Happy New Year 2025

Tag: Bureau

Russ Vought, tapped as CFPB’s acting director, directs bureau to issue no new rules, stop all investigations

Office of Management and Budget director Russell Vought is now also the acting director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, where he has directed staff to not issue any new rules, to suspend effective dates of all final rules and to stop any new investigations.

Vought, also a Project 2025 author, was named acting director of the CFPB on Friday.

“I am honored that President Trump designated me as Acting Director of the Bureau on February 7, 2025,” Vought said in an email to CFPB colleagues obtained by RealClearPolitics. “As Acting Director, I am committed to implementing the President’s policies, consistent with the law, and acting as a faithful steward of the Bureau’s resources.”

He issued several directives that, effective immediately, must be followed by all employees, contractors and other CFPB personnel “unless expressly approved by the Acting Director or required by law,” according to RealClearPolitics.

RUSSELL VOUGHT CONFIRMED TO HEAD GOVERNMENT’S LEADING BUDGET OFFICE AFTER DEMS HOLD 30-HOUR PROTEST

Russell Vought speaks during a Senate Budget Committee hearing on his nomination, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, Jan. 22, 2025. (Jacquelyn Martin/AP)

The directives include not approving or issuing any proposed or final rules or formal or informal guidance and for the bureau to suspend the effective dates of all final rules that have been issued or published but have not gone into effect.

Vought also ordered the bureau not to “commence, take investigative activities related to, or settle enforcement actions.” CFPB must not open any new investigation in any manner and must cease any pending probes, he said.

The acting director said the CFPB shall not issue public communications of any type, including research papers.

Russell Vought is sworn in during the Senate Banking Committee nomination hearing in the Dirksen Senate Building on January 22, 2025, in Washington, D.C. (Kayla Bartkowski/Getty Images)

Additionally, the CFPB must not approve or execute any material agreements, including those related to employee matters or contractors, and must not make or approve filings or appearances by the bureau in any litigation except to ask for a pause in proceedings.

The bureau was also told to cease all supervision and examination activity and to cease all stakeholder engagement.

Vought also sent a letter to the Federal Reserve requesting no money for the CFPB’s third quarter of fiscal year 2025.

SENATE DEMOCRATS SPEAK ALL NIGHT AGAINST TRUMP OMB NOMINEE, DELAYING CONFIRMATION VOTE

Russell Vought testifies during the Senate Banking Committee nomination hearing in the Dirksen Senate Building on January 22, 2025, in Washington, D.C. (Kayla Bartkowski/Getty Images)

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“Pursuant to the Consumer Financial Protection Act, I have notified the Federal Reserve that CFPB will not be taking its next draw of unappropriated funding because it is not ‘reasonably necessary’ to carry out its duties,” Vought wrote on X. “The Bureau’s current balance of $711.6 billion is in fact excessive in the current fiscal environment. This spigot, long contributing to CFPB’s unaccountability, is now being turned off.”

This comes after Vought was confirmed by the Senate on Thursday to lead the Office of Management and Budget.

Fox News Digital has reached out to CFPB for further comment.

February 9, 2025
‘Corrupt’ FBI must become ‘pristine,’ Trump says, as bureau braces for changes

President Donald Trump on Monday slammed the FBI as “corrupt” and praised his nominee for FBI director, Kash Patel, as the man to “straighten it out” as he declined to answer questions over whether his administration will remove bureau employees involved in the investigation into the Jan. 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol riot.

Asked Monday by Fox News whether he believed anyone involved in the Jan. 6 investigation should be fired, Trump did not answer outright. Instead, he criticized the actions of a bureau he has repeatedly decried as “corrupt,” and one he insists has targeted him specifically.

“I think the FBI was a very corrupt institution, and I’m a victim of it in the true sense,” Trump told Fox News while addressing reporters Monday at the Oval Office. He also added that he believes the bureau’s reputation has been “damaged badly, as has the DOJ’s.”

“But you know what? We have to have pristine, beautiful, perfect law enforcement,” Trump said.

AFTER STINGING ELECTION DEFEATS, DNC EYES RURAL VOTERS AS KEY TO 2026 MIDTERM SUCCESS

U.S. Capitol Police officers stand watch outside the Capitol building as snow falls ahead of a joint session of Congress to certify the results of the 2024 presidential election on Jan. 6, 2025. (SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images)

“We have to bring the reputation of the FBI not even [back] to what it was, even better than it ever was,” Trump said. “But Kash has to be the one to do it,” he added. “Kash will straighten it out.”

Trump’s remarks come days after Acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove directed the acting FBI director to terminate eight FBI employees and identify all current and former bureau personnel assigned to the Jan. 6 and Hamas cases for an internal review.

“I do not believe that the current leadership of the Justice Department can trust these FBI employees to assist in implementing the President’s agenda faithfully,” Bove wrote in the memo, instructing that the eight employees be fired by Monday, Feb. 3, at 5:30 p.m.

Former FBI and Justice Department officials warned in interviews with Fox News Digital that such firings, while within Trump’s authority, could have a chilling effect on the rest of the bureau should the administration move to get rid of the personnel involved in the Jan. 6 investigations.

The Trump administration has not yet said if it will move to take action against the individuals involved.

But new concerns were raised after Bove sent a 12-page questionnaire to FBI personnel across the country asking them to detail their involvement in the Jan. 6 investigations, noting that the department would begin a “review process to determine whether any additional personnel actions are necessary.”

TRUMP’S ULTIMATUM TO FEDERAL WORKERS: RETURN TO OFFICE ‘OR BE TERMINATED’

President Donald Trump (Getty Images)

The remarks come after Trump, in his second term as president, moved to immediately issue a blanket pardon and sentence commutation for all 1,600 criminal defendants in the Jan. 6 Capitol riots, who he has repeatedly referred to as “hostages.”

Since taking office, Trump has also fired the inspectors general of 17 separate federal agencies, fired more than a dozen prosecutors involved in the special counsel investigations led by Jack Smith and ordered more than half a dozen FBI officials to either resign or retire from their posts or be fired.

Combined, the actions have sparked new fears that the FBI could see the ousting of decades of expertise from within the bureau’s ranks, including employees well-versed in detecting and responding to counterterrorism threats, organized and violent crime, drug trafficking and more.

DOJ DIRECTS FBI TO FIRE 8 TOP OFFICIALS, IDENTIFY EMPLOYEES INVOLVED IN JAN 6, HAMAS CASES FOR REVIEW

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Others noted that the Jan. 6 investigation was originally launched under the Trump administration, a detail that the president and some of his supporters neglect to mention in their frequent criticisms against it.

“We’re in an extremely precarious time right now in a very chaotic world,” one former Justice Department official said in an interview. “The terrorism front is as concerning as I’ve seen it, ever. So it doesn’t make sense to me why we’d be taking a meat cleaver to agencies that defend against that.”

Fox News Digital’s Brooke Singman, David Spunt, Jake Gibson and Louis Casiano contributed to this report.

Breanne Deppisch is a politics reporter for Fox News Digital covering the 2024 election and other national news.

February 4, 2025
Bureau of Prisons director out as Trump’s Justice Department reforms take shape

The director of the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) has resigned from her position, while a Biden-era executive order that sought to phase out the use of private prisons has been repealed amid President Donald Trump’s efforts to implement drastic reforms to the Justice Department.

Colette Peters, who has led the BOP since August 2022, is out as director of the beleaguered agency, and she has been replaced by William Lothrop, who had been serving as deputy director of the BOP.

Peters was appointed by then-Attorney General Merrick Garland in 2022 and touted as a reform-minded outsider tasked with rebuilding an agency plagued for years by staff shortages, widespread corruption, misconduct and abuse.

DOJ TO INVESTIGATE STATE OR LOCAL OFFICIALS WHO OBSTRUCT IMMIGRATION ENFORCEMENT: MEMO

Then Attorney General Merrick Garland shakes hands with Colette Peters, then director of the federal Bureau of Prisons, after she was sworn in at BOP headquarters in Washington, on Aug. 2, 2022. (Evelyn Hockstein via AP)

The agency has nearly 36,000 employees and is responsible for more than 155,000 federal inmates.

Lothrop, who says he has more than 30 years’ experience working in the BOP, announced the change via a statement on Tuesday, the day after President Trump was sworn into office. The BOP director is not subject to confirmation by the Senate, per the legal news service Law 360.

“On Jan. 20, 2025, Director Peters separated from the Federal Bureau of Prisons and I will be serving as the Acting Director,” Lothrop said. “As we face ongoing challenges, including staffing shortages and operational issues, I am committed to working alongside you to find real solutions that strengthen our facilities. We will continue collaborating with our law enforcement partners and stakeholders to maintain robust programming and support services for inmates.”

“Our mission remains clear: to provide a safe, secure and humane environment, ensure public safety, and prepare those in our custody for successful reentry into society,” his statement added.

Colette Peters, the director of the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) has resigned from her position. ( Tierney L. Cross/Getty Images)

CAREER JUSTICE DEPARTMENT OFFICIALS REASSIGNED TO DIFFERENT POSITIONS: REPORTS

Soon after Trump was elected, Peters announced the closure of six male federal prison camps and one female facility, including the scandal-hit Federal Correctional Institution in Dublin, California, per Forbes.

FCI Dublin had garnered the nickname “rape club” after the Justice Department in December was ordered to pay almost $116 million to 103 women who say they were abused there.

The prison’s former warden, Ray Garcia, and at least seven other employees are now in prison themselves for sexually abusing inmates.

During her tenure, Peters appeared before the House and Senate Judiciary Committees and spoke about the challenges the BOP faced, but she had trouble getting results.

William Lothrop is the acting director of the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP). (Federal Bureau of Prisons )

In September 2023, Peters was scolded by Sens. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., and Mike Lee, R-Utah, who said Peters forced them to wait more than a year for answers to written follow-up questions they sent her after she first appeared before the committee in September 2022, leaving them without information critical to fully understanding how the agency runs.

Peters also irked senators by claiming she couldn’t answer even the most basic questions about agency operations — like how many correctional officers are on staff — and by referring to notes and talking points on a tablet computer in front of her.

In 2024, then President Biden signed the Federal Prison Oversight Law, which allowed the Office of Inspector General to conduct more unannounced prison inspections, per Forbes.

Of the inspections OIG has done over the years, it found significant shortages of staff, poor medical care for prisoners, rotten food and dirty living conditions. Peters said she welcomed the law, but that it had not yet been funded.

The entrance to FCI Dublin, which is located in California’s Bay Area. ( Anda Chu/MediaNews Group/The Mercury News via Getty Images)

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Trump reversed Executive Order 14006, which had eliminated Justice Department contracts with private prisons. The reversal now allows for new contracts between private prison corporations and the U.S. Marshals Service.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Michael Dorgan is a writer for Fox News Digital and Fox Business.

You can send tips to [email protected] and follow him on Twitter @M_Dorgan.

January 23, 2025