By: Patrick Woodall
Russell Vought’s latest salvo in his ongoing attack on the CFPB aims to close its doors for good by starving the bureau of funding by the end of 2025. Vought — head of the White House budget office and temporary director of the CFPB — was the ringmaster of Project 2025 and has been Trump’s federal agency destroying kingpin and public employee firing hatchet man all while trying to unlawfully shut down the CFPB since the moment he was appointed. The latest legal flimflammery says that the CFPB cannot draw its statutorily designated funding from the Federal Reserve because the Fed is losing money.
Vought is turning off the funding to try and permanently stop the CFPB’s successful efforts to hold big banks and financial predators accountable for ripping off and deceiving their customers. In public, Vought has boldly stated his intent to shut down the CFPB, but in a series of court cases he and his minions have denied the patently obvious effort to shutter the agency. In the most recent court filing, the Vought-controlled CFPB is making the absurd claim that it can only request funding out of the Federal Reserve’s profits.
This argument was tried by corporate shills last year, and quickly countered by strong arguments from legal experts across the political spectrum. Georgetown University Law Professor Adam Levitin has pointed out the nonsensical and convoluted nature of these arguments again. Vought’s desire to strangle the CFPB and give a green light to predatory and abusive practices is abundantly clear, but this ridiculous legal salvo should have no chance of standing up.