Federal Judge Blocks Trump From Dismantling Consumer Financial Protection Bureau

A federal judge agreed Friday to block the Trump administration from dismantling the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau , an agency that was targeted for mass firings before the court's intervention.

U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson agreed to issue a preliminary injunction that maintains the agency's existence until she rules on the merits of a lawsuit seeking to preserve the agency. The judge said the court "can and must act" to save the agency from being shuttered.

Jackson ruled that, without a court order, President Donald Trump's administration would move quickly to shut down the agency that Congress created in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis.

"If the defendants are not enjoined, they will eliminate the agency before the Court has the opportunity to decide whether the law permits them to do it, and as the defendants' own witness warned, the harm will be irreparable," Berman Jackson said in her order.

Deepak Gupta, an attorney for the plaintiffs, said in a statement that the ruling "blocks the unprecedented plan to dismantle the CFPB - an agency that Congress created to protect Americans' financial security. This ruling upholds the Constitution's separation of powers and preserves the Bureau's vital work.