After months of moves that appeared designed to shutter the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau entirely, the agency is showing unmistakable signs of activity again. What that activity looks like, however, represents a sharp departure from the Bureau the credit and collection industry has known.
According to a report from Politico, the CFPB has leased new office space in Southwest Washington, recalled remote employees, and begun issuing new guidance and supervisory requests. The White House has also nominated Brian Johnson, a Capital One executive and former CFPB deputy director during the first Trump administration, to serve as permanent director, replacing Acting Director Russell Vought.
The resurgence comes after federal courts blocked Vought’s repeated attempts to gut the agency. His initial effort to terminate 90 percent of staff was halted, as was an April plan to cut the workforce by more than half. Vought did succeed in ending the lease on the Bureau’s headquarters and in dropping or settling nearly all pending enforcement actions against large corporations.
The Bureau’s new priorities are notable. It has started issuing supervisory requests to Community Development Financial Institutions, small government-backed lenders serving underserved communities, even as the administration works to defund those same institutions, according to the report. It has issued guidance making it harder for immigrants to qualify for mortgages and credit cards, released guidance aimed at curbing debanking, and scrubbed its website of past enforcement records and guidance materials.
Former staffers see a pattern: lighter treatment for large institutions and heightened scrutiny of smaller ones, the inverse of what Vought publicly promised. One recent example drawing attention is the Bureau’s unusual public announcement that Bilt Rewards had complied with directives to compensate consumers, a disclosure typically reserved for formal enforcement actions rather than confidential supervisory matters.
The return-to-office mandate may itself be a workforce reduction tool. All employees, including those in regional offices, must report in person by September 6, with out-of-town staff given two weeks to decide whether to relocate. Court hearings on the blocked workforce cuts are not expected until early September, leaving regional employees to choose whether to move to Washington knowing they could be laid off shortly after. Enforcement and supervision staff, many based near the companies they monitor, would be hit hardest.
Johnson’s confirmation prospects and intentions remain unclear. Industry groups like the Consumer Bankers Association praised the nomination, while consumer advocates and Sen. Elizabeth Warren [D-Mass.], who helped create the Bureau, warned he may finish the job of dismantling it. One person familiar with agency leadership said Johnson and Vought are of one mind on the CFPB’s future.
