- What's at Stake: The court filing comes after Vought said last week that he will not request funding for the CFPB and that the agency will run out of the money in early 2026.
- Key Insight: The district court issued a broad preliminary injunction in March that prohibited the Trump administration from mass firings and canceling contracts, among other issues.
- Expert Quote: "The plaintiffs therefore seek this Court's clarification that the defendants may not justify a violation of the preliminary injunction by refusing to request that funding," – Jennifer D. Bennett, an attorney at Gupta Wessler LLC
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's union has asked a district court to rule on whether the agency's acting director, Russell Vought, violated a preliminary injunction by refusing to seek funding for the bureau.
Vought
On Sunday, the National Treasury Employees Union filed a motion seeking clarification from Judge Amy Berman Jackson of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. Jackson issued a
"Because the defendants have announced that they intend to stop complying with the Court's injunction, clarification is appropriate," the NTEU's attorney Jennifer D. Bennett stated in the
Though a panel of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals vacated the injunction in August and allowed the CFPB
Vought has taken a novel interpretation of the statute governing the CFPB's funding in the Dodd-Frank Act. Last week the CFPB also informed the court that the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel had determined that the CFPB may not legally request funding because the Federal Reserve is not profitable.
In the union's motion to clarify, Bennett wrote that "neither the CFPB, the Federal Reserve, nor any court has ever adopted," the view.
"The Federal Reserve has billions of dollars in 'combined earnings,' so there is no basis for the defendants' assertion that it lacks 'earnings' to fund the CFPB," the motion reads.
Vought, who also heads the Trump administration's Office of Management and Budget, has
Last week at an all-hands meeting, the CFPB's acting director of enforcement told staff that all of the CFPB's active litigation would be transferred to the Justice Department along with work done by the legal division. Enforcement attorneys were told they may be furloughed because the CFPB is going to run out of money by year-end, according to several people on the call.
At issue before the district court is whether the recent actions violate the March injunction.
Vought, a key architect of Project 2025, the conservative policy blueprint for overhauling the federal government,
Vought also had notified the court last week that the CFPB "anticipates … exhausting its currently available funds in early 2026." He refused to request additional funding from the Federal Reserve, which the union stated needs to be addressed to "ensure the Bureau's continued operation in compliance with this Court's preliminary injunction."
Notably, in a separate case on Friday, a Rhode Island district court found that the Trump administration cannot dismantle federal agencies responsible for, among other things, funding museums and libraries, mediating labor disputes, supporting minority-owned businesses, and preventing and ending homelessness.
In that Rhode Island case, the district court addressed a similar question regarding how wide a berth the executive branch may be given in interpreting a Congressional statute. In that case, the district court ruled that the administration overstepped those bounds.
The Rhode Island district court ruled in favor of 21 states that had sued the Trump administration and the court determined that the Trump administration "acted without constitutional or statutory authority," and it issued a permanent injunction to stop the administration from dismantling federal agencies.
