Rep. Juan Vargas Calls Out Trump and DOGE Efforts to Dismantle Consumer Watchdog Agency, Take Away Protections from Military Families and Seniors
WASHINGTON - During a Financial Services Committee hearing today, U.S. Representative Juan Vargas (CA-52) called out the Trump Administration’s efforts to dismantle the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) – an agency that has returned more than $21 billion to families scammed by big banks and other financial institutions – and leave military families and seniors more vulnerable. President Trump and DOGE have moved rapidly to gut the CFPB by cutting off funding, firing staff, and shutting down its headquarters.
Watch Rep. Vargas’s questions to former Consumer Financial Protection Bureau General Counsel and Senior Advisor to the Director Seth Frotman HERE. Read Rep. Vargas’s questioning:
VARGAS:
I represent the San Diego region and the San Diego region is blessed by having the Navy there and many, many military personnel and we're very blessed because many of them stay there. They retire there, but unfortunately, they become victims often times of financial
scams.
In San Diego, in the San Diego region, we have 96% more CFPB consumer complaints filed by servicemembers. You know that, I'm sure.
Could you talk a little bit about what is happening right now and how we've helped them before and how we're not helping them right now because I'm getting these complaints right now from people, and they're saying they're calling, there's nobody there.
FROTMAN:
Thank you so much for the question, Congressman. I've actually visited the Marine Corps depot training facility with Holly Petraeus. So, this is critically important. You know, one of the central tasks that Congress directed the CFPB to do was look after military families. And the track record of the Bureau across administrations before the most recent change, I think, was stellar.
We got back more than $200 million dollars for military families through enforcement actions. We helped with 400,000 complaints. And what you see now is just devastating to military families. They told the people who staff the office that the Congress required, the Office of Servicemember Affairs, to stop working. They broke the complaint system.
So we've heard a ton today about overreach. We've heard these amorphous vague comments about CFPB overreach. Is it overreach when the Bureau took enforcement actions against a bunch of scammers who ripped off military families, who ripped off veterans, who ripped off retirees?
We've heard a lot of the abstracts about the Bureau and the prior leadership, but we haven't heard specifics because I think that is what, this is one example of exactly what the Bureau was tasked to do, and they're not doing right now.
VARGAS:
The other thing that I think is very important also is to talk about [the] elderly. You know, again, San Diego is a young town, but it's not that young. I mean, a number of us are retired… and there's a lot of scams, again, against elderly. And… before I got all these positive comments about how the CFPB was doing their job. Now I'm getting all these complaints because nobody's there. Could you comment about that?
FROTMAN:
That's correct. The Acting Director Vought told the Office of Older Americans to stop working. People who submit complaints about themselves or an elderly parent or grandparent saw that system broken.
So, you know, there's been a lot of charges leveled, but I think one of the things that I think we all agree on is that the CFPB needs to work. The CFPB needs to work on behalf of consumers and servicemembers and older Americans. It needs to work on behalf of honest businesses, and it's not now. The inspectors that are supposed to take care of service members and older Americans are sitting at home instead of doing their job.
VARGAS:
Mr. Frotman, I want this on the record because I think that I've been around long enough now that you see cycles. And the unfortunate cycles are this: we've talked about predators and we've seen this. Oftentimes my colleagues on the other side ultimately control government and then you do see an overreach all right, but by the banks and others, and we get into a financial slide. And then we get into a recession, and then we get into real trouble. And then consumers, we saw in 2008, get ripped off. So we heard today that the CFPB is the predator, that you guys are the predator, that you were the predator. Could you straighten the record out on that, and I want this on the record because I think it's gonna happen again. I want to make sure that you tell the truth. Go ahead, sir.
FROTMAN:
Thank you so much. So, you know, we've heard a lot of attacks on CFPB leadership, but these are really attacks on dedicated public servants who wake up every single day just trying to make their neighborhood safe.
So many of us who work at the CFPB lived through the financial crisis and watched community after community decimated while a bunch of billionaire bankers got off scot-free. And what we do every day at the Bureau, or what we did every day at the Bureau, was to try to make sure that doesn't happen again.
What is happening now at the Bureau, where there is no oversight over massive non-banks in this country, is bad for businesses, it is bad for consumers, and they are setting up the situation that will, there will be another financial crisis in this country, and you all, or the people sitting in the chairs after you, will be forced to deal with it once again.
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