The Trump administration secured a major win Friday morning as the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit vacated a lower court injunction that had blocked President Trump’s attempt to dissolve the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB).
Trump’s Move to End CFPB
On February 1, Trump removed Biden-appointed CFPB director Rohit Chopra and installed Russell Vought as acting director.
Vought promptly ordered staff to cease operations and shut down headquarters. That sparked a lawsuit from the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) and other plaintiffs.
In March, Judge Amy Berman Jackson of the U.S. District Court for D.C. issued a preliminary injunction blocking Trump’s move.
After initially narrowing its scope, the injunction was reinstated following CFPB’s attempt at a drastic reduction-in-force plan to slash most of the agency’s workforce.
Appeals Court Vacates Injunction
On Friday, the D.C. Circuit ruled that Jackson’s injunction should be vacated, siding with the Trump administration’s argument that her order was overly broad and interfered with the president’s authority to implement policy directives.
Long-Standing Criticism of CFPB
Created by the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act and funded directly by the Federal Reserve, the CFPB is the only federal agency exempt from congressional appropriations.
Critics have long accused it of being unaccountable and operating as a partisan political tool.
A 2015 Investor’s Business Daily report accused the CFPB of funneling millions in settlement funds to poverty groups tied to Democrats, effectively running a “slush fund.”
The Heritage Foundation also warned the bureau was using its so-called “Civil Penalty Fund” for political shakedowns targeting financial institutions.
In October 2022, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals declared the CFPB’s funding structure unconstitutional, saying its “perpetual insulation from Congress’ appropriations power renders the Bureau no longer accountable to the Congress and ultimately, to the people.”
