A federal judge has hit the pause button on one of the most closely watched fights over the future of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, agreeing to stay proceedings over the agency’s plan to slash its workforce until a Senate-confirmed director is in place to decide whether to move forward with it.
Judge Amy Berman Jackson of the District Court for the District of Columbia on Thursday granted a joint motion from the CFPB and the National Treasury Employees Union to temporarily halt litigation over the Bureau’s 2026 reduction-in-force plan, which would cut staffing from 1,174 employees to 556, a reduction of roughly two-thirds. Both sides agreed that Brian Johnson, President Trump’s nominee to lead the Bureau, should be given the chance to review the plan and decide whether to pursue it if he is confirmed.
The stay will last until 60 days after Johnson’s confirmation. If the Senate has not acted by January 3, 2027, the stay expires on that date. Either way, the parties must file a status report with the court shortly after confirmation or by early January.
The outcome will shape how much supervision and enforcement capacity the CFPB retains, a question with direct consequences for the accounts receivable management industry. Under the RIF plan, the enforcement and supervision divisions would see 80% and 85% of their positions eliminated, respectively.
The preliminary injunction blocking mass layoffs remains fully in effect during the stay, and the Bureau has agreed to keep complying with it. In a declaration filed with the motion, CFPB Chief Financial Officer Ngagne Jafnar Gueye stated that the Bureau has sufficient funding under the 6.5% statutory transfer cap, equal to $466.8 million in fiscal year 2026, to maintain current staffing levels indefinitely, provided spending increases do not outpace the employment cost index.
The motion also carves out one notable exception: the stay does not apply to other Bureau actions that could affect compliance with the injunction, including a planned return-to-office directive.
Johnson, a Capital One executive who served as the CFPB’s deputy director during the first Trump administration, was nominated in early June to replace Acting Director Russell Vought, whose term expires in early August. Vought, who also runs the White House budget office, had publicly pledged to dismantle the agency, and the D.C. Circuit in June remanded the question of whether the revised RIF plan justifies modifying the injunction back to Judge Jackson.
For now, the Bureau stays at full strength, and the fate of its workforce rests with a nomination still awaiting a Senate vote.
