Nevada AG joins fight against Trump to protect consumer bureau
Nevada Attorney General Aaron Ford joined a coalition of 23 attorneys general Thursday taking legal action to protect the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau — the latest move Ford has taken challenging the Trump administration.
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is an independent government agency responsible for protecting consumers from unfair financial practices. Earlier this month, the Trump administration fired the director of the CFPB and appointed Office of Management and Budget Director Russel Vought as the acting director. He immediately ordered the CFPB to stop its work as part of the administration’s efforts to cut government spending.
Since then, Democrats have raised the alarm and highlighted the work the bureau does to protect consumers, from helping people facing foreclosure stay in their homes to stopping banks from charging junk fees.
An amicus brief Ford and other attorneys general filed Thursday in the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland argues that dismantling the bureau would “significantly harm consumers and hamper enforcement of federal consumer protection laws” and prevent consumers from reporting fraud.
“The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is an essential tool to make sure that Nevada consumers are protected from deceptive or unfair business practices,” Ford said in a Thursday statement.
The bureau was created in 2011 after the 2008 economic crash and was designed to keep banks and lenders in check, according to the attorney general’s office. It works with state attorneys general on consumer issues related to banking, student loan services, auto lending and other consumer financial matters.
The coalition of attorneys general wrote that efforts to shut down the bureau “send a signal that there will be no oversight over big banks and financial institutions, further harming consumers.”
Ford’s amicus brief is the latest in a long string of legal actions the Democratic attorney general has taken against the Trump administration.
He has joined in legal actions relating to the Department of Government Efficiency, birthright citizenship, medical and public health research and federal grant freezes. He’s also joined in an amicus brief challenging Trump’s executive order banning transgender people from serving in the military.
Ford has seen both success and setbacks with the lawsuits; a judge granted Ford and other states’ attorneys general a temporary restraining order on federal grant freezes, as well as in the case against the National Institutes for Health for cutting funds for medical research at universities. A federal judge also granted his preliminary injunction request against Trump’s executive order ending birthright citizenship.
Another judge denied his request in a case against DOGE, the Trump administration’s Department of Government Efficiency.
Contact Jessica Hill at jehill@reviewjournal.com. Follow @jess_hillyeah on X.
