Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) met on Friday with Consumer Financial Protection Bureau employees who had been fired due to Elon‘s Department of Government Efficiency reductions.
CFPB has provided over $21 billion in consumer relief, according to the agency’s latest data from Dec. 3, 2024. Kaine accused Musk of targeting the CFPB with DOGE cuts for his gain.
“The fact that the Trump administration would target these guys at the front end of a chainsaw massacre… Why are you going after these consumer protection advocates? It smells really bad. I mean, it makes it seem like it happened because Musk has some particular interest in gutting these regulators who are protecting everyday folks.”
Kaine said that the CFPB had saved “tens and thousands” of Virginians from abusive or unfair financial practices.
Kaine said, “These people are doing great things.” This is an agency that has returned over $21 billion in consumer money to those who were ripped off. I’m familiar with the Virginia statistics. It’s thousands of Virginians that got help because of what these people did.”
Virginia is home to the United States’ second largest number of civilian federal employees, according to data provided by the Office of Personnel Management. Kaine is a strong opponent to DOGE’s proposed federal staff cuts. He has held town halls to hear from constituents.
Kaine claimed that Musk and DOGE were “hurting the people to help themselves” by advocating a government that is a “huge gift to Elon Musk and other people like him.”
Musk is rumored to be trying to secure a DoD contract, or to divert it to his companies, or to companies he has a close relationship with. You can’t let an unelected person come in with a chainsaw to get access to other people’s data. They’ve also released sensitive information, classified data, and names of individuals who didn’t authorize the release. Why are they engaging in behaviors that harm people? Kaine stated, “I think that they hurt people to benefit themselves.”
Kaine stated that the federal employees who are being fired were not using hatchets. “They’re using chainsaws.” Kaine claimed that Trump relies on executive action to demolish government agencies because congressional Republicans would not “go along” with the stuff he is doing.
He isn’t confident that he can get the Republican majority to agree with his stuff. Kaine stated that “He’s going do whatever he can because he does not think that even Republican Majorities who seem to be completely submissive and cowed, without any backbone, and with no desire to use their voice, will agree to this stuff he is doing.”
Joe Valenti is a former CFPB employee who was in Kaine’s office on Friday. He said he had been locked out last month and received a work stop order, followed by a letter terminating him without any severance.
Valenti stated that the CFPB’s operations are being halted because consumer finance laws “are not necessarily enforced”.
The federal government has abdicated its responsibility to protect working people against financial harm. This affects people with low income, such as the constituents I worked for at CFPB. This affects seniors, veterans, and servicemen. The Servicemembers Civil Relief Act would be one of many laws the CFPB will oversee and enforce. This goes back to World War I. What’s happening in the market if there’s no cop on the beat? And what does that mean for the people affected by the abuse of the markets?” Valenti said.
CPFB was one of many agencies affected by DOGE’s federal workforce cuts. Elon Musk wrote on X on February 7, “CFPB R.I.P.,” along with a gravestone icon.
President Donald Trump insisted that the CFPB was “virtually closed down”, telling the Future Investment Initiative Institute Priority Summit on February 19 that his administration had done so.
“We shut down the out of control CFPB by escorting the radical left bureaucrats from the building, and then locking the door behind them. It was terrible what they did. Trump said that the way they spent their money was terrible.
On Feb. 10, Trump told reporters that he planned to “totally eliminate” the agency. Trump called the CFPB a waste that was used to “destroy some very good individuals” and said it was “very important” to eliminate.
The National Treasury Employees Union filed a complaint last month accusing Russell Vought, CFPB Acting Director and Director of the Office of Management and Budget(OMB), of “preparing another mass firing of employees, this time of more than 95% of Bureau’s staff.”
Vought ordered CFPB employees to halt agency operations unless otherwise approved on Feb. 10. Seventy-three newly hired “probationary employees” and 70 to 100 “term employees” were subsequently fired, while around 200 contracts were canceled, according to the lawsuit and media reports.
Fox News Digital confirms that three CFPB officials were put on administrative leave at the beginning of February. A spokesperson for the agency confirmed that Mark Paoletta’s Chief Legal officers, Lorelei Salas and Eric Halperin, were placed on administrative leave by the CFPB. Zixta Martnez, the deputy director of the agency, was also put on administrative leave.
Since the firings, there have been demonstrations in Washington, including one by Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass, who originally proposed the agency.
The CFPB was created by President Barack Obama’s administration in 2010 to help protect consumers against unfair financial practices. It was established by the administration of President Barack Obama in 2010, following the Great Recession.