The CFPB manager testifies to the confusion of the agency after DOGE

The confusion of “Big Time” has enabled the staff of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) since last month, the agency’s chief, Adam Martinez, said Federal Judge in Washington, DC on Monday.

Martinez’s testimony – which will continue on Tuesday afternoon – aims to answer questions about what happens to the financial regulation agency, before a judge decides to grant a preliminary injunction To preserve the agency’s data, funds and staff. He has clarified points of disagreement between Martinez and other CFPB staff, who declared in the statements under oath to the court that the agency had become much less operational than Martinez had not described, in particular since since The Ministry of Government (DOGE) was involved – with certain functions effectively groaning.

Martinez has described in recent weeks as typical of a presidential transition. He says that the agency was taking place during the first weeks of Doge to the agency, and in a way, it is not uncommon during a new administration. “DOGE came with a very hard fist,” said Martinez, but there was “a change of posture” when the acting director of the CFPB, Russell Vought, heads the management and budget office (OMB), and his assistant, Mark Paoletta – who works as a legal director of the CFPB – has become more involved in the internal work of the agency. Their arrival, said Martinez, made him feel that “adults were around the table”.

Judge Amy Berman Jackson seemed skeptical about these affirmations, and the justification of the administration for a massive power reduction plan (RIF) – that the government temporarily agreed to take a break while it was taking its decision. On Tuesday, she will hear the opposing testimony of two witnesses of federal employees for the union which carried the case: Matthew PfaffConsumer response office of CFPB consumers’ response; and a federal employee going by the pseudonym Alex Doewho attended meetings between the CFPB and the staff management office (OPM) About cuts to the agency.

The CFPB oversees financial institutions and consumer complaints. He has played a role in the companies of the technological industry in digital payments, although a The Republican Congress Majjeurité seeks to retreat Part of this authority, which includes the surveillance of things such as the X payment project belonging to Elon Musk. But the National Union of Treasury Employees, which represents CFPB staff, alleges that Vought is violate the separation of powers by closing it quietly.

Jackson is trying to determine if Trump administration officials and Vought prevent employees from carrying out work required by the status of the congress. Until now, the answer depends on who you ask.

Martinez told the judge that he did not have a direct overview of the status on the ground of many agency offices which does not leave his field, in addition to what has been told to him and that his understanding of the approach of the Trump administration has changed over time. Even now, says Martinez, he is still not sure of what the favorite “final state” of the agency’s Trump administration looks like – whether it is a considerably reduced workforce or a complete dismantling, where some of the CFPB tasks are distributed to other agencies.

The Trump administration was aimed at reducing up to almost 1,200 of the 1,700 CFPB employees, testified Martinez, and the agency thought it should do so on a condensed period due to President Donald Trump’s order on the remodeling of the federal prescription for the workforce and the work order of Vight.

Jackson seemed doubtful of the suggestion that Vought’s own order of judgment “became the urgency that justified a rif”. She pressed the vision of the half of Martinez of the current situation of the CFPB (not “normal, but we operate”) and her interpretation of Trump’s early administrative messaging as quite typical of a presidential transition. Jackson dotted it with questions: is it typical to send an order to the agency staff to stop all the work? Is it typical to dismiss all probation employees from the start of an administration? Is it typical to implement a rif with a limited opinion before a new full-time director is even in place? No, Martinez testified.

Although things are still not normal, Martinez painted an image of a little more stability. “I think there is less confusion today. I think there is hope, ”he says. It remains to be seen if the CFPB staff should hold hope for clearer directives from the Trump administration, or for the court to intervene to straighten things, remains to be seen.