From credit cards to medical debt: What may happen to some key consumer protection rules under Trump

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the so-called cop on the beat protecting Americans from financial abuse, is now under strict orders to do nothing.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the so-called cop on the beat protecting Americans from financial abuse, is now under strict orders to do nothing. “Please do not perform any work tasks,” Russell Vought, the acting director, wrote on Monday to CFPB staff in an email obtained by CNN that announced the headquarters would be closed this week. That is on top of an expanded freeze on activities that he ordered Saturday night instructing staff to stop a host of efforts, including “all supervision and examination activity.” Vought’s order comes a week after the prior acting director, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, had ordered a somewhat narrower freeze. The freeze means the bureau — which was created by Congress under the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act to protect consumers from financial abuses and to regulate providers of various financial services and products — cannot engage in hiring, rulemaking, active lawsuits, enforcement actions or investigations. The agency is also suspending the effective dates of recently finalized new consumer protections. And it also will “cease all shareholder engagement.” The wide-ranging freeze — particularly in enforcement and supervision — worries consumer advocates because it leaves Americans even more vulnerable to financial predators.