Democrats want CFPB’s Vought to testify before Congress

• What’s at Stake: Acting CFPB Director Russell Vought is dismantling the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. He had refused to respond to any questions about his actions from Democrats.
• Supporting Data: The Dodd-Frank Act requires that the CFPB director appear twice a year before the Senate Banking Committee.
• Forward Look: The lawmakers acknowledge that Senate Banking Committee Chair Tim Scott, R-S.C., is unlikely to compel testimony from Vought and there is little Democrats can do to make him in the near-term.

Russell Vought, the acting director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, has faced accusations and criticism for stonewalling Congressional requests for testimony about the CFPB’s funding and his broader actions to gut the agency, furlough staff and refuse to conduct supervision or enforcement of consumer protection laws. 

Now Democrats on the Senate Banking Committee are publicly calling for Senate Banking Committee Chairman Tim Scott, R-S.C., to compel Vought to testify. The CFPB director is legally required to appear twice a year before the Senate Banking Committee, but Vought has not testified in a year. 

The letter to Scott is the second time Democrats have requested that Vought appear before Congress and provide statutorily-required reports. But Democrats have little leverage to compel Scott to call a hearing, and Republicans are unlikely to demand testimony from leaders of their own party. 

Democratic senators, led by Senate Banking Committee Ranking Member Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., said oversight is essential due to what they called Vought’s “egregious, unlawful efforts to shut down the CFPB.” The lawmakers cited Vought’s plan to furlough nearly all staff by Dec. 31, and past actions that have virtually eliminated supervision, examination, enforcement and investigations. The CFPB said it plans to transfer the remaining 30 cases in active litigation to the Department of Justice.

“By statute, the CFPB Director must appear twice a year before the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs,” Democrats on the banking committee wrote in their letter to Scott. “Particularly in light of Acting Director Vought’s egregious, unlawful efforts to shut down the CFPB — making it easier for big banks and giant corporations to cheat and scam American families across the country — it is essential that this Committee conduct oversight of the agency and that its leadership face questions in public.”

The lawmakers said that Vought has been blocked from shutting down the CFPB, and noted that a federal court found the Trump administration had “fully engaged in a hurried effort to dismantle and disable the agency entirely.”

With Republicans in control of Congress, there appears to be little that Democrats can do to compel testimony. Vought has been accused by members of Congress and watchdog groups of repeatedly ignoring requests to appear before committees to explain his actions and budget proposals for the CFPB. 

Vought has claimed that he cannot legally request funding for the CFPB from the Federal Reserve System and he has repeatedly challenged Congress’s oversight role. Meanwhile, Democrats have lambasted Vought as one of the key architects of Project 2025, the Republican blueprint for dramatically reducing the role of government. 

The controversy of an acting CFPB director refusing to appear before Congress is not a new issue for Republicans. In early 2018, acting CFPB Director Mick Mulvaney thwarted Congressional Democrats by claiming he was only required to appear before Congress and did not actually have to testify or answer any questions. 

Warren created the CFPB before she became a senator. In February President Trump said that he wanted to gut the agency at the same time that he launched into a verbal assault against Warren.  

The letter was signed by all the Democrats on the banking committee including Senators Jack Reed, D-Rhode Island; Mark Warner, D-Virginia; Chris Van Hollen, D-Maryland; Catherine Cortez Masto, D-Nevada; Tina Smith, D-Minnesota; Raphael Warnock, D-Georgia; Andy Kim, D-New Jersey; Ruben Gallego, D-Arizona; Lisa Blunt Rochester, D-Delaware; and Angela Alsobrooks, D-Maryland.