Appeals Court Partially Overturns Block on Trump’s Efforts to Downsize CFPB

A federal appeals court will allow the Trump administration to further shrink the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau but not dismantle it entirely. The Friday evening order from the US DC Circuit Court of Appeals is a partial win for President Donald Trump, who campaigned on abolishing the bureau, which was created by Congress in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. It will give his political appointees wide leeway to shrink the CFPB footprint significantly. However, the order makes clear that the administration cannot trim the bureau down so much that it cannot carry out its statutory functions, leaving in place some restrictions imposed by a trial court judge that curtailed the president’s ability to fully dismantle the agency

President Donald Trump’s administration could lay off workers at the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), but not abolish the agency, an appeals court ruled on Friday. The agency, created in the aftermath of the global financial crisis to police and regulate the consumer finance sector, has been in the crosshairs of Republicans, who have criticized it as being unaccountable and exceeding its legal authority. Trump told reporters in February that the agency should be eliminated. A federal judge in March blocked the administration and tech billionaire Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency from pursuing efforts to dismantle the CFPB, including mass dismissals, contract terminations, office closures and an agency-wide work stoppage.

A federal appeals court partially overturned a lower court’s ruling on the Trump administration’s efforts to dismantle the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, allowing the agency to be reduced in size. A three-judge panel on the U.S Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit issued an order Friday overturning part of a lower federal circuit court judge’s preliminary injunction over the Trump administration efforts to cut down the CFPB.