Before a judge stopped the acquisition in February, the administration of President Donald Trump was planning to say goodbye to the overwhelming majority of employees in the Office of Financial Protection of the consumer and then comply with the legal obligations of the agency with a skeleton team, a senior CFPB official testified on Monday.
During a long judicial hearing on Monday, the CFPB operations director, Adam Martínez, gave a complete account of the chaos and the confusion consumed by the Federal Agency that was established to protect the public from unfair corporate practices since the Department of Government Efficiency and the Trump administration officials moved to dismantle it.
His testimony provided a window of what is happening internally while Dege heads Trump’s mandate to reduce the federal government.
The supporters of the concentration of the Office of Financial Protection of the consumer, after acting, the director of CFPB, Russell Vought, told the agency staff to remain away from the office and not work outside the CFPB in Washington, DC, February 10, 2025.
Craig Hudson/Reuters, file
“In the absence of the temporary restriction order, most CFPB employees have been completed?” A lawyer who represents the plaintiffs asked Martínez.
“The majority, yes,” Martínez said, added that the remaining employees would have been dismissed in later phases of the acquisition.
Throughout his six -hour testimony, Martínez described the round trip that took place in recent weeks among the interim director of CFPB, Russ Vought, Dege, the Office of Personnel Management and the Office of Administration and Budget. The officials alternated between stopping and restoring the agency’s work partially, since they cut it hurriedly and then rushed to put the pieces in their place to comply with the law, in some cases losing key data and services along the way.
“I was having difficulty processing what was happening,” Martínez said, describing the first days of the acquisition of CFPB by Dege.
“So, is it fair to say that it is thought to enter, but only after? Is it like, shoot first and ask questions later? Judge Amy Berman Jackson asked, after Martínez described how the agency was forced to cancel numerous critical contracts, but terminated some of those endings shortly after. Martínez agreed.
The audience also shed light on the unique relationship between Doge representatives and career officials, and Martínez frequently called Doge representatives to newly installed leaders of the CFPB.
“I don’t understand, why are you using them with leadership to refer to Doge unless they would have told him that Dege was now his leadership,” Jackson asked?
“They were appointed as main advisors, Mrs.,” Martínez said.
“High rank leaders of the CFPB,” asked Judge Jackson.
“Correct,” Martínez said.
Martínez recalled everything from the first arrival of Doge’s representatives to the CFPB office in the first week of February, and the email of the interim director who ordered CFPB employees to stop working, until the immediate chaos that occurred, as well as the efforts of him and other CFPB career officials to determine what has been completed and how to reinrate the critical functions of the agency.
“There were a couple of high priority problems that would have been devastating if it had stopped,” Martínez said in a moment.
“He was very, very worried about the Consumer Response Center,” Martínez said, explaining a possible reaction that could occur if those systems stopped. He said that he eventually coordinated an argument between the head of that unit and the representatives of Doge to “help them understand why their program was so important.”
On March 2, after much confusion and frustration regarding the type of work, CFPB was authorized to carry out, the general advisor of OMB, Mark Paoletta, who has been representing Vought, finally sent a letter that ordered CFPB employees to perform duties required by the situation.
But even after some units were told to return to work, they continued to experience challenges, including the loss of personnel and access to the archives of those who have left, according to accounts shown during the audience.
Jackson acknowledged that the extraordinary situation faced by CFPB workers, and she asked the witness a series of questions.
“Would you say that sending an order to say ‘not work’ is typical?” Judge Jackson asked.
“No,” Martínez replied.
“Would you say that canceling all contracts before the analysis of whether these are duplicated, which is worth it, is not worth it, is typical?” The judge also asked.
“No,” Martínez replied again.
“Would you say that shooting all two -year -old employees from the beginning is typical?” The judge asked.
“No,” Martínez replied.
“Would you say that trying to implement a brief without prior notice before the new director puts himself in his place, is typical?” The judge continued.
“No,” Martínez replied again.
“And would I say that it is typical to put the rest of the employees with an administrative license with an order to do any work?” The judge asked.
“No,” Martínez replied.
Jackson is considering issuing a preliminary judicial order to effectively stop the breakdown of the CFPB, which he stopped temporarily last week. During Monday’s hearing, Martínez was roasted on the emails he had produced in which he discussed the realization of mass endings despite the order of the court.
“You said that, in some way, the delay was a blessing, because it gave you more time to discover how to achieve this large -scale termination, right?” A lawyer asked.
“Yes,” Martínez said.
“And then you transmitted things like, there will really be no CFPB now, right?” The lawyer continued.
“When you are starting several people and functions, yes,” Martínez said.
