By Douglas Gillison
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -About 100 workers at the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau protested outside the agency’s headquarters on Saturday, hours after President Donald Trump’s newly installed management and budget director Russell Vought took control.
The staffers who are members of the CFPB Union NTEU 335 braved chilly temperatures, chanting slogans as passing motorists honked in support.
Some carried signs saying “Resist the mean bros,” in reference to billionaire Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, whose agents have accessed highly restricted government records on millions of federal employees.
The Wall Street Journal reported late on Friday that representatives of the South African-born Musk’s DOGE had gained “read-only” access to CFPB computer systems.
Earlier that day, Musk posted a message on X indicating the agency was facing its demise: “CFPB RIP.”
The agency’s website also appeared to be malfunctioning as of Saturday afternoon. The CFPB did not respond to a request for comment while the Office of Management and Budget did not immediately respond to detailed questions.
The CFPB Union said on Friday it planned to pursue all avenues, including legal, to protect members’ private data as well as that of consumers and financial institutions “that we have sworn to safeguard.” It urged consumer advocates, industry stakeholders, lawmakers and concerned citizens “to help us thwart this potentially dangerous incursion.”
As a government regulator with enforcement powers, the CFPB investigates companies, performs inspections and collects vast quantities of sensitive consumer and commercial data.
The CFPB was created following the 2007–08 financial crisis, which plunged the economy into its longest recession since the Great Depression.
The change in control at the consumer financial watchdog came a day after the Senate confirmed Vought as director of the Office of Management and Budget. Trump on Monday had named Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent acting CFPB Director after firing the previous director Rohit Chopra the week before.
Bessent immediately froze all CFPB activities. Vought is a longtime budget hawk and architect of the conservative policy manifesto Project 2025, a chapter of which calls for the CFPB to be dismantled, a goal Republican lawmakers have long pursued.
A federal judge early on Saturday temporarily blocked DOGE and Trump administration political appointees from accessing Treasury Department systems used to process trillions of dollars in payments, citing a risk that sensitive information could be improperly disclosed.
(Writing by Douglas Gillison and Lucia Mutikani in Washington and Nate Raymond in Boston; Editing by Mary Milliken and Matthew Lewis)
