House Democrats grill Vought over DOGE’s CFPB data dives

With his days numbered as acting director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Russell Vought found himself in the hot seat Wednesday, taking fire from House Financial Services Committee Democrats on everything from DOGE’s data excavations at the agency to the burying of website content.

Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., ranking member of the committee, set the minority party’s tone for the hearing with a withering opening statement that chided Vought for blocking “billions of dollars from being returned to harmed American consumers” before ultimately “failing to dismantle the nation’s top consumer watchdog.” 

“I’ve never delighted in someone’s failure more than I have delighted in yours,” she told Vought, whose attempt to suffocate the CFPB was rejected by a federal court late last year.

Waters then focused her round of questioning on Vought’s oversight of the CFPB when representatives of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency entered agency headquarters in February 2025 and requested access to sensitive information, including internal staff records, industry data and personally identifiable information. 

Trump administration critics blasted the move at the time, noting that opening up CFPB databases to Elon Musk’s group — as the owner of the site formerly known as Twitter eyed the launch of an X Money app — amounted to staggeringly anticompetitive behavior.  

Waters said she asked the Government Accountability Office to investigate DOGE’s access to that and other CFPB data, but Vought “stonewalled them, too.” 

“Do you even know the extent of the data held by the CFPB that Elon Musk and anyone else associated with DOGE had access to?” the California Democrat asked. “Do you have a record of all the data that was accessed? Have you done any investigation into whether CFPB’s data is secure? Yes or no.”

“Congresswoman, we had a Department of Government Efficiency, it’s something we’re very proud of …” Vought said before Waters reclaimed her time and followed up with additional yes-or-no questions that the Office of Management and Budget director didn’t answer.

Rep. Gregory Meeks, D-N.Y., similarly blasted Vought for opening CFPB’s doors to DOGE, telling the acting director that granting the group access to some of the agency’s “most sensitive consumer and supervisory information” was “unserious” and “reckless”

And Rep. Sean Casten, D-Ill., one of the harshest congressional critics of DOGE’s foray into CFPB data, pressed Vought on his role in “enabling people to illegally access confidential information with people’s Social Security numbers who were in the CFPB system.”

“I will say generally, as the director of the agency, I was in charge of the administration being able to do its job at the CFPB,” said Vought, whose exit from the agency should come once nominee Brian Johnson is confirmed to the post.

The recent deletion of nearly 15 years of CFPB website content also sparked fireworks at Wednesday’s hearing. Vought didn’t respond to a letter from Senate Banking Committee Democrats to explain the deletions, a source told FedScoop Tuesday, but multiple House Financial Services Committee minority members put him on the spot.

Waters said press releases, consumer advisories, supervisory highlights, reports, and enforcement action summaries from prior administrations were deleted, while translations into other languages were disabled. She asked Vought if he was aware that a district court ordered the CFPB to maintain and not delete agency data.

“Your question is totally inaccurate,” he responded.

Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., continued that line of inquiry later, asking Vought how the CFPB is adhering to its mission “by removing consumer education and other materials from its website.”

“We did not remove materials from the website,” Vought replied. “We put it in an archived” system.

Vought provided a more in-depth answer to Rep. Bill Huizenga, R-Mich., earlier in the hearing, claiming new administrations “put the previous documents and press releases into an archived version of the website.”

“That is exactly what we have done,” he said. “It can be found on the website. It is all there. If people want to go back and look at what we think are flawed guidance documents from the [Rohit] Chopra directorship, it’s all there under archive. But it is not going to be represented as our administration’s view with regard to what the policies and rules and regulations are of this administration.”

Republicans on the committee largely praised Vought for his work leading the CFPB, applauding him for reversing what they said were weaponization efforts by the Biden administration and releasing a “humility pledge” for supervision division examiners to read to entities before conducting exams.

“Under President Trump’s leadership, the CFPB has begun to pull back from being an unaccountable super regulator and toward being a more focused agency that focuses on protecting consumers from actual genuine harm,” Committee Chair French Hill, R-Ark., said in his opening statement.

Vought will be back on Capitol Hill on Thursday to face the Senate Banking Committee.