Lawsuit Challenges Trump Administration’s Illegal Effort to Shut Down CFPB

February 13, 2025 — Press Release

Update: On Feb. 14, Judge Amy Berman Jackson ordered that the defendants cannot delete any CFPB records or data, cannot terminate CFPB employees, and cannot return CFPB funds pending a preliminary injunction hearing scheduled for March 3.

National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU), National Consumer Law Center, National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), Virginia Poverty Law Center, CFPB Employee Association, and Pastor Eva Steege Join in Bringing the Case

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, Public Citizen Litigation Group, Gupta Wessler LLP, and the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU), representing NTEU, National Consumer Law Center, National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), Virginia Poverty Law Center, CFPB Employee Association, and Pastor Eva Steege, filed a lawsuit against the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) and CFPB Acting Director Russell Vought, to challenge the unlawful dismantling of the CFPB.

Established by Congress in response to the 2008 financial crisis, the CFPB is tasked with overseeing financial institutions and protecting consumers from predatory practices. Since its inception, the agency has recovered billions of dollars for American citizens and helped create a fairer, more transparent financial marketplace. Congress exercised its constitutional authority to regulate commerce when it created the CFPB, ensuring that it operates independently to fulfill its mandate.

In defiance of Congress’s role in our constitutional system and the separation of powers, President Trump has openly declared his intent to “totally eliminate” the CFPB, and the defendants are acting quickly to carry out that direction. Their actions have caused mass confusion and imposed significant and irreparable harm on consumers across the country. 

Among them is plaintiff Reverend Eva Steege, an 83-year-old retired Lutheran pastor currently in hospice care, who has been directly impacted by the administration’s recent actions to curtail CFPB operations. After decades of public service, Reverend Steege had been working with CFPB staff to resolve longstanding issues with her Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) application, which could provide her with over $15,000 in refunds from previous loan payments. However, on February 9, 2025, the administration moved to severely limit CFPB operations, forcing the cancellation of her crucial follow-up meeting and leaving her without vital assistance during her final months.

“The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau fills a unique and essential role in our economy, helping people who have nowhere else to turn when they have been defrauded and abused by powerful financial companies that don’t act within the law,” said Richard Dubois, executive director of the National Consumer Law Center. “The CFPB takes the side of ordinary people and honest businesses, and without it we could return to the days before the 2008 financial crisis – when unsafe and predatory lending practices led to the loss of eight million jobs and four million homes and made the CFPB a necessity. We need a functioning CFPB to protect working families, and it must be restored.”

NTEU represents more than 1,000 frontline employees. “We will not stand by and let this administration destroy the agency that protects seniors, veterans, active-duty military and all American consumers,” said NTEU National President Doreen Greenwald. “The employees of the CFPB are nonpartisan professionals who swore an oath to uphold the Constitution, and they believe in the mission of their agency. Locking them out of their jobs or firing them is a gift to predatory lenders and unscrupulous actors who prey on consumers.”

Commenting on the lawsuit, Public Citizen Litigation Group director Allison Zieve said: “The Trump administration is devastating the ability of legal services organizations that depend on the CFPB to provide consumers with the help exercising their rights, depriving researchers and the public of important information, and upending the lives of employees.”

“This is a tragedy for American consumers, and it is lawless. The Bureau was created by Congress to ensure a fair marketplace and protect the financial security of everyday Americans, helping them avoid fraud, predatory lending, and abusive financial practices, “ said Deepak Gupta, founding principal of Gupta Wessler LLP and former senior counsel at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. “The President and his acting director lack the authority to suspend the agency’s work, defund its operations, or halt enforcement of consumer protection laws. We seek an immediate order restoring the CFPB’s operations and emergency relief to prevent further harm to consumers.”