A judge granted a motion Friday for a preliminary injunction in a lawsuit against the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and CFPB Acting Director Russell Vought.
In a 112-page opinion, the judge agreed that the defendants were trying to eliminate the agency.
Plaintiffs in the case are the National Treasury Employees Union or NTEU, the National Consumer Law Center, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the Virginia Poverty Law Center, the CFPB Employee Association, and Ted Steege.
The preliminary injunction was filed by NTEU, the Public Citizen Litigation Group, and Gupta Wessler LLP, attorneys for the plaintiffs.
“Dismantling the CFPB would have devastating consequences for consumers across the country,” Wendy Liu, an attorney with Public Citizen Litigation Group, said in a statement.“The Court’s order is a crucial step towards preserving the agency and blocking the Trump administration’s illegal attempt to shutter it.”
In the court’s opinion, U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson stated:
The defendants were fully engaged in a hurried effort to dismantle and disable the agency entirely – firing all probationary and term-limited employees without cause, cutting off funding, terminating contracts, closing all of the offices, and implementing a reduction in force (‘RIF’) that would cover everyone else. These actions were taken in complete disregard for the decision Congress made 15 years ago, which was spurred by the devastating financial crisis of 2008 and embodied in the United States Code, that the agency must exist and that it must perform specific functions to protect the borrowing public.
The CFPB is tasked with protecting consumers from predatory practices by financial institutions. Since its creation, the agency has recovered billions of dollars for American citizens and helped create a fairer, more transparent financial marketplace, said Liu.
In defiance of Congress’s role in the nation’s constitutional system and the separation of powers, President Trump openly declared his intent to “totally eliminate” the CFPB, and he and Secretary Vought acted quickly to carry out that direction, she said, adding their actions have caused mass confusion and imposed significant and irreparable harm on consumers across the country.
