The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is laying off more than 1,400 employees just days after a panel of judges said the bureau couldn't fire employees without an assessment of whether the workers are unnecessary to perform the bureau's legally mandated duties.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and Townstone Financial, a Chicago mortgage lender that it sued in 2020, jointly asked a federal court to vacate a settlement, saying the case should never have been filed.

One of the biggest culprits is the CFPB's qualified mortgage rule and the ever-expanding debt-to-income ratios allowed under it, writes a co-director of the AEI Housing Center.

Senate Banking Committee Chairman Tim Scott said Jonathan McKernan's final confirmation vote to lead the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is "imminent."

A three-judge panel will hear an appeal by the Trump administration of a preliminary injunction that has blocked the government from dissolving the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

Rep. Andy Barr, R-Ky., who chairs the House Financial Services Subcommittee on Financial Institutions, called the CFPB under the Biden administration and former Director Rohit Chopra an "Orwellian predator."

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has rehired more than 100 fire employees, but the union claims dozens of employees have not been reinstated in violation of a federal court order.

Spending cuts at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau are the latest in a rash of reductions at the agency, complicating the regulatory future.

Among the resignations are Mark McArdle, who was instrumental in creating the Qualified Mortgage rule, and Operations Chief of Supervision David Bleicken. It is unclear if the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau will hire anyone to succeed them.

The Trump administration intended to gut the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau through a mass workforce reduction, which could be a smoking gun in a court battle with the bureau's union.