By Douglas Gillison
(Reuters) – U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who took over on Monday as President Donald Trump’s new acting consumer finance watchdog, has halted virtually all pending activities at the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, including investigations, rule making, litigation and public communications, according to an email seen by Reuters.
The Day One decision from Bessent signaled an abrupt change in policy under Trump, who campaigned on a realignment of government regulation to promote the needs of industry.
Now occupying both Treasury and CFPB leadership roles, Bessent replaces former CFPB Director Rohit Chopra, who revealed on Saturday that he had been fired and who had pursued aggressive enforcement and regulation under the prior administration.
At 11 a.m. local time, Bessent wrote to all CFPB staff and contractors, instructing them to cease all such activities “to promote consistency with the goals of the administration.”
Attorneys for the agency informed a U.S. Court of Appeals on Monday that they had been instructed to seek a pause in proceedings.
The decision was denounced by U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren, who helped create the CFPB following the 2008 financial crisis. Warren, the top Democrat on the Senate Banking Committee, called the move an invitation to predatory corporate misconduct.
“Shutting down CFPB enforcement actions that are on the verge of delivering money into the pockets of working people is at odds with President Trump’s claim that he wants to lower costs for families – which he has done next to nothing on so far,” she said in a statement.
(Reporting by Douglas Gillison in Washington; Editing by Matthew Lewis)
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