The judge blocks the dismantling of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, orders reinstated employees

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

Judge Amy Berman Jackson published a preliminary injunction on Friday afternoon which obliges the Trump administration to reintegrate all the employees of CFPB dismissed, to cancel the cancellation of any contract, to allow the workforce to access their computers and to return to the office, to resume the required work and to maintain the files held by the organization.

“If the defendants are not enjoined, they will eliminate the agency before the court has the possibility of deciding if the law allows them to do so and as their own witness of the defendants has warned, the damage will be irreparable,” wrote Jackson.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, created by the Congress to protect the Americans against unfair trade practices following the 2008 financial crisis, was targeted for the elimination by President Donald Trump as part of his efforts to reduce the federal government.

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

In his decision, judge Jackson said that Trump administration acted in “total contempt” for the congress when he tried to unilaterally dismantle the agency.

Their efforts to dismantle the organization continued even after judge Jackson in February ordered the Trump administration not to dismiss the majority of agency employees, she wrote.

“In the absence of an injunction freezing the status quo-by preserving the agency data, its operational capacity and its workforce-there is a substantial risk that defendants will completely finish the destruction of the law in violation of the law long before the court could reign over the merits, and it will be impossible to rebuild,” she wrote.

Judge Jackson also criticized the Trump administration for changing the course after starting to examine the efforts to close operations.

According to Jackson, the statement of the government according to which the CFPB still exercised its legally required tasks was “nothing more than window clothing” to hide what was going on to close the organization.

“The accused are still engaged in order to implement a presidential plan to close the agency entirely and do it quickly,” said Judge Jackson.

In legal proceedings, officials of the Trump administration said that the work order which had returned the vast majority of employees was a “common practice at the start of a new administration” and the lawyers of the Ministry of Justice insisted that the Trump administration was trying to improve the CFPB, not to destroy it.

Judge Jackson specifically called the irreparable damage caused to one of the complainants who brought a trial, Pastor Eva Steege, who asked for help from the CFPB to forgive his public service loans before his death. With the Trump Administration, which was engaging the CFPB as she asked for help, Steege never received an appointment with the CFPB, according to her lawyers.

“If I do not receive the forgiveness of the public loan and the great reimbursement that I am owed before my death, my family could be forced to continue a release of death which will not provide them with the reimbursement on which they count so that they can use the money for basic needs after my adoption,” said Steege in an agitated declaration.

She died on March 15 and her loans were never released.

“The irreparable damage that has already arrived for Pastor Eva Steege is sufficient to grant a preliminary compensation,” wrote judge Jackson.