Vought Tells CFPB to Do Nothing While Headquarters Is Closed (1)

Consumer Financial Protection Bureau employees were ordered to do no work while the agency’s Washington headquarters is closed.

Acting CFPB Director Russell Vought said in an all-staff email Monday morning that employees shouldn’t do any agency-related work while the building is locked down. Employees were instructed to alert Mark Paoletta, the chief legal officer at the Office of Management and Budget, if any urgent matters arise.

Along with serving as acting CFPB director, Vought is OMB’s director. Vought was appointed acting CFPB director on Feb. 7.

“Otherwise, employees should stand down from performing any work task,” Vought’s email said. “Thank you for your attention on this matter,” it said.

Vought’s email notably referred to the CFPB as the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection, a callback to a change in name that Mick Mulvaney temporarily put in place when served as acting director during the first Trump administration.

The email came just a day after he told CFPB employees that they were barred from the Washington headquarters for the week.

CFPB staff who were in the building Sunday were escorted out and others who attempted to collect belongings Sunday were barred from entering it, multiple sources said.

Paoletta emailed enforcement staff this morning saying that there are new enforcement priorities and that, if lawyers moved forward on any existing cases, it would be considered “insubordination and we will take appropriate personnel action.”

‘CFPB RIP’

It’s unclear whether workers from Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, who entered the building Feb. 6, are barred from entering CFPB headquarters.

Musk posted “CFPB RIP” along with a gravestone emoji on his X social media platform Feb. 7. Musk is developing X into a payments platform in collaboration with Visa Inc.

The moves appear to be a prelude to essentially shuttering the CFPB, following a playbook that was deployed to stop operations at the US Agency for International Development.

One major difference between the two agencies: Congress appropriated funds for USAID while the CFPB is independently funded through the Federal Reserve.

Dodd-Frank Mandate

Along with expanding the stop-work order at the CFPB in his Feb. 8 email, Vought also announced that he would seek no funding from the Fed for the upcoming quarter.

The agency is mandated to do supervision and conduct some mandatory rulemakings by the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act, so a permanent halt on those activities would violate that law.

Paoletta appears to have been assigned to serve as the CFPB’s chief legal officer and has a CFPB email account.

Paoletta didn’t respond to a request for comment.

President Donald Trump described Paoletta as a “conservative warrior” when he announced the pick for OMB’s top lawyer in December. Paoletta is closely aligned with the Trump administration’s push to slash the federal workforce.

The CFPB didn’t respond to a request for comment.

The agency is barred from any outside communications under an order put in place by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, when he briefly served as acting CFPB director, and expanded by Vought on Feb. 8.

Vought’s order put a hold on all CFPB enforcement, supervision, rulemaking, and other operations.

Lawsuits

CFPB employees have begun to push back against the Trump administration’s efforts to hobble the agency.

The National Treasury Employees Union, which represents CFPB workers, filed a pair of lawsuits Sunday.

One seeks to block DOGE’s access to CFPB information systems, including those containing employee data. The second aims to stop the Trump administration’s efforts to defund and shutter the CFPB.

The NTEU is represented by its own attorneys in both lawsuits.

The cases are Nat’l Treasury Emps. Union v. Vought, D.D.C., No. 1:25-cv-00380, Complaint 2/9/25 and Nat’l Treasury Emps. Union v. Vought, D.D.C., No. 1:25-cv-00381, Complaint 2/9/25