Estimated read time: 2-3 minutes
- Lawyers for Trump's administration deny plans to dismantle the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
- The Justice Department acknowledges a streamlined agency needing less office space, canceling its headquarters lease.
- The government temporarily halted firings and nominated Jonathan McKernan as the bureau's next nominee.
WASHINGTON — Lawyers for President Donald Trump's administration have denied that the White House intends to dismantle the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, apparently contradicting statements the president himself made to reporters earlier this month.
In court filings submitted late Monday, Justice Department attorneys rejected claims from a union representing bureau workers that seeks a court order halting efforts effectively to destroy the agency.
The government, however, did acknowledge that a more "streamlined" agency will need less office space and that the agency had decided to cancel the lease for its headquarters, where signage has already come down.
The agency this month summarily fired scores if not hundreds of employees and most staff remain on administrative leave after Russ Vought, the acting director, ordered a halt to all work with only limited exceptions.
Union officials say they believe the agency intends to fire most of its remaining staff.
Representatives for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the White House and the National Treasury Employees Union, which represents agency staff, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Under a Feb. 14 court order, the government has temporarily agreed not to continue with firings, not to tamper with data and not to give its current operating funds back to the Federal Reserve.
In Monday's court documents, the agency noted that the administration had nominated Jonathan McKernan, a former board member at the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, to be the bureau's next nominee. He is due to testify in confirmation hearings this week.
"The predicate to running a 'more streamlined and efficient bureau' is that there will continue to be a CFPB," attorneys for the Justice Department said.
The agency also said its consumer complaint call center and database, the production of mortgage data and payments to consumers previously harmed by corporate misconduct all continued.
However, at the White House on Feb. 10, Trump answered in the affirmative when asked if he intended to "totally eliminate" the bureau. "That was a very important thing to get rid of," he said.
