CFPB halts work after Trump appoints Bessent as acting head

President Donald Trump on Monday appointed Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent as the acting director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), a powerful watchdog agency whose operations Bessent immediately halted pending a review. In an email to agency staff sent from the ‘acting director,’ Bessent ordered the bureau to cease all work to craft regulations, enforce its rules, conduct investigations, or provide ‘public communications of any type,’ citing a need to ‘promote consistency’ with the goals of the new administration, according to a copy obtained by The Washington Post. The missive appeared to underscore a stark shift at the CFPB, which Congress formed in the wake of the 2008 banking crisis to protect consumers from unfair, deceptive, or predatory financial practices. Republicans broadly have threatened to defund the agency or neuter its powers—and the tech billionaire Elon Musk, who is advising Trump on a reconfiguration of American government, has called on lawmakers to ‘delete’ it entirely. Under President Joe Biden, the watchdog agency had been active and aggressive: Its leader, Rohit Chopra, issued a wide array of rules to crack down on predatory lending, reduce the burden of medical debt, and cut fees that customers pay when they fall behind on their credit card bills or overextend their checking accounts. But Trump fired Chopra on Saturday before his term was scheduled to end, delighting his Republican critics, who accused him of engaging in regulatory overreach. Banks, tech giants, and other businesses similarly delighted in his departure—and Bessent’s ascension as acting director—after years of fierce legal and political clashes with the CFPB over the extent of its oversight. ‘We urge Secretary Bessent to begin reversing the damage caused by these misguided regulatory actions and stand ready to support his efforts to chart a better course for the Bureau,’ Rob Nichols, the president of the American Bankers Association, an industry lobbying group, said in a statement Monday. A CFPB spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment. — news from The Washington Post