Three top officials at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) left the agency Tuesday, after the agency’s acting director ordered staff to halt all work.
CFPB Deputy Director Zixta Martinez was placed on administrative leave Tuesday, an agency spokesperson told The Hill.
Lorelei Salas, assistant director for supervision policy, and Eric Halperin, assistant director for the Office of Enforcement, also sent emails to their teams announcing their decisions to step down.
“The Bureau has been instructed to stand down. I do not believe it is appropriate, nor lawful, to stop all supervisory activities and examinations, and I cannot longer serve as the Supervision Director,” Salas said in an email reviewed by The Hill.
White House Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought, who was tapped late last week to serve as acting CFPB director, told staff Monday to “stand down from performing any work task.”
Vought also announced over the weekend that he does not plan to take the agency’s next drawdown from the Federal Reserve, and employees were informed that the agency’s headquarters would be closed this week.
This series of events, which closely mirror those taken at the United States Agency for International Development last week, have left staff and outside observers nervous about the future of the CFPB.
“I know you are concerned about your futures, the future of the bureau, and more importantly, the impact these sweeping changes will have on everyday consumers, on all of us,” Salas said in her email Tuesday.
“You have had an incredible impact guaranteeing basic protections for consumers, and that legacy will endure,” she added.
Halperin said in his message to staff Tuesday that he does not believe he “can effectively serve in [his] role, which is protecting American consumers,” under the current conditions at the agency.
“There are millions of consumers who know that you had their back when it counted,” he added in the email reviewed by The Hill. “As I’ve said to you in the past, the road to justice for consumers is long, progress is not always linear, and success requires many hands. Your work has made an incredible difference in people’s lives.”
A CFPB spokesperson told The Hill both Salas and Halperin were placed on administrative leave before emailing agency staff. The spokesperson also disputed whether the two officials resigned from the agency.
“Halperin and Salas were placed on administrative leave this morning by Mark Paoletta. They sent those emails AFTER being placed on leave,” said the CFPB spokesperson, referring to the agency’s new chief legal officer.
“Salas has also not submitted her resignation, she has just said she is resigning without actually doing so,” the spokesperson said. “Halperin was insubordinate and defied orders.”
Both Salas and Halperin joined the CFPB in October 2021 under the leadership of former Director Rohit Chopra.
Chopra warned Monday that shutting down the agency is “begging for another financial crisis.”
“We had this experiment before in the years leading up to the subprime mortgage crisis, and as we all know, it was an absolute catastrophe,” Chopra told MSNBC. “We had a whole set of mortgage lenders and other companies that had basically no oversight, and we saw trillions of dollars of wealth in our country disappear.”
Updated at 1:08 p.m. EST.
