Democrats call stop work order at CFPB 'illegal'

Democrats are calling on Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent to cancel his stop work order for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) after employees with Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) targeted the agency as part of their overhaul of federal spending.

Top Democrat on the House Financial Services Committee Maxine Waters (Calif.) led members in a letter to Bessent on Saturday, calling the order “illegal.”

“We urge you to immediately rescind what appears to be an illegal stop work order and allow the public servants at the CFPB to get back to work for the American people as required by law,” Waters and other Democrats wrote.

Democrats asked Bessent when the stop work order is supposed to expire, whether it’s consistent with the Dodd-Frank financial reform law of 2010 and whether consumers affected by the order can expect compensation for any lapses in enforcement.

“Will harmed consumers receive additional compensation for delays that are caused by your action that prevent them from being made whole in a timely manner?” the letter asks.

Musk’s DOGE has had a number of federal agencies in its crosshairs as the new Republican administration works to pare back government expenditures.

Musk deputies accessed highly sensitive federal payment systems at the Bureau of Fiscal Service last week, leading to the resignation of a longtime civil servant in the Treasury Department.

Questions have swirled about the nature of the deputies’ access. The Treasury Department said they had “read only” access and couldn’t make changes to the system, but reports emerged that they had administrator privileges allowing them to make changes to platforms that host trillions of dollars in federal transactions per year.

Many policy groups and trade organizations have taken issue with what they see as Musk running roughshod through the federal government.

“The latest developments at the CFPB are deeply troubling,” Nadine Chabrier, counsel at the Center for Responsible Lending, an advocacy group, said in a statement. “These actions undermine the CFPB’s mission to protect consumers from financial misconduct.”