The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has placed a union leader on administrative leave and opened an investigation into his conduct, drawing accusations that the agency is retaliating against organized labor as the Trump administration works to shrink the bureau, according to a published report.
Stephen Wheeler, a data scientist at the CFPB since 2022 and chair of the agency’s union organizing committee, was suspended effective immediately earlier this month, the report claimed. The National Treasury Employees Union Chapter 335, which represents bureau staff, said management provided no specific allegations and no details on the scope of the investigation.
“An investigation with no stated scope or scale is no investigation, it’s a fishing expedition,” Wheeler said in the report, characterizing the move as retaliation for union activity and protected speech.
The union noted that Wheeler had been a visible critic of agency leadership. He sat behind Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought during Vought’s congressional testimony in July and recently spoke to NPR about a forced relocation of staff. Vought, who also oversees the CFPB, has called for the agency’s abolition and halted most of its work in February 2025.
The suspension follows a broader pattern of upheaval. Workers have described return-to-office and relocation mandates as an effort to force resignations, a strategy that gained attention after an appeals court blocked attempted mass firings at the bureau in June 2026. Another union member, Alexis Goldstein, was placed on leave in February 2025 and fired in February 2026 after she challenged staff tied to the Department of Government Efficiency over their access to agency data. The union has filed a grievance and is awaiting arbitration, which it says the CFPB has delayed.
The bureau also deleted nearly 4,000 webpages this year, including press releases issued before February 2025. The CFPB did not respond to requests for comment.
