Attorney General Mayes Sues Trump Administration to Defend Critical Consumer Protection Efforts

PHOENIX – Attorney General Mayes today joined a coalition of attorneys general in suing the Trump administration to stop the complete defunding of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), which has returned more than $21 billion improperly taken from over 205 million Americans throughout its 14-year existence.

The CFPB’s current acting director, Russell 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. As Attorney General Mayes and the coalition argue, this will have devastating impacts on consumers and severely disrupt states’ consumer protection efforts, which rely on consumer complaints and data from the CFPB.

Attorney General Mayes and the coalition argue 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 the law and the Constitution. The lawsuit seeks a court order preventing the administration from completely defunding the CFPB.

“The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is one of the most effective tools we have to hold big banks and financial institutions accountable when they cheat people,” said Attorney General Mayes. “Deliberately starving this agency of funding leaves consumers at risk of fraud, predatory lending, and abusive financial practices. My office is taking action to protect consumers from this reckless and unlawful action.”

Established in the wake of the Great Recession, the CFPB is an independent agency funded entirely by the Federal Reserve and 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, the 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, the CFPB is legally mandated to provide vital information to states to aid their consumer protection efforts. States rely on consumer complaints from the CFPB to investigate wrongdoing, secure refunds and restitution for consumers, and support litigation against financial institutions. For example, the CFPB collects demographic and geographic lending data under the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act, which states use to protect homebuyers from discriminatory lending.

States also regularly refer consumer complaints to the CFPB for further assistance. As Attorney General Mayes and the coalition argue, completely defunding the CFPB will eliminate this critical resource for resolving complaints and securing justice for consumers who have been harmed.

In November, Vought took a novel position that the agency can only be funded by the Federal Reserve’s “profits,” which he asserted are currently nonexistent. He therefore chose not to request any funding from the Federal Reserve, making it all but certain that the CFPB will run out of funding entirely in January 2026.

Attorney General Mayes and the coalition argue that this decision is unlawful and unconstitutional. The CFPB has a legal obligation to provide states with consumer complaints—an obligation it cannot meet without funding. Eliminating CFPB funding also violates the separation of powers, as Congress created the agency and established a clear funding mechanism through the Federal Reserve.

Attorney General Mayes and the coalition are seeking a court order preventing the administration from carrying out its decision not to request funding and requiring the CFPB to request the funds necessary to fulfill its duties under the law.

Joining Attorney General Mayes in filing this lawsuit are the attorneys general of California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Wisconsin, and the District of Columbia.

A copy of the complaint is available here.