Attorney General Ellison wins lawsuit requiring CFPB be fully funded

Federal court rules Consumer Financial Protection Bureau must remain lawfully funded, resolving December 2025 AG Ellison and coalition of 22 AGs filed against former CFPB acting director’s attempt to defund it

AG Ellison is longtime advocate for CFPB, which has returned $21B improperly taken from American consumers in the last 15 years

September 28, 2026 (SAINT PAUL) —  Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison announced today that he and a coalition of 22 attorneys general have won their December 2025 lawsuit against the former Acting Director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), Russell Vought, who illegally and unconstitutionally attempted to entirely defund the agency he was leading.

In granting the coalition’s motion for summary judgment, the U.S. District Court for the District of Oregon held that the current CFPB Acting Director Mark Paoletta must request necessary funding from the Federal Reserve so the CFPB can operate as Congress intended it: lawfully funded and able to work so consumers have access to fair, transparent, and competitive markets for consumer financial products. The court held that former Acting Director Vought’s insistence on not requesting funds for the CFPB was unlawful and violated the Separation of Powers Clause in the U.S. Constitution.

“I have strongly supported the CFPB, as both Attorney General and a member of Congress, from the time it was just a concept through now. The CFPB has provided billions in relief to hundreds of millions of Americans over the last 15 years — so naturally, it came no surprise that the billionaires in charge of the White House wanted to gut it and line their pockets instead,” Attorney General Ellison said. “I’m pleased we’ve won this lawsuit to ensure the CFPB is fully funded. President Trump needs to understand I will never stop fighting for the CFPB.”  

 

Attorney General Ellison’s years’ long advocacy for the CFPB

The successful lawsuit is a logical extension of Attorney General Ellison’s years’ long advocacy for the CFPB. As a member of Congress, he co-sponsored the bill that founded it in 2011 in order to provide more protections for American consumers in the aftermath of the 2008 Great Recession and housing and mortgage crisis. In February 2025, he joined a coalition of attorneys general in an amicus brief warning a court about the Trump Administrations’ attempt to defund and disband the CFPB. In March 2025, he published an opinion in the Minnesota Star Tribune similarly defending the CFPB’s long record of helping consumers in Minnesota and across the United States and warning against Donald Trump’s and Elon Musk’s efforts to defund it.

Trump Administration attempts to destroy the CFPB

The CFPB was created to protect consumers in the financial marketplace, and it performs critical functions necessary to the functioning of the financial system. Established in the wake of the Great Recession, CFPB is an independent agency, funded entirely by the Federal Reserve, that is 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.

Shortly after taking office, however, the Trump Administration launched a campaign of destruction and systemic shuttering of the CFPB, threatening catastrophic harm to hardworking families and consumer financial markets nationwide. The Trump Administration has taken a series of actions intended to debilitate the CFPB, including issuing a suspension of work across the agency, terminating probationary employees, attempting to issue reduction in force notices to 90% of the CFPB’s workforce — a move that was swiftly blocked by the courts.

In November 2025, the CFPB gave notice that it would not request funding from the Federal Reserve to continue its operations based on a specious legal analysis it had received from U.S. DOJ advising that it could not lawfully draw funds from the Federal Reserve to maintain its operations because the Federal Reserve is “unprofitable.” In December 2025, Attorney General Ellison joined a coalition of 22 attorneys general in filing a lawsuit challenging the CFPB Acting Director’s unlawful decision not to fund the agency’s operations, preventing it from performing legally mandated functions. 

In the lawsuit, the attorneys general argued that CFPB’s failure to seek funding for continued operations, including operations of its consumer complaints database, would harm consumers and result in statutorily mandated functions not being performed. The attorneys general asked the court to declare this action unlawful and ensure CFPB is properly funded, and which the court has done in its order granting summary judgment.

Value of the CFPB to Minnesota and U.S. consumers

The CFPB has served as an invaluable partner to state attorneys general and state banking regulators, as an enforcer, regulator, and resource for consumers. Working alongside state attorneys general, who have broad powers to protect consumers in state and federal law, the CFPB is empowered to protect consumers on a national scale from a wide range of financial predators and harms — a need made clear by the Great Recession and subsequent mortgage crisis showed. In its 15-year existence, the CFPB has returned more than $21 billion improperly taken from more than 205,000,000 Americans.

Beyond its own consumer protection actions, CFPB is legally mandated to provide vital information to states to aid their own consumer protection efforts. States rely on consumer complaints from CFPB to investigate wrongdoing, secure refunds and restitution for consumers, and support their own litigation related to consumer financial products.

States also regularly refer consumer complaints to CFPB for further assistance. From just 2022 through 2025, Minnesotans filed more than 46,000 complaints with the CFPB. Completely defunding CFPB would have eliminated this important resource for resolving complaints and securing justice for cheated consumers.