A judge froze the Trump administration’s plan to fire a majority of employees at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson stopped the administration’s effort, the latest development in a legal seesaw battle that has seen plans to dismantle or cut back the CFPB started and stopped several times. Last week, Jackson ruled that President Donald Trump could downsize the agency but not dismantle it altogether. She voiced concern with the Thursday move to cut 1,500 employees from the bureau, leaving just 200.
In response, she halted the move once again. A hearing for officials who worked on the reduction-in-force to explain their actions is scheduled for April 28, the Associated Press reported.
“I’m willing to resolve it quickly, but I’m not going to let this RIF go forward until I have,” Jackson said.
Mark Paoletta, the CFPB’s chief legal officer, argued that administration officials have spent weeks laying out “a much more limited vision for enforcement and supervision activities” with a “smaller, more efficient operation.”
He argued the bureau had “pushed well beyond the limits of the law,” including by undertaking “intrusive and wasteful fishing expeditions.”