The CFPB is transferring all of its pending litigation to the Justice Department as a result of the funding crisis the Trump Administration has said the bureau faces, several news organizations have reported.
In addition, at a meeting on Thursday, Michael Salemi, the CFPB’s acting director of enforcement, said that more than 100 people will be furloughed because the CFPB is running out of money, The American Banker reported.
On December 10, 2025, Acting CFPB Director Russ Vought informed the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia that the Bureau will run out of money by early 2026 unless Congress provides a direct appropriation.
The Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel has recently concluded that the CFPB cannot legally draw additional funds from the Federal Reserve while the Fed is operating at a loss, and that doing so would violate the law.
The Administration already has attempted to lay off more than 1,400 agency employees. The National Treasury Employees Union sued the Administration, contending that the Administration’s plan to lay off those employees amounted to an abolishment of the agency, something only Congress could do.
A divided three-judge panel of the D.C. Circuit had dissolved a lower court injunction blocking the firings, which it said the Trump Administration could resume. However, when it dissolved the injunction, the panel withheld the mandate in the case to give the plaintiffs the opportunity to file a petition for a rehearing en banc. The plaintiffs subsequently did so.
During the Thursday meeting, CFPB staff members were told that in the coming weeks, both enforcement and other cases at the CFPB will be taken over by the DoJ, Law360 reported. That would include several lawsuits challenging agency rules, the news organization added.
CFPB officials also are developing a plan for mortgage lenders to work out the Average Prime Offer Rate, or APOR, if the agency shuts down, according to The American Banker. The bureau normally calculates and publishes those rates, which change weekly, vary by loan type, provide a benchmark and stability for mortgage lending, and are used to determine compliance with Ability-to-Repay rules.
Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs ranking Democrat Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass. sharply criticized the CFPB’s decision to move the cases to the DoJ.
“Donald Trump and Russ Vought are racing to shut down the CFPB while their lawyers tell the courts the opposite,” she said. “In its latest move, the Administration is transferring away all of the CFPB’s active litigation, critical work that the CFPB does to return billions of dollars directly to Americans cheated by big banks and giant corporations. Nobody is fooled about the Trump-Vought end game, and the courts must uphold the law. “