Judge blocks Trump from dismantling the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau

AUTHOR:M.J. GDNUS

A US federal judge has blocked President Donald Trump's administration from dismantling the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which was established by Congress in the midst of the 2008 financial crisis.

If Judge Amy Berman Jackson had not issued a preliminary injunction that would remain in effect until the end of a lawsuit filed to preserve the Bureau, it would have been hit by mass layoffs under the Trump administration's plan to drastically reduce the federal government in an effort to save the agency.

The court "can and must act" to save the Bureau from being shut down, Berman Jackson wrote.

As she stated, the Trump administration would have quickly moved to close the bureau without her preliminary injunction.

That would happen “before the court has a chance to decide whether the law allows them (the Trump administration) to do so, and as the defendants’ own witness has warned, the harm would be irreparable,” Judge Berman Jackson wrote in her opinion.

At a hearing on March 10, the Office’s acting director, Adam Martinez, testified about the chaos that has ensued at the agency since employees were ordered to stop working by the Trump administration last month.

Martinez said the agency has been “in a phased shutdown” since February 1, when Trump fired its director, Rohit Chopra. Chopra’s interim replacement then ordered the Office to cease all operations immediately, canceled $100 million in contracts, and laid off 70 employees.

The lawsuit against the administration was filed on February 9 by the Treasury Department Employees Union, which represents more than 1,000 employees at the Office. According to the prosecutors, Trump and his associates do not have the constitutional authority to dismantle the agency created by Congress.

The office protects American consumers from financial fraud and unfair business practices by banks. It acts on consumer complaints and conducts investigations into banks, protecting also users of mass student loans.

The lawyers for the plaintiffs argued that the Americans for whom Congress created the office would suffer the most harm.