CFPB employee left stuck and confused after ordering for stopwork

Russell, the new acting director of the Consumer Financial Protection Agency, ordered the institution to close offices and shut down all work just two days after Vaught, and employees should or should they do on Monday. I spent my time in a state of deep confusion about whether it was. I'm doing it.

Vought, director of the recently confirmed Office of Management and Budget, which President Trump set up late Friday as a temporary leader in the Consumer Affairs Bureau, repeated the instructions he issued over the weekend to stop everything. , sent an email from all staff on Monday.

“Stop from performing any task,” Vought writes. “Employees should not come to the office,” the worker was told to contact Mark Paoletta, who was named the agency's Chief Justice Officer via email.

With an instant messaging platform run by an encrypted chat app and a consumer office union, employees have sought to accurately decipher the meaning of Vought's instructions. Can they talk to each other on the station's Microsoft Team Messaging System? Can they read their emails or is it a violation of the Stopwork command? Can they use unexpected downtime to complete the online training program they need?

There were no responses, some agency employees said. The department's leaders were left to questions from unstable employees without guidance from the new boss on what to say. Bureau representatives and Mr Paoletta did not respond to requests for comment.

An email from Paoletta on Monday to the Bureau's enforcement lawyer said the acting director would soon establish “new enforcement priorities.”

Suddenly, the work of Prudential regulators is stopped completely – there is no precedent for agencies such as the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which are assigned to oversee the safety of American institutions and protect them from systematic risk. Typically, examiners working on the ground at banks, supervising banks and other lenders stay at home, and the agency's lawyers learned this week how to handle court deadlines in several well-known enforcement cases. .

Richard Cordray, who was appointed the agency's first overseer by President Barack Obama after its establishment in 2011, said he thought Vert's stop order was illegal.

“President Trump and his people, who aren't even many members of the government, said Cordley, who left the bureau in 2017. To ignore that and act as if it didn't exist. That's what he was saying. It is not the role of. We do not have a king in such a society. It is intentional on the part of our founder's father.”

The Consumer Bureau's Staff Union sued Vought on Sunday night, challenging the legality of his suspension work order. Several employees said they hope the court will act soon to clarify the situation that several people described as “surreal.” Without guidance from above, my colleagues would turn to each other for the humor of Intel and Gallows.

One popular topic of discussion was the rise in people from Elon Musk's government efficiency team who accessed the Consumer Bureau's computer systems. Musk's team arrived Friday morning and by Monday it had grown to include half a dozen people whose names had recently appeared in the station's internal staff directory.

“Like USAID, it was a pretty bonding experience,” said one agency employee who asked not to name it. “It's fascinating to see people step into leadership roles, connect people and share information.”

Bureau workers, consumer advocates and several Democrats staged a rally outside the Consumer Bureau's closure headquarters Monday afternoon.

“Stop the billionaire glyft!” and “No one chose Elon!” attendees said, “Many people were saying that fighting what many people call illegal attempts to dismantle the agency. They cheered, swearing.

“We're going to shut down Elon Musk's operation,” Sen. Chris Van Hollen, a Democrat of Maryland, told the crowd.

California president Maxine Waters, who describes Musk as “now the United States' co-president,” accused him of a “gangster,” and used a blasphemy at his invitation to Musk, saying, “Come here and I'm We faced them.”

“He's not going to kill the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau,” Waters said. “We won't allow that.”

Jess Bidgood contributed the report.