CFPB Wanted Employees to Work Despite Vought’s Order, Tip Line

A top Consumer Financial Protection Bureau official expressed surprise that employees had stopped performing mandatory duties despite a stop-work order and a tip line the agency set up to report on workers doing their jobs.

The Sunday email from CFPB Chief Operating Officer Adam Martinez, obtained by Bloomberg Law, came a day before the CFPB and the National Treasury Employees Union are set to appear before Judge Amy Berman Jackson of the US District Court for the District of Columbia for a hearing over allegations the Trump administration improperly attempted to shut the agency down.

“It has come to my attention, however, that some employees have not been performing statutorily required work,” Martinez said in the email. “Employees should be performing work that is required by law and do not need to seek prior approval to do so.”

One of the key arguments presented by the NTEU, which represents many CFPB employees, and its co-plaintiffs is that acting CFPB Director Russell Vought instructed agency staff to stop all work “unless expressly approved by the Acting Director or required by law” in a Feb. 8 email.

Even though Vought instructed CFPB employees to perform duties “required by law,” he subsequently took steps to stop the reporting of consumer complaints and other mandated operations, including by canceling more than $100 million in contracts.

Vought also ordered CFPB headquarters and other facilities closed beginning the week of Feb. 10. The agency’s name has since been removed from the headquarters building.

The CFPB has also begun the process of canceling the lease on its headquarters.

The agency didn’t respond to a request for comment Sunday.

Tip Line

Soon after Vought’s initial moves, the CFPB set up a “CFPB tipline” account on Elon Musk’s X social media platform.

“Are you being pursued by CFPB enforcement or supervision staff, in violation of Acting Director Russ Vought’s stand down order? If so, DM us or send an email” to tipline@cfpb.gov, the X post said.

Vought confirmed the authenticity of the website in a Feb. 13 post from his personal X account.

CFPB employees were officially put on administrative leave the following day.

President Donald Trump told the Conservative Political Action Conference on Feb. 22 that he had shut down “the ultra-left CFPB.”

Despite those actions, Martinez in his email expressed surprise that CFPB employees were afraid to work.

Even as Vought instructed employees to do work as required by law, the agency was taking steps to cancel contracts that all but shut down the CFPB’s consumer complaint database, which the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act mandated, according to a Feb. 26 declaration from Matthew Pfaff, the chief of staff for the CFPB’s consumer response unit.

Mark Paoletta, serving as the CFPB’s chief legal officer, “activated work related to compliance with the agency’s critical statutory responsibilities in the area of the Office of Consumer Response” on Feb. 27, Martinez said in a Sunday court filing in the NTEU case.

Vought also ordered a halt to CFPB supervisory activities and shuttered congressionally mandated offices, such as the CFPB’s student loan ombudsman and offices of financial protection for older Americans and service member affairs, according to declarations filed Feb. 26.

Martinez disputed the union’s contention in their declarations that the CFPB has moved into “wind down mode.”

In a previous email obtained by Bloomberg Law, Martinez told CFPB employees they could reference Vought’s stop-work order in response to the Trump administration’s email asking federal workers what they did in the previous week.

Jackson Ruling

Jackson has already ruled against Trump administration efforts to fire some agency officials.

On Saturday, she ruled Trump improperly fired Hampton Dellinger, who leads the Office of Special Counsel, which handles whistleblower complaints.

Jackson applied a permanent injunction barring the Trump administration from firing Dellinger without cause or recognition of any replacement.

Failure to do so would give Trump “a constitutional license to bully officials in the executive branch into doing his will,” Jackson said in her ruling.

The case is NTEU v. Vought, D.D.C., No. 1:25-cv-00381, Supplemental Declaration of Adam Martinez 3/2/25.