On February 19, Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Adam Schiff (D-CA) sent a letter to the Secretary of the Treasury, Scott Bessent, and Acting Director of the CFPB, Russell Vought, demanding that members from DOGE and its head, Elon Musk, be removed from the CFPB. The letter highlighted how DOGE staffers requested access to internal CFPB staff records, competitive industry data, and personally identifiable consumer information. Further, the letter argued how Musk’s social media company — which recently announced a partnership to provide peer-to-peer payments through a digital wallet — risked providing Musk’s social media company with an unfair advantage over its competitors.
The letter characterized DOGE’s actions targeting the CFPB as “actively undermining an agency directly responsible for supervising—and if necessary, disciplining—[Musk’s social media company]’s new P2P system.” The letter requested documents and responses to a number of questions including, among other things, an accounting of all proprietary information DOGE employees have accessed, all written communications between DOGE and CFPB officials, a description of any measures put in place to ensure that DOGE and Musk cannot access information that would present conflicts, an accounting of any examples of DOGE or Musk’s recusal from particular matters, and any ethics waivers that have been issued. Responses are requested by February 25.
This was not the first time congressmembers sent a letter to Treasury heads regarding DOGE and the CFPB: As previously covered by InfoBytes, 189 congressional Democrats sent a letter to Acting Director Russell Vought of the CFPB and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent expressing concerns regarding the involvement of DOGE at the CFPB and the orders to halt the agency’s operations.
