Acting CFPB Director Russell Vought’s new plan to slash the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is set to go before the federal district court judge in Washington who previously blocked him from firing up to 90% of the agency’s staff.
Judge Amy Berman Jackson of the US District Court for the District of Columbia will review the latest reduction-in-force plan after the full DC Circuit remanded the case in an order Friday. The appeals court has been weighing a split panel decision from last August allowing Vought to conduct mass CFPB firings.
Vought is now seeking to eliminate around half of the CFPB’s remaining staff, with major cuts slated for enforcement, supervision, and internal operations units, according to a plan filed in March in the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
Jackson, who issued a preliminary injunction in March 2025 blocking Vought’s initial RIF plan, will have to determine whether the CFPB could still meet its statutory requirements—such as maintaining its consumer complaint database and conducting examinations—with a shrunken staff under his latest proposal.
The DC Circuit rejected the administration’s request for a 45-day limit on the remand and said it would retain jurisdiction over the appeal.
Jackson last year said she needed to stop Vought from destroying the CFPB before she had a chance to rule on the merits of his moves. She also said Trump administration lawyers had made false statements in court about their plans for the CFPB, leaving her with “little confidence that the defense can be trusted to tell the truth about anything.”
The administration says Jackson exceeded her authority. There was never a final decision to shutter the agency, and any employees seeking to challenge their terminations should’ve brought their claims before the Merit Systems Protection Board, Trump officials have argued.
The administration is separately requiring nearly all CFPB staff members throughout the country to work out of the agency’s new, smaller office in Washington. The relocated headquarters has room for about 550 employees, matching the administration’s latest reduction-in-force plan.
President Donald Trump this month tapped Brian Johnson, a Capital One Financial Corp. executive, to serve as the CFPB’s full-time director.
Timing Questions
Both the CFPB and the National Treasury Employees Union—representing most agency employees—told the full DC Circuit they wanted Jackson to review the new staffing plan. But they differed on whether she had to proceed on an emergency basis.
The CFPB argued expedited review was needed because the litigation over the agency’s existence and proper size has already lasted more than a year.
The CFPB is also facing a cash crunch after Congress cut the amount of money the agency can request from the Federal Reserve by around half in a GOP tax-and-spending bill President Donald Trump signed into law last July. The CFPB is funded through the Fed rather than the congressional appropriations process.
Vought on March 30 requested $75.8 million from the central bank to cover costs for the three months beginning in April. He received $145 million for the previous quarter after Jackson ruled the CFPB needed to request money to perform its statutory functions.
But the CFPB stands to run out of cash to maintain current staffing levels under the funding cap as soon as October unless it’s cleared to lay off employees, the administration said in its motion seeking a 45-day remand for Jackson to reconsider her preliminary injunction in light of the new staffing plan.
The union and its co-plaintiffs said the CFPB had failed to show why an expedited review was necessary.
Four of the DC Circuit’s full complement of judges said Friday they would have preferred to wait “until the legal questions pending before the en banc court are resolved before remanding to the district court.”
Packed Agenda
Vought’s shift on the future size of the CFPB reflects an ambitious rulemaking agenda, including efforts to rewrite longstanding anti-discrimination and mortgage rules as well as Biden-era open banking and small business loan demographic data collection requirements.
The CFPB plans to keep its legal division largely intact and is proposing only small cuts to its rule-writing unit. It’s also looking to hire more attorneys for its litigation team as the agency prepares for potential lawsuits over its new rules.
In a statement, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) praised the court for turning aside “the Trump Administration’s latest request to shut down the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, refusing to lift the injunction that has prevented Russ Vought from carrying out his plan to eliminate the agency.”
Gupta Wessler LLP represents the NTEU and its co-plaintiffs.
The case is NTEU v. Vought, D.C. Cir., No. 25-509125-5091, order 6/19/26.