said.

“This task force will be looking at all those opportunities to make sure that those that are closest to these communities have the opportunity to make the decisions in how they respond,” she said.  

Musk claimed that designating millions of dollars to house illegal aliens “violated the law and is in gross insubordination to the president’s executive order,” referring to the president’s order to establish the task force that will review FEMA .  

FEMA “has lost mission focus,” Trump wrote in the executive order, “diverting limited staff and resources to support missions beyond its scope and authority, spending well over a billion dollars to welcome illegal aliens.”  

FEMA money, according to Musk, “is meant for American disaster relief and instead is being spent on high-end hotels for illegals! A clawback demand will be made today to recoup those funds.”  

The post FEMA Diverting $59M to House Illegal Aliens Is ‘Betrayal of Highest Order,’ Lawmaker Says appeared first on The Daily Signal .

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