A federal appeals court on Thursday temporarily paused an order that blocked the Trump administration from effectively dismantling the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB).
A panel of three judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit granted the administration's emergency request for an administrative stay, noting the government's representation that the CFPB will remain open and perform its legally required duties as litigation continues.
The temporary stay also leaves intact two agreements between the parties concerning contract terminations and records, firings and funding.
The judges must now decide whether to halt U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson's order preserving the agency longer term. Oral arguments are scheduled for Wednesday.
"The purpose of this administrative stay is to give the court sufficient opportunity to consider the emergency motion for stay pending appeal and should not be construed in any way as a ruling on the merits of that motion," the panel wrote.
The CFPB was an early target of Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which have been tasked by Trump with cutting costs across the federal government.
When Russell Vought, acting CFPB director and director of the Office of Management and Budget, took over the agency, he quickly ordered employees to “cease all supervision and examination activity” and temporarily shut down the agency’s headquarters, before directing employees to halt work altogether and terminating dozens of probationary employees.
The National Treasury Employees Union and other groups sued last month over the apparent takedown of the agency, arguing it violated the separation of powers between the branches of government.
Jackson, the lower court judge, last week blocked the administration from stopping work and firing employees and ordered the reinstatement of previously terminated workers. She also blocked the destruction of any CFPB records and ordered the rescission of any “wholesale” contract cancellations issued on or after Feb. 11.
The Trump administration has said it does not plan to eliminate the agency, but several CFPB employees submitted sworn declarations insisting the administration plans to "wind [it] down."
The judge found the evidence before her revealed the administration was “in fact engaged in a concerted, expedited effort to shut the agency down entirely” prior to her February order.
“The fact that the effort was temporarily stymied or slowed down by the Court’s intervention and entry of a consent order to freeze the situation does not mean that the decision is not yet finalized or that it was ever abandoned,” she wrote in a 112-page opinion.
