The CFPB Is Transferring Its Caseload To The DOJ

November 23, 2025 12:06 pm
Defense and Compliance Attorneys
Source: site

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) is in the process of transferring all of its active litigation and enforcement actions to the Department of Justice (DOJ) due to a critical funding shortage and impending shutdown. This move is part of a broader effort by the Trump administration to restrict the bureau’s ability to operate as it can no longer access additional funds from the Federal Reserve under current legal interpretations.​

Reasons for Case Transfers

  • The CFPB is running out of money after the White House and courts determined it was legally prohibited from receiving further Federal Reserve funding, leaving it unable to continue operations.​

  • Acting CFPB Director Russell Vought notified courts and staff that the bureau’s funds may be depleted as soon as early 2026, triggering the move to transfer all ongoing legal matters to the DOJ.​

  • The DOJ has set up a specific enforcement and litigation unit to absorb the CFPB’s responsibilities.​

Impact on CFPB Operations

  • The CFPB is furloughing much of its staff, particularly in enforcement and legal divisions, since the agency cannot maintain regular activities without funding.​

  • As of late November 2025, the CFPB had dismissed many of its enforcement actions, and no new ones were initiated over the past year. Only a handful of legal cases remain active.​

Legal and Political Context

  • Critics and supporters alike note that this transfer is effectively dismantling the bureau’s enforcement capabilities by placing its cases under DOJ supervision, where priorities may shift.​

  • Before the CFPB’s creation in 2011, the DOJ managed cases that today would fall under the bureau’s jurisdiction.​

The transfer represents a major change in federal consumer finance oversight and could fundamentally alter how financial consumer protection laws are enforced in the U.S. moving forward.​

Further, Mike Salemi, the CFPB’s acting enforcement chief, said at an all-hands meeting Thursday that, as he understood it, all bureau employees would be furloughed at the end of the year, Government Executive reported, citing people familiar with the matter.

Salemi hedged, saying he was not privy to all of the plans, but that the information came from an associate general counsel at the Office of Management and Budget who also serves as a senior legal adviser at the CFPB.

The timeline, if true, would dovetail with a projection CFPB Acting Director Russ Vought made in a podcast appearance last month, when he said the only employees left at the bureau were “our Republican appointees and a few career [staff] that are doing statutory responsibilities while we close down the agency.”

“We want to put it out – and we will be successful probably within the next two, three months,” Vought said.

Further, DOJ attorneys filed paperwork last week with the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, indicating the CFPB “anticipates exhausting its currently available funds in early 2026.”

The filing was meant to flag a “potential lapse in appropriations” to pay the bureau’s operating expenses. The court this year granted a preliminary injunction preventing the CFPB from firing the vast majority of its staff.

Included in the filing was a memo the DOJ’s Office of Legal Counsel sent Vought, asserting that the bureau may not legally request funds at this time from the Federal Reserve under the Dodd-Frank Act.

Salemi on Thursday said the 170 employees in his division were slated for an unpaid leave designation, according to Government Executive.

The CFPB is still litigating 13 cases, Farman said, though Vought this year has dismissed 22 enforcement actions brought by the bureau under previous administrations.

“CFPB attorneys are afraid DOJ will dismiss [the remaining] cases,” Farman said.

The DOJ declined to comment. The CFPB didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

However, Warren, the senator credited as the architect of the bureau, appeared to hold tight to her suspicions.

“Donald Trump and Russ Vought are racing to shut down the CFPB while their lawyers tell the courts the opposite,” Warren wrote in a statement Thursday. “Nobody is fooled about the Trump-Vought end game, and the courts must uphold the law.”

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