President Trump has followed up his firing of Rohit Chopra, head of Senator Elizabeth Warren’s monstrous Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, by appointing Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent to lead that organization temporarily. Chopra, who made a reputation for hostility toward American business, was expected to be fired and “improbably hung on for nearly two weeks, even as the president ousted scores of other agency leaders.”
In ordinary times, this would be just another move to replace agency heads appointed by Joe Biden with sane people. These are not ordinary times. As we’ve seen over the last week, President Trump is moving at a furious pace to establish control over the federal bureaucracy that fought him tooth and nail during his first term. The CFPB is a very problematic agency. Trump could only fire Copra because of a 2019 Supreme Court decision because, under the regime Warren created, the CFPB’s single director could only be fired for cause. Its unique funding system, which operates independently of Congress, survived because of another “it’s not really a tax” decision crafted by Chief Justice John Roberts.
Under the Federal Vacancies Reform Act of 1998, Bessent can serve up to 300 days as acting director before a new acting director is named or a permanent replacement confirmed.
In his first email to the agency, Bessent made it clear that the CFPB is part of the administration, not an independent player.
Bessent ordered the CFPB to stop all rulemaking, communications, litigation, and other activities, according to a Monday email to staff obtained by Bloomberg Law.
Bessent took over the CFPB as acting director after President Donald Trump fired Biden-era Director Rohit Chopra.
“As Acting Director, Secretary Bessent is committed to appropriately stewarding the agency pending new leadership,” the email said.
Essentially all activities at the bureau are on hold to “promote consistency with the goals of the Administration,” the email said. Only activities authorized by Bessent or required by law can move forward, it said.
I think the CFPB will receive some of the same treatment as the Department of Justice and perhaps the US Agency for International Development. Some of its functions will be shuttered, and its hyper-aggressive regulation-writing and legal thuggery will be markedly reduced. I also think we’ll see an effort to change the CFPB’s authorizing law to bring it in line with how other federal agencies work or, better yet, shut it down altogether.
