Budget Boss Russ Vought Tells all CFPB Staff to “Stop Work”

Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Director Russ Vought is also the interim Director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). The CFPB is under review by DOGE and on Monday morning Russ Vought told CFPB staff not to come to work. {Background Here}

Vought sent an email to employees this morning saying they should “not perform any work tasks.” They were directed to contact the top lawyer for the Office of Management and Budget “to get approval in writing before performing any work task.”

Vought is also serving as the bureau’s acting director. The previous director, Rohit Chopra, was fired by Trump, a Republican, on Feb. 1. Vought’s message followed one on Saturday evening that ordered the bureau to “cease all supervision and examination activity.”

(Reuters) – President Donald Trump’s newly installed chief of the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau told all of the agency’s staff on Monday to stay away from the office and do no work, according to an email reviewed by Reuters.

The move followed a weekend decision to shutter the CFPB’s Washington headquarters, idling a federal agency of nearly 2,000 workers tasked with enforcing consumer financial laws.

“Employees should not come into the office,” acting CFPB Director Russell Vought said in an email to all staff. “Please do not perform any work tasks.”

Vought, a longtime budget hawk, took control of the agency on Friday. He is architect of the right-wing policy manifesto known as Project 2025, which called for the CFPB’s abolition.

Efforts by President Donald Trump’s administration to neutralize the agency escalated over the weekend as billionaire Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency gained full access to CFPB computer systems. Vought ordered a stop to all oversight of consumer financial companies. (read more)

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CPFB) was originally created by congress (Elizabeth Warren lead) as a quasi-constitutional watchdog agency to reach into the banking and financial system, under the guise of oversight, and extract money by fining entities for CFPB defined regulatory and/or compliance violations

Essentially, the CFPB is a congressionally authorized far-left extortion scheme in the banking sector.  The CFPB levies fines; the fines generate income; however, unlike traditional fines that go to the U.S. treasury, the CFBP fines are then redistributed to left-wing organizations to help fund their political activism. {GO DEEP}

“Elon Musk and Russ Vought aren’t just testing the limits of the law — they’re shattering them, daring anyone to stop them,” said Leah Greenberg, co-executive director of the activist group Indivisible. “This attack on the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is illegal, unconstitutional, and a blatant power grab by billionaires who want to rig the system even further in their favor.” (link)