In February 2025, Russell Vought, a White House official who oversaw sweeping cuts across federal agencies, took control of the CFPB as acting director. He quickly ordered a stop to nearly all agency work. Under his leadership, the CFPB has attempted to fire most of its staff, frozen investigations and dropped enforcement actions, including against TransUnion. One of the CFPB’s new lawyers leading the pullback on enforcement represented Experian for years before joining the administration.

The credit bureaus “want to do as little as possible,” said Chi Chi Wu, director of consumer reporting at the National Consumer Law Center, which is a plaintiff in a lawsuit that has so far blocked some of the administration’s dismantling efforts.

“The thing that is making them do any kind of effort is a lawsuit or a regulator, and now we don’t have the regulator,” Wu said.