The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, more widely referred to by its acronym, CFPB, is just one of the many federal agencies that the Trump Administration has been targeting and seemingly attempting to wipe out entirely. One big issue at work here is that, while a large portion of Trump supporters are championing the cuts and attempted cuts… it seems that quite a few of them perhaps don’t even know what the CFPB does.
And so during last Saturday’s broadcast, we were joined by CFPB worker Cat Farman — who is also Chapter President for the National Treasury Employees Union, which represents CFPB workers — to discuss what the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau does, and why the Trump Administration’s attacks against it are detrimental to everyday working people.
“The CFPB, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, we are the federal government agency that regulates the biggest banks in the country. And we are an agency that works for you, not the banks, and not for the CEOs,” Farman explained. “We protect working people from predatory practices from financial companies, like predatory mortgages, loans… student loans… we regulate credit card companies… We are here to protect the American worker from getting scammed by greedy Wall Street CEOs.”
Farman was quick to point to a recent example of a major bank caught by the agency that received Nationwide coverage: Wells Fargo.
In 2016, Wells Fargo was caught engaging in massive fraud against its clients, which included registering new lines of credit for clients without their consent — in at least some cases, Wells Fargo employees were encouraged to use their own contact information when registering new accounts in an attempt to keep the clients unaware, meaning that mailed documents or cards indicating a new account had been opened would be diverted to addresses different from the clients’. The scandal also included fraudulent checking and savings accounts, unauthorized use of clients’ PIN numbers, enrolling homeless people in various programs and products that were fee-accruing, and more.
In 2020, Wells Fargo agreed to pay $3 Billion in fines and settlements with clients.
This was possible primarily because of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Farman explained.
“When Wells Fargo was ripping people off, creating fraudulent bank accounts, and charging imaginary fake fees and charges to their customers in order to up their sales numbers, we were the agency that made them pay you back, to the tune of billions of dollars… that they stole from working people who were their customers.”
But this sort of scandal may soon be allowed to happen again, now without repercussions, and potentially on a massive scale, as the Trump Administration has had the CFPB in its crosshairs since President Trump took office.
“As soon as we got the Trump appointees in — this happened in early February for us — they started meddling and trying to basically shut us down and fire people, so that we couldn’t have any consumer protection functions that were happening,” said Farman, going on to explain that initially 200 workers had been fired, and there were plans to fire an additional 1,000 workers just a few weeks later, but by that point the National Treasury Employees Union had stepped in to protect agency workers, filing a lawsuit that resulted in a temporary restraining order pausing any additional layoffs.
Since then, it has been a back and forth battle between the courts and the administration — specifically Trump-appointee Russel Vought, who currently serves as Director of the United States Office of Management and Budget and who is leading the charge to dismantle the CFPB.
“He (Vought) tried to layoff, again, 1,500… workers just a few weeks ago,” Farman explained, saying that she was among that number and had received a termination notice. “We would’ve lost access, like, the next day to all of our computer systems and basically be waiting out the rest of our time until the layoffs went into effect.”
But the union was able to, once again, stop this second attempt via federal judges.
Despite the fact that CFPB workers have so far experienced some victories and reprieves through court orders, the agency is nevertheless being hamstrung by the Trump Administration in certain areas of work, this includes bringing to a halt what are called Bank Examiners, who Farman explains are like “compliance officers,” which have been a critical part of how the agency protects working people.
“These… compliance officers… they used to travel and go onsite into the financial institutions, the big banks, to make sure ‘Are they following the Law, are they actually doing the consumer protection law and requirements they’re supposed to?’” Farman said, going on to explain that, if these officers find that the banks are not following Consumer Protection Law, this is part of what leads to the CFPB then taking legal action. “So, those folks— we have hundreds of people who, that’s their job, hold(ing) the biggest banks accountable under Consumer Protection Law… those people have been grounded, they haven’t been able to do that.”
On this point, Farman issued a stern warning to anyone listening: “We want everybody to know… if you’re listening… the biggest banks in the country right now are operating lawlessly with zero oversight. They are not having to follow Consumer Protection Laws, or if they are or aren’t, that’s not necessarily known to the regulator, us, who would be there to make sure that’s happening. So if they are starting to do more illegal practices, abusive practices, exploitative practices, preying on the American people, we don’t have insight into that in real-time the way that we’re supposed to, that we’re setup exactly to do.”
Watch our full interview with Cat Farman: