Democrats vow to fight shutdown of consumer watchdog agency

(WASHINGTON) — A group of 191 House and Senate Democrats sent a letter to Russell Vought, the newly installed director of the Office of Management and Budget, and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, calling on them to reverse course on actions targeting the nation’s consumer financial watchdog agency.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) was created by Congress in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis to safeguard Americans against unfair business practices. It has been brought to a virtual standstill after Vought, who last week was named the agency’s acting director, and Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency took control of the agency. Vought has since issued a stop-work order to nearly all CFPB staff.

Democrats, in their letter, are calling for Musk’s DOGE employees, some of whom physically accessed the agency’s federal office and requested access to its industry and consumer data, to be pulled out of the CFPB.

“Your efforts to dismantle the CFPB are dangerous, and we will fight them at every turn. We ask that you remove Mr. Musk’s operatives from the CFPB, restore all internal and external systems and operations, and allow the CFPB to continue to do its job of protecting American consumers,” the Democrats wrote in their letter.

The letter is signed by all Senate Democrats and the two independents — Sen. Angus King, of Maine, and Sen. Bernie Sanders, of Vermont — who caucus with them.

During remarks on Monday from the Oval Office, President Donald Trump said the CFPB was “very important to get rid of” and that the organization was “set up to destroy some very good people.”

When asked if his goal was to completely get rid of the agency, Trump answered in the affirmative.

“I would say yeah, because we’re trying to get rid of waste, fraud and abuse,” Trump said.

Democrats in their letter allege that efforts to sideline the financial watchdog will harm consumers and are potentially illegal.

“The Trump Administration has effectively fired the financial cop on the beat and declared open season for predatory lenders and scam artists working to steal Americans’ money and threaten their financial security,” Democrats said in the letter.

“No matter how badly someone has been cheated and no matter how extensive the scam, the Administration has declared that the financial cops should simply stand by and watch while giant networks of lenders cheat American consumers,” the letter continued. “This is particularly costly for people whose claims of illegal foreclosures, car repossessions, or debanking are currently under investigation by the agency.”

The letter comes as congressional Democrats, who are in the minority in both the House and the Senate, have vowed to use their limited tools to challenge what they say is illegal overreach by the Trump administration and Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency across a number of agencies, including USAID, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the National Institutes of Health and the CFPB.

The National Treasury Employees Union filed two lawsuits this week against Vought, challenging both the takeover of the CFPB and DOGE’s access to its records.

The letter is led by Sen. Elizabeth Warren, of Massachusetts, who is the top Democrat on the Senate Banking Committee and helped create the CFPB after the 2008 financial crash. In the days since Elon Musk posted “RIP CFPB” on X, Warren has been a vocal defender of the agency.

Since it was established in 2011, the CFPB says it has clawed back nearly $21 billion for American consumers, addressing complaints over everything from bank fees to credit cards to student loans.

On Tuesday, Warren implored Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, who was appearing before the Senate Banking Committee, to work with Congress to keep Musk’s team out of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

“If the CFPB is not there examining these giant banks to make sure they are following the laws, are not cheating consumers, who is doing that job?” Warren asked Powell during the hearing.

“I can say no other federal regulators,” Powell replied.

“No one. In other words thanks to ‘co-president’ Musk and the CFPB Acting Director Vought, Wall Street banks no longer have to show the bank examiners that they’re not illegally opening accounts people didn’t ask for, like what happened with Wells Fargo, or charging illegal junk fees like Bank of America did,” Warren said.

But some Republicans on the panel pushed back on this line of questioning, saying laws that regulate banks haven’t changed and Elon Musk is simply carrying out the work Trump promised on the campaign.

“There’s been a lot of conversation, both in and out of this hearing room today, conversations about a co-president, referencing Elon Musk, referencing the work that DOGE is doing,” said Alabama Republican Sen. Katie Britt. “I think it’s important to remember that President Trump ran on this. I mean, he said we’re going to look for wasteful spending across our government.”

Democrats, in their letter, say they’ll fight to defend the agency.

“We beat back all prior efforts to gut this agency, and we will fight this latest attack in Congress, the courts, and the public,” the lawmakers wrote. “It will fail.”