Washington Post [unpaywalled]: “The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau halted much of its work to investigate and penalize corporate wrongdoing Monday, after Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent — tapped to lead the watchdog on an acting basis — ordered an agency-wide review to “promote consistency” with the new Trump administration. Shortly after assuming the post, Bessent and his aides ordered the bureau’s staff in an email to cease crafting regulations, enforcing rules, conducting probes or providing “public communications of any type,” according to a copy obtained by The Washington Post, which said he had instituted the ban “effective immediately.” The missive appeared to herald a stark shift for the CFPB, a powerful agency formed in the wake of the 2008 banking crisis to protect consumers from unfair, deceptive or predatory financial practices. It came on the same day that President Donald Trump named Secretary of State Marco Rubio acting administrator of another agency, the U.S. Agency for International Development, which the administration moved to shutter as part of a broad and contested effort to slash government spending and regulation. Much like USAID, the financial watchdog is a longtime target of Republicans’ scorn. Party lawmakers have threatened for years to defund the CFPB or neuter its powers — and tech billionaire Elon Musk, who is advising Trump on his reconfiguration of American government, has called on Congress to “delete” the bureau entirely. Under President Joe Biden, the CFPB was active and aggressive: Its leader, Rohit Chopra, issued a wide array of rules to crack down on predatory lending, reduce the burden of medical debt and cut fees that customers pay when they fall behind on their credit card bills or overextend their checking accounts. Chopra also expanded the bureau’s watch over Apple, Google and other tech giants as their digital payment apps grew more popular with consumers…”