Judge Rejects Most of Trump Team’s Bid to Stay Order Saving CFPB

The Trump administration will still be blocked from dismantling the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau while its appeal of an injunction is pending, a federal judge in Washington said.

CFPB leaders failed to show how the agency would suffer harm under the March 28 preliminary injunction, Judge Amy Berman Jackson in the US District Court for the District of Columbia said in a Thursday order, denying most of the government’s request to put her earlier order on hold.

Jackson granted only one aspect of the requested stay, putting a deadline on hold that would have required the agency to inform the court of compliance with its terms by Friday.

“What is striking about the defendants’ motion is that they pay very little attention to the merits of the case at all,” she said in her order. “They do not seem to dispute that they lack the ability to close the agency established by Congress on their own.”

The judge pointed to a proposed order from the plaintiffs, led by the National Treasury Employees Union, requiring the agency to avoid interfering with employees’ performance of their congressionally mandated duties. The Trump administration objected to that proposal on grounds it was too broad, vague, and unenforceable.

“The defendants’ insistence that they should be free to run the agency and implement the statutory requirements without court interference comes a little too late,” Jackson said in her order.

“The evidence the Court of Appeals has not yet seen shows that the defendants made the choice not to run the agency at all—to close it down and fire all of the employees—and that the Reduction in Force (“RIF”) notices are ready to go if the injunction is lifted.”

Jackson in her ruling last week halted and ordered the administration to reverse some steps initiated under CFPB acting head Russell Vought, including the termination of probationary employees, contract cancellations, and data purges.

The CFPB filed its notice of appeal March 29, subsequently asking the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to stay the preliminary injunction. After plaintiffs objected to the CFPB’s bid for a stay at the appeals court, the agency filed its district court motion for a stay April 1.

Jackson’s preliminary injunction also prohibits the agency from sending out notices that were already prepared and approved by the Office of Personnel Management, that together with the RIF plan would leave no remaining open positions at the agency.

“As to routine workplace management, the Order includes explicit language authorizing the agency to take ordinary employment actions with respect to individual employees,” her latest ruling said. “And the Order fully permits the agency to turn off contracts if it determines they are not needed to support statutorily mandated functions.”

Jackson said she is open to discussing how the injunction could be tailored, but she declined to lift her previous order before resolving those questions. Giving the Trump administration free rein to move quickly and eliminate the agency within 30 days would cause plaintiffs irreparable harm and bring “devastating consequences,” Jackson said.

The D.C. Circuit is set to hear arguments April 9 on the CFPB’s stay request.

Gupta Wessler LLP and Public Citizen Litigation Group represent the union and its co-plaintiffs.

The case is NTEU v. Vought, D.D.C., No. 1:25-cv-00381, 4/3/25.