A coalition of 22 Democratic state attorneys general this week filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration to stop what they said was the “complete defunding” of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
CFPB Acting Director Russ Vought has sought to terminate most of the bureau’s staff and said he does not intend to ask the Federal Reserve for the bureau’s next round of appropriations, with the agency expected to run out of available funding sometime next year. In a joint statement, the AGs said the bureau has a legal requirement to collect and process consumer complaints and share that data with states, and that Vought’s actions violate the law and the Constitution.
“My office and attorneys general across the country rely on the CFPB for consumer complaints and other data to get justice for consumers,” said New York Attorney General Letitia James, whose office is leading the lawsuit.
In addition to New York, the other plaintiffs in the lawsuit are the state attorneys general of Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Wisconsin and the District of Columbia.
