The Trump administration has scaled back its plan to dismantle the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, asking a federal court to approve firing more than half of the remaining staff while keeping the agency intact. Acting Director Russell T. Vought, who has led the bureau for over a year, will not close the agency entirely but seeks to right-size operations under a new restructuring plan.

Vought's latest proposal would preserve 556 staff positions, down from 1,200 employees at the end of January. This represents a significant reduction from the 1,750 workers the bureau had before President Trump's second term began. The plan follows a series of court decisions that blocked earlier attempts to eliminate 90 percent of the workforce and shutter the agency completely.

The restructuring would dramatically cut the bureau's supervision department from over 500 employees to just 77, while the enforcement division would shrink from 250 to 50 workers. These cuts come despite the enforcement division having extracted nearly $20 billion in consumer refunds and debt cancellation from companies. The regulations division, however, would retain 125 positions, suggesting the administration's priorities for the agency's future work.

Federal courts have repeatedly intervened to prevent mass firings, sometimes acting just hours before termination orders could be carried out. The latest filing was made to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, which is considering whether to allow the reduced staffing plan to proceed. The bureau's staff union and consumer advocacy groups, represented by a law firm, received only hours of advance notice about the proposal.