By Douglas Gillison and Chris Prentice
(Reuters) – Signage marking the Washington headquarters of the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the consumer watchdog in the Trump administration’s crosshairs, came down overnight, according to a reporter’s observations and photographic evidence.
President Donald Trump and billionaire Elon Musk have sought to dismantle the agency since the Republican president’s return to the White House a month ago.
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An emblem at the front entrance as well as prominent lettering in the building’s lobby were no longer visible on Wednesday evening. A Reuters photo showed signage over a separate entrance had disappeared by Thursday morning.
The CFPB, established after the 2008 financial crisis and long reviled by conservatives and financial firms, has been especially hard hit by an administration drive to slash and reshape the federal bureaucracy.
A former housing official and conservative think tank adviser, Mark Calabria, has been detailed to the agency temporarily, two industry sources said. The news was first reported by Politico. Congress has yet to confirm Jonathan McKernan, Trump’s nominee for the job.
Agency representatives did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Calabria did not answer an email seeking comment.
Calabria has been a senior adviser to the libertarian Cato Institute and is a former director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency. He will oversee financial regulators in a separate role at the Office of Management and Budget.
A Cato spokesperson confirmed Wednesday that Calabria was no longer with the organization.
In an executive order on Wednesday, Trump terminated two CFPB advisory councils on academic research and credit unions as part of what the White House said was a broader effort to slash the size of government.
Under a court order last week, Trump’s CFPB leadership committed to halting temporarily the mass layoffs, preserving its existing data collections and not returning the agency’s available funding to the Federal Reserve.
(Reporting by Douglas Gillison and Chris Prentice; Additional reporting by Pete Schroeder; Editing by Howard Goller)
