A panel of three judges of the DC Court of Appeals voted 2-1 to allow President Donald Trump's administration to keep making cuts at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB).
Trump's agenda at the CFPB included:
The CFPB has been a mess since its formation in 2010. Yes, another government idea that sounded like a great idea: "enforce federal laws that protect consumers of financial products."
Yeah, except Congress gave the CFPB "broad discretion" on how to achieve its goals. No oversight. It can organize its internal affairs however it wants.
DOGE wanted access to the CFPB to achieve Trump's agenda.
Unions, groups, and employees threw a hissy fit. They received an injunction, blocking the Trump administration from continuing the cuts.
The plaintiffs claimed the administration's "actions to eliminate" the CFPB "usurp legislative authority conferred upon Congress by the Constitution." They also invoked the APA (Administrative Procedure Act).
Ah, yes. The APA...again. Have you noticed all these people drag the APA into their cases?
Judge Gregory Katsas, the author of the opinion, pointed out that the plaintiffs organized their lawsuit incorrectly. He mentioned they could have gone after Trump's planned actions:
"Such challenges would target specific agency action or inaction that is alleged to be unlawful and to harm specific individual plaintiffs," explained Katsas. "And the courts, if they set aside the specific action alleged to be unlawful, or compelled the specific action alleged to be unlawfully withheld, could redress the specific injuries of individual plaintiffs."
Here's more:
This case is not constructed like that. Instead, the plaintiffs seek to challenge what they describe as a single, overarching decision to shut down the CFPB, which they infer from the various discrete actions noted above. To remedy that asserted decision, they seek pervasive judicial control over the day-today management of the agency, including decisions about how many employees the agency may terminate, how many contracts it may cancel, how it may approve work, which buildings it must occupy, and how employees will complete remote work. Furthermore, the plaintiffs urge all this despite the lack of any causal connection between many of the specific agency actions alleged to comprise the shutdown (for example, not providing reports regarding credit cards) and the specific injuries alleged by these plaintiffs (for example, Mr. Steege's ongoing difficulty in addressing his late wife's student loans).
As we now explain, this challenge is not viable. It cannot be brought under the APA because that statute provides a cause of action to challenge discrete, final agency action, which the claims here do not target. And it cannot be brought in equity because the claims here neither raise constitutional questions nor satisfy the stringent prerequisites for ultra vires review.
Here's another significant fact: Where is the proof that Trump would shut down the CFPB?
"The plaintiffs point to no regulation, order, document, email, or other statement, written or oral, purporting to shut down the CFPB," stated Katsas. "Instead, they infer such an overarching decision from various discrete 'actions' taken by agency leadership to downsize the Bureau, 'including by issuing stop-work instructions, cancelling contracts, declining and returning funding, firing employees, and terminating the lease for its headquarters.'"
Overall, though, I just hope everyone stops clinging to the APA. This is getting ridiculous.
Katsas destroyed those using it and courts that have been allowing those people to go after Trump: