WASHINGTON — A union filed two lawsuits against the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s acting director, Russell Vought, on Sunday after Vought issued a series of directives halting much of the bureau’s activity.
The filings cap a tumultuous weekend for the CFPB as bureau functions were ordered paused and employees were told that the headquarters building in Washington will be closed this week, according to an email NBC News obtained from two current employees.
One lawsuit urged a judge to block the Department of Government Efficiency from accessing employee information, while the other asked a judge to block Vought’s directives. Vought had instructed employees in an email Saturday to “cease all supervision and examination activity,” “cease all stakeholder engagement” and pause all pending investigations, among other orders.
The lawsuits were filed by the National Treasury Employees Union, which represents employees in the CFPB.
The filing that centered on Vought’s email argued that a judge should declare “that Defendant Vought’s directive to the CFPB’s employees to stop their supervision and enforcement work is unlawful” and stop Vought from additional attempts to pause this work.
The other lawsuit says three DOGE-affiliated staffers were onboarded into the bureau’s internal communications system, which NBC News also previously reported. The union said Vought instructed CFPB employees to give the DOGE team “access to all non-classified CFPB systems.”
The union argued that the DOGE-affiliated staffers should not be allowed to access CFPB systems, including employee information.
“These employees face irreparable harm to their privacy interests if their employee information is improperly accessed and/or disseminated by individuals associated with DOGE,” the lawsuit says. “Once an employee’s personnel information is improperly disclosed, the harm to the employee cannot be undone.”
The CFPB media team did not immediately respond to a request for comment Sunday night. One of Vought’s directives to staffers Saturday included instructions to “not issue public communications of any type.”
In addition to ordering the CFPB to halt much of its work, Vought also announced Saturday on X that he had informed the Federal Reserve that the “CFPB will not be taking its next draw of unappropriated funding because it is not ‘reasonably necessary’ to carry out its duties.”
CFPB employees and allies have pushed back, with the CFPB union, a chapter of the National Treasury Employees Union, announcing a protest outside the bureau’s headquarters Monday.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., who helped lead the creation of the CFPB, slammed Vought’s directives Saturday as “giving big banks and giant corporations the green light to scam families.”
As of December, the CFPB has secured a total of more than $21 billion in various forms of consumer relief, according to the bureau.
Daniel Arkin contributed.
