WASHINGTON — Consumer advocates in Virginia and around the country are trying to chart a new path forward as a federal consumer rights watchdog is being effectively “defanged.”
In February, dozens of probationary employees at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau were fired.
Between 2021 and 2025, the bureau gave $9.4 billion back to consumers but the Trump administration has pulled the agency off numerous consumer protection lawsuits, including against major bank Capital One for allegedly cheating millions of customers out of $2 billion in interest.
Jay Speer, consumer rights attorney and executive director of the Virginia Poverty Law Center, said consumers will feel the brunt of the decisions.
“People not going to get all this money back that they should be getting from these wrongdoers,” Speer pointed out. “Basically, it’s a message to big companies that they can do whatever they want. Nobody’s going to stop them, so abuse of consumers is just going to get worse. There’s no question about it.”
Russell Vought, Trump’s director of the Office of Management and Budget, has posted on social media the bureau is “woke” and weaponized.
Advocates are putting up a fight. Speer pointed out his organization has joined a lawsuit to stop the bureau’s closure. He argued administration efforts to disband the agency break the law and cut into Congress’ power to create new federal agencies.
“Congress established this,” Speer stressed. “It’s not up to the executive branch to just do away with it by some executive order or whatever they claim they have the authority to do it. That’s not right.”
Conservatives called for the bureau’s closure in Project 2025, which Vought helped author.
