Donald Trump team orders work pause at consumer protection agency; ‘Please do not...’

Trump administration has informed staff at the country 's consumer protection agency that it is temporarily shuttering its headquarters and pausing all work.

The administration of US President Donald Trump has informed staff at the country 's consumer protection agency that it is temporarily shuttering its headquarters and pausing all work, according to an email shared Monday with AFP.

Trump's new director of the White House Office of Management and Budget said the CFPB's Washington office would be closed this week, and told employees not to show up.(AP)

In the message to staff, Russell Vought, the acting director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, said the CFPB's Washington office would be closed this week, and told employees not to show up.

"Please do not perform any work tasks," said Vought, Trump's new director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, and the architect of the conservative plan known as Project 2025 to reform the federal government.

Vought added that staff would need to seek written permission from him before doing any urgent work going forward, and should otherwise "stand down from performing any work task."

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau was set up in the wake of the 2008 global financial crisis and is tasked with protecting American consumers from corporate misconduct.

Republicans have long accused the independent agency of overreach, with some of Trump's most ardent supporters -- including the tech billionaire Elon Musk -- calling for its closure.

The CFPB "has long functioned as another woke, weaponized arm of the bureaucracy that leverages its power against certain industries and individuals disfavored by so-called 'elites'," the White House said in a statement published Monday.

"Under the administration of President Donald J. Trump, the weaponization ends right now," it added.

The decision to pause all work at CFPB and close down its offices appears to be an attempt to curtail its oversight powers without shuttering it entirely -- something that would require congressional approval.

"Congress built the CFPB, and no one other than Congress -- not the president, not Musk, not Vought -- can shut it down," Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren, a long-time CFPB supporter, said in a video message.