Two weeks ago, a three-judicial panel of judges in Washington's federal court of appeals lifted the freeze by firing employees at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, with several conditions. A judge who ruled Friday night said that after careful evaluation, workers could be fired if they deem it not necessary to carry out the department's legally necessary liability.
Within hours, Trump administration officials working closely with fellow government department of efficiency Elon Musk, ran up to fire employees from almost every agency. By the following Thursday afternoon, the department's leaders had sent out layoff notices to nearly 1,500 employees, ordering to keep just 200 and close access to the agency system for workers fired the following day.
The judge has stopped cutting again for now. However, details of what happened at agencies that oversee banks and lenders and enforce consumer protection laws are essential to determining whether dismissals can proceed. Before Washington U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson, hundreds of pages of newly released agents' records supplemented by story accounts filed in court by more than 20 agency employees this week, were filed ahead of hearings.
Judge Jackson said the planned shooting had been suspended within a day of notification, far exceeding what the Court of Appeals allowed. Starting Tuesday, she will hold a two-day hearing to testify as witnesses and decide whether to extend the order to block the shooting.
The Consumer Affairs Bureau has been on life support since February, when Trump officials arrived at the agency and began to dismantle it. A series of federal court decisions banned the destruction of the agency. Congress established the agency in 2011, adding protective measures for mortgages and other consumer financial products, and only Congress has the authority to abolish it.
Mark Paoletta, the agency's chief justice officer and the ringleader behind the termination plan, defended the termination, saying that legal filings would make the agency “right size” filled with “a vast waste.” Russell Vert, director of the White House budget office, who serves as the agency's representative director, calls the agency a “awakening and weaponized” one.
However, according to court records, employees disrupted the department's operating capabilities by firing so many workers at once without a transition period, and employees warned their bosses with emails, chat messages and oral conversations. Within a few days, a critical technical system fails and enforcement lawyers miss court deadlines and agency data that the federal court ordered to be preserved.
“I don't think we can continue to operate for 60 days without maintaining many of these people,” wrote Christopher Cilbert, the department's chief information officer, in an email on the date the end was announced.
Adam Martinez, the agency's chief executive, replied, “It's understood, and I don't agree. We really need to spend next week trying to figure out the path to advance.”
Judge Jackson sought testimony from Gavin Kliger, Musk's 25-year-old fellow, who carried out the termination.
Kliger, a former Twitter summer intern who had no experience in government work this year, joined the Human Resources Bureau in January as a senior advisor. He carried out Musk's government efficiency, or Doge's challenges.
An email sent hours after the appeals court ruled that staff cuts could move forward, shows Musk's officials are in a hurry to fire people as quickly as possible.
Jeremy Lewin, a 28-year-old lawyer who leads Doge's State Department's foreign aid litigation, sent an email from the US International Development Agency on Saturday. Nodding to a particular language at the Court of Appeal order, Lewin wrote:
Paoletta said in a court filing that he worked with two other lawyers to conduct a unit-by-unit assessment of the Bureau of Consumer Affairs and determined that the Bureau could function without 90% of current staff.
“The agency of about 200 people will allow the department to perform its legal duties and better align with new leadership priorities and management philosophy,” he said.
However, emails and other agency records show that until the moment the notice of termination was sent, officials at the department were still discussing the numbers. On Tuesday before the notification occurred, some workers attempting to prepare the materials believed that 485 workers remained, some of them believed.
Trump officials wanted people to be terminated from the agency's system within 24 hours of receiving the layoff notification. One HR worker involved in the planning asked the manager how to notify anyone who is traveling and cannot check email before losing access.
“A lot of people asked that question. No one really cares,” the manager replied. “It makes me sad.”
The legal declaration, which totals more than 100 pages, portrayed the department head (who was not consulted by Trump officials before the shooting) and other workers as reckless and erroneous in their termination.
One person who left at the Services Office, a legally necessary unit supporting military workers, Paoleta will already accept the government's postponed offer of resignation and will retire in September. He had taken up work equipment and lost access to the agency system, workers said. That is, he said the office would not be staffed if the firing progressed.
The head of another legally necessary department said he and all of his workers received a notice of fire despite Paoletta's testimony that one worker was held.
“If there are people like that, they have not reached out to me, or to the best of my knowledge, to understand to others in my office how we meet the legal duties,” the department head said.
