On December 22, 2025, New York Attorney General Letitia James, California Attorney General Rob Bonta, Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser, New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin, and Oregon Attorney General Dan Rayfield co-led a coalition of 22 attorneys general in suing the Trump administration to stop the complete defunding of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). CFBP is an independent agency funded by the Federal Reserve focused on regulating financial institutions and products to protect consumers. The CFPB writes and enforces rules to regulate financial institutions, collects critical economic data, and fields millions of consumer complaints every year. In addition, CFPB is the only federal agency authorized to supervise the nation’s largest banks for their compliance with consumer financial protection laws. Beyond its own consumer protection actions, CFPB is legally mandated to provide vital information to states to aid their consumer protection efforts. States rely on consumer complaints from CFPB to investigate wrongdoing, secure refunds and restitution for consumers, and support their own litigation against financial institutions. The CFPB’s current acting director, Russel Vought, is attempting to completely defund the agency by refusing to request any funding from the Federal Reserve, which will virtually guarantee the agency runs out of money in January 2026.

The coalition argues that the CFPB has a legal requirement to collect and process consumer complaints and share that complaint data with states, and that Vought’s actions violate federal statutes and the Constitution. Their lawsuit seeks a court order preventing the administration from completely defunding the CFPB.

Defunding the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau will make it harder to stop predatory lenders, scammers, and other bad actors from taking advantage of New Yorkers. My office and attorneys general across the country rely on the CFPB for consumer complaints and other data to get justice for consumers. The administration’s actions are a handout to those who drive up costs by cheating hardworking Americans, and I will keep fighting to ensure they follow the law and our Constitution. Attorney General Letitia James