(Bloomberg) — The former chief technologist of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau alleged in a legal filing that the Trump administration is on the verge of deleting a database with sensitive financial information, as concerns mount over billionaire Elon Musk’s efforts to dismantle federal agencies.
In the declaration filed in the US District Court for the District of Columbia, former chief technologist and senior adviser Erie Meyer said that CFPB is privy to a raft of financial information including “supervisory and examination records of financial institutions, enforcement action data, consumer complaints, personal consumer information, and market research records.”
“Reports that I have received from within the Bureau reliably indicate that databases holding the CFPB’s data will soon be deleted,” Meyer said in the declaration. “If that happens, it would result in the immediate and irrevocable loss of data essential to the agency’s core mission.”
The consumer watchdog, established after the 2008 financial crisis, picked up its regulatory and enforcement speed under the Biden administration. Former director Rohit Chopra targeted and investigated the nation’s largest banks and companies, including Goldman Sachs Group Inc., JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Walmart Inc.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Within the past week, the Trump administration has moved to reshape the CFPB, an agency that was a brainchild of Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren. Acting director Russell Vought announced last weekend the CFPB will “not be taking its next draw of unappropriated funding” and staffers have been ordered to halt routine supervisory activities.
This week, the Trump administration has fired roughly 200 CFPB staffers, according to people familiar with the matter, and the union representing some agency staffers said in a court filing it is expecting mass layoffs soon.
Meyer said in the filing the deletion of the data that tracks financial practices “including compliance and enforcement records, would impair the Bureau’s ability to identify risks and respond to emerging threats within the financial system. This could destabilize markets, allow bad actors to exploit weaknesses in financial institutions, and undermine public trust in the financial system.”
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