February 12, 2025

ABC News: Democrats vow to fight shutdown of consumer watchdog agency

A group of 191 House and Senate Democrats sent a letter to Russell Vought, the newly installed director of the Office of Management and Budget, and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, calling on them to reverse course on actions targeting the nation's consumer financial watchdog agency.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) was created by Congress in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis to safeguard Americans against unfair business practices. It has been brought to a virtual standstill after Vought, who last week was named the agency's acting director, and Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency took control of the agency. Vought has since issued a stop-work order to nearly all CFPB staff.

Democrats, in their letter, are calling for Musk's DOGE employees, some of whom physically accessed the agency's federal office and requested access to its industry and consumer data, to be pulled out of the CFPB.

"Your efforts to dismantle the CFPB are dangerous, and we will fight them at every turn. We ask that you remove Mr. Musk's operatives from the CFPB, restore all internal and external systems and operations, and allow the CFPB to continue to do its job of protecting American consumers," the Democrats wrote in their letter.

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Read the full article here.


By:  Allison Pecorin and Elizabeth Schulze
Source: ABC News