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Federal Financial Watchdog Ordered to Cease Activity [1]
['Ryan Mac', 'Stacy Cowley', 'More About Ryan Mac', 'More About Stacy Cowley']
Date: 2025-02-08
Employees of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau were instructed to cease “all supervision and examination activity” and “all stakeholder engagement,” effectively stopping the agency’s operations, in an email from the director of the Office of Management and Budget, Russell Vought, on Saturday evening.
Mr. Vought, who was confirmed this week to lead the Office of Management and Budget, was on Friday named acting director of the consumer protection bureau, the federal government’s financial industry watchdog. In his email to staff on Saturday, he reaffirmed earlier instructions from the previous acting director, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who ordered last week that staff should not issue any new rules or guidance and cease all investigations.
“As acting director, I am committed to implementing the president’s policies, consistent with the law, and acting as a faithful steward of the bureau’s resources,” Mr. Vought wrote in the email, which was obtained by The New York Times.
The agency, created by Congress in 2011 as a financial industry watchdog, cannot be closed without congressional action, but its director can freeze most of its actions by halting enforcement, weakening or repealing regulations and softening its supervision of banks and other lenders. The agency did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment on Saturday.
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[1] Url:
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/08/us/politics/cfpb-vought-staff-finance-watchdog.html
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