Democrats promise to combat the shutdown of the consumer watchdog agency

A group of 191 House and Senate Democrats sent a letter to Russell Vought, the recently installed Director of the Office of Management and Budget, and Finance Minister Scott Bessent, who urged them to turn the course on actions targeting the country’s consumer financial Watchdog Agency.

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

Democrats call in their letter to Musk’s Doge employees, some of whom were physically opened the agency’s federal office and requested access to its industry and consumer data to be extracted from CFPB.

“Your efforts to dismantle CFPB are dangerous and we will fight them on each trip. We ask that you remove Mr. Musk’s operatives from CFPB, restore all internal and external systems and operations and allow CFPB to continue to continue do its jobs to protect American consumers, ”the Democrats wrote in their letter.

The letter is signed by all Senate Democrats and the two independent – Senator Angus King of Maine and Senator Bernie Sanders from Vermont – like Caucus with them.

Under comments Monday from the Oval Office, President Donald Trump said CFPB was “very important to get rid of” and that the organization was “set up to destroy some very good people.”

When asked if his goal was to get rid of the agency completely, Trump answered affirmingly.

“I want to say yes because we are trying to get rid of waste, fraud and abuse,” Trump said.

Democrats in their letter argue that the efforts that sideline the economic watchdog will harm consumers and are potentially illegal.

“The Trump administration has effectively fired the economic policeman at the beat and declared open season for predator lenders and scam artists who work to steal Americans’ money and threaten their financial security,” the Democrats said in the letter.

“No matter how bad someone has been cheated and no matter how extensive scams, the administration has declared that the financial police should simply stand by and see while giant networks of lenders are cheating US consumers,” the letter continued. “This is especially expensive for humans whose claims of illegal forced auctions, car offenses or a banking are currently being investigated by the Agency.”

The letter comes when the Congress Democrats, who are in the minority in both parliament and the Senate, have promised to use their limited tools to challenge what they say are illegal overreach of the Trump administration and Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency across a number of agencies , including USAID, Federal Emergency Management Agency, National Institutes of Health and CFPB.

The National Treasury Employee Association brought two litigation this week against Vought, which challenged both the acquisition of CFPB and Doges access to its items.

The letter is led by Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, who is the top Democrat of the Senate’s bank committee and helped create CFPB after 2008 Financial Crash. In the days since Elon Musk published “RIP CFPB” on X, Warren has been a vocal defender of the agency.

Since it was created in 2011, CFPB says it has itching nearly $ 21 billion back to US consumers who address complaints all from banking fees to credit cards to student loans.

On Tuesday, Warren Federal Reserve President Jerome Powell, who performed for the Senate Bank Committee, asked to work with Congress to keep Musk’s team out of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

“If CFPB is not there investigating these giant banks to make sure they follow the laws, do not cheat consumers, who is doing that job?” Warren asked Powell during the hearing.

“I can’t say any other federal regulators,” Powell replied.

“None. In other words, thanks to ‘co-president’ musk and CFPB-functioning director Vought, Wall Street Banks no longer have to show the bank examiners that they are not illegal to open accounts that people did not ask for, just as what happened to Wells Fargo or charging illegal unwanted fees like Bank of America did, ”Warren said.

But some Republicans in the panel pushed back on this question mark and said that laws that regulate banks have not changed, and Elon Musk simply performs the work that Trump promised on the campaign.

“There has been a lot of conversation, both in and out of this hearing room today, conversations about a co-president referring to Elon Musk, referring to the work DOGE performs,” ​​said Alabama-Republican Senator Katie Britt. “I think it’s important to remember that President Trump was running on this. I mean he said we should look for wasting spending across our government.”

Democrats say in their letter that they will fight to defend the agency.

“We are all beating earlier efforts to gut this agency, and we will fight this latest attack in Congress, the courts and the public,” the legislators wrote. “It will fail.”