In February, the Trump administration installed Russell Vought as acting director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau [CFPB]. Founded in the aftermath of the 2008 recession, the CFPB investigates deceptive financial practices on behalf of consumers.
The bureau’s story since then has been one of firings, court battles and — for many employees — an inability to work at all. Spearheading those efforts have been President Trump, his advisor Elon Musk, and the Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency [DOGE]. The agency has long faced pushback from the banking industry and some Republicans, including Trump himself. Vought has called it "a woke & weaponized agency against disfavored industries and individuals for a long time."
Until recently, Wesley Ward, an attorney originally from Bloomington-Normal, worked in the CFPB’s enforcement division. In a LinkedIn post on Friday, Ward announced he was voluntarily leaving his job, writing that new leadership was acting to shut down many of the bureau’s efforts to protect consumers.
On Saturday, Ward spoke to WGLT about his experiences at the CFPB, and where things could be headed from here. In the beginning, Ward pursued the job because he wanted to use his law degree to help people. That ground to an unexpected halt when Vought ordered a work stoppage in early February.
“It’s not normal to tell all federal employees to stand down, and to stop doing everything,” said Ward, an Illinois State University alum. “It’s not normal to fire a large percentage of your staff. It’s not normal to shut down your headquarters, and to kick everybody out with no notice.”
Though a few actions — like filing basic court motions to avoid violating deadlines — have continued, Ward said the majority of the CFPB’s employees haven’t been able to work at all since early February. That forced many enforcement cases to be dropped, and created a situation in which, in Ward’s words, “More consumers will be harmed, and more companies can get away with breaking federal law.”
Employee morale also has been bruised, though Ward said there’s a high degree of solidarity within the bureau. He said the cuts were notable in the CFPB’s enforcement area that handles some violations in federal court, but also many out of the public eye in agreements with financial institutions.
Conflicts of interest
The air of conflicts of interest has hung heavy over DOGE’s involvement in the CFPB cuts, said Ward.
“It’s interesting that the same week we were getting cut and the CFPB was shutting down, Mr. Musk decided to launch a part of [his social media platform] X that would come under CFPB jurisdiction,” Ward said.
That refers to an agreement between X and Visa to offer financial services on Musk’s platform, announced in early February. The service would have been regulated by the CFPB.
Ward said some employees fired in February have been reinstated after a federal court ruling, but the future of the agency remains uncertain, contributing to his decision to leave.
“I have no idea what the long-term plan is for the CFPB under the current administration," he said. "We are all guessing. But jumping from a sinking ship may be the right analogy, especially for someone in enforcement.”
That’s in part because, Ward said, Congress defines some of the CFPB’s roles more broadly than others. If a function is less specific about how much work needs to be done, as with enforcement, it’s easier to largely scrap it without congressional action.
While that’s bad news for the bureau’s enforcement efforts, it may keep some other elements intact. The CFPB still takes individual complaints, for example, and Ward recommended consumers who’ve been harmed by deceptive practices to continue filing them.
Ward wants the public to know that despite the adverse circumstances, the CFPB is still a team of dedicated people helping however they can.
He also advocated for reaching out to attorneys general at the state level. Here's how to file a complaint with Illinois' attorney general.
“They are the ones that are going to be stepping up when the CFPB is not doing as much over the next couple of years,” Ward said.
The damage of reduced capacity at the CFPB could be substantial, with Ward arguing other agencies like the FTC and Department of Justice don’t overlap with the CFPB much, and won’t be able to pick up the slack. He agreed reduced enforcement makes consumers and the economy more vulnerable to bad actors, and to escalating problems like those seen in the 2008 recession.
“Without a stable hand at the wheel in the banking and financial services space, we saw what happened in 2008,” Ward said. “We don’t really need, and I don’t really want, to learn that lesson again.”
As for what the future holds for CFPB employees, Ward expects many cast-offs will practice law privately, or perhaps work for state and local governments. For Ward himself, private practice is a likely next step.
