Judge blocks the dismantling of the Office of Financial Protection of the Consumer, orders the restored employees

A federal judge is blocking the dismantling of the consumer financial protection office, finding that the Trump administration acted “completely in violation of the law” when he tried to close the organization quickly.

Judge Amy Berman Jackson issued a preliminary judicial order on Friday afternoon that requires the Trump administration to restore any completed CFPB employee, terminate the cancellation of any contract, allow the workforce to access their computers and return to the office, resume the mandatory work and keep any record of the organization.

“If the defendants are not ordered, they will eliminate the agency before the court has the opportunity to decide if the law allows them to do so, and as the defendant’s own witness warned, the damage will be irreparable,” Judge Jackson wrote.

The Office of Financial Protection of the Consumer, created by Congress to safeguard Americans against unfair commercial practices due to the financial crisis of 2008, has been the object of elimination by President Donald Trump as part of his efforts to reduce the federal government.

Trump has said that the CFPB is “very important to get rid of” and that the organization was “prepared to destroy some very good people.”

In his ruling, Judge Jackson said the Trump administration acted in “total contempt” for Congress when he tried unilaterally dismantling the agency.

Their efforts to dismantle the organization continued even after Judge Jackson ordered the Trump administration not to fire the majority of employees of the agency, he wrote.

“In the absence of a court order freezing the status quo, preserving the agency’s data, its operational capacity and its workforce, there is a substantial risk that the defendants complete the destruction of the agency completely in violation of the law long before the court can govern the merits, and it will be impossible to rebuild,” he wrote.

Judge Jackson also criticized the Trump administration for fighting to change the course after she began to examine the effort to reduce operations.

According to Jackson, the government’s statement that the CFPB was still doing its legally required tasks was “nothing more than showcase” to hide what was happening to close the organization.

“The defendants are still involved in an effort to implement a presidential plan to close the agency completely and do it fast,” Judge Jackson.

In judicial procedures, Trump administration officials affirmed that the stop order that sent the vast majority of employees home was a “common practice at the beginning of a new administration” and the lawyers of the Department of Justice insisted that the Trump administration is trying to improve the CFPB, not destroy it.

Judge Jackson specifically called the irreparable damage made to one of the plaintiffs who brought the lawsuit, Pastor Eva Steee, who sought the help of the CFPB to forgive their public service loans before he died. With the Trump administration dismantling the CFPB while requested help, Steee never received an appointment with the CFPB, according to his lawyers.

“If I do not receive the forgiveness of the public service loan and the great refund with which they owe me before my death, my family could be forced to follow a high death that will not provide them with the reimbursement with which they contain so that they can use the money for the basic needs after it passes,” Steee said in a affidavit.

She died on March 15, and her loans were never discharged.

“The irreparable damage that has already passed to Pastor Eva Steege is enough to grant preliminary relief,” Judge Jackson wrote.