“Confirmed Judges, Confirmed Fears” is a blog series documenting the harmful impact of President Trump’s judges on Americans’ rights and liberties. It includes judges nominated in both his first and second terms.
Trump DC Circuit judge Greg Katsas wrote a 2-1 opinion, joined by Trump judge Neomi Rao, that reversed a lower court injunction and approved Trump’s unilateral firing of hundreds of employees at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) and the dismantling of the agency. Obama nominee Cornelia Pillard dissented from the August 2025 decision in NTEU v Vought.
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What happened in this case?
Congress created the CFPB in 2010 to protect consumers from fraudulent and abusive practices by banks, mortgage companies, lending agencies, and other services and products. Because of its robust protections for consumers, it has been a target of corporate interests since its creation.
Early in Trump’s second administration, he issued a series of orders that effectively abolished the CFPB and fired most of its employees. A union representing most of the fired employees and others filed a lawsuit to stop the unilateral action to “eliminate the CFPB.”
A district court conducted a two-day hearing and issued a preliminary injunction against the Trump Administration. The case was appealed to the DC Circuit.
How did Trump judges Katsas and Rao rule and why is the result harmful?
Trump judges Katsas and Rao vacated the district court injunction and upheld the Trump actions to effectively dismantle the CFPB. They maintained that the lower court did not have authority to consider the personnel or other actions taken by the Trump Administration.
Judge Pillard strongly dissented. Based on a thorough analysis of the record and past precedent, she stated that “it is emphatically not within the discretion of the President” to decide on his own that “the country would benefit most if there were no bureau at all.” The “power to repeal the law” establishing CFPB, she went on, “lies with the legislative branch.” The majority’s “constricted view” of the courts’ authority to contradict Trump’s actions, on the other hand, “contravenes statutes, precedent, and basic principles of our constitutional government.” The majority’s view that the CFPB’s continued existence is “a matter of unilateral and unexplained presidential edict,” she concluded, is “untenable.”
Although Trump judges Katsas and Rao only eliminated the preliminary injunction, their ruling, if applied more generally, would effectively abolish the CFPB, harming consumers and others across the country, The decision also illustrates the importance of our federal courts to health, welfare and justice and the significance of having fair-minded judges on the federal bench.