In a significant development, for the first time under Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Acting Director Russell Vought, CFPB litigators

At a court hearing on Monday, lawyers for the Trump administration said statutorily-required work is being done by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, while the union claimed the government is trying to shut the agency down.

It’s taken just a few weeks in office, but the Trump administration’s apparent vision for economic populism is coming into focus: a blueprint for mass layoffs, creeping inflation, and a dissolution of consumer safeguards reviled by many wealthy Republican donors and politicians.

In a trove of statements released late Thursday, federal employees said that the mass layoff was discussed in meetings they attended this month.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the city of Baltimore butted heads and faced skeptical questions from a federal judge in Maryland over whether statements from acting Director Russell Vought threatening to zero out the agency’s funding amounted to an unlawful and final agency action.

Under grilling from Senate Democrats, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Director-designate Jonathan McKernan agreed to continue the statutory mandates of the bureau, but refused to comment on Elon Musk,

Sen. Tina Smith (D-Minn.) pressed President Trump’s nominee to lead the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) over who will be making key decisions at the agency Thursday, after it dismissed

Days before President Trump was inaugurated, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau sued Capital One, accusing it of using deceptive tactics that the bureau said cheated customers out of $2 billion in interest payments on their savings accounts.

Employees testified that CFPB leaders and Elon Musk’s DOGE want to wind down the agency to five employees, the minimum required under law.