DOGE cancels 136 Consumer Financial Protection Bureau contracts in DC, Maryland, Virginia

WASHINGTON — One of the recent targets of President Donald Trump’s attempt to rapidly shrink the government is the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Now, Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency says it has canceled more than 100 contracts with the agency in D.C., Maryland and Virginia so far on its “Wall of Receipts” website.

The CFPB was created to protect Americans from predatory banking practices. It one of a number of reforms institued by the Dodd-Frank Act in the wake of the 2008 housing and financial crisis. But throughout the past month, the Trump administration has been dismantling it. The newly-installed Office of Management and Budget Director Russel Vought ordered the agency to stop all its work and to close its building in an email Feb. 8.

On Monday, a federal judge heard arguments from attorneys for the National Treasury Employees Union, which is seeknig a preliminary injunction to stop Vought, who is also CFPB’s acting director, from shutting down the agency. Jackson ordered a follow-up hearing next week and said a top agency official, CFPB chief operating officer Adam Martinez, will have to testify about the shutdown. While the hearing was going on, CFPB employees rallied outside all morning in front of the federal courthouse in D.C.

According to Musk’s agency, DOGE, 216 contracts connected to the CFPB have been canceled. Of those contracts, 136 are with businesses located in D.C., Maryland or Virginia.

Many of the contracts are with consulting firms throughout the area. Some were for news services, including Politico Pro, Bloomberg Industry Group and Law 360.

The website’s default is to display the value of the contracts, splashy displays of the alleged sticker value. But when toggled to the savings tab, it shows that many of these canceled contracts are actually not saving any money at all.

Of the 136 local contracts, 44 are saving $0. One canceled contract says it saved $1.

The most expensive contract canceled was with a consulting group called FedSight located in Leesburg, Virginia. It was worth nearly $65.5 million, DOGE said, and the website claims canceling it cut just over $2.5 million in spending. The contract was for the consultants to provide project management office support services, the DOGE site says.

Conversely, the least expensive contract canceled was worth only $29,447 and was with the D.C.-based firm Planning, Arrangements, Logistics Specialists, LLC (P.A.L.S.). The firm provided personal assistant services, the DOGE site says, and canceling the contract allegedly saved $17,528.

In total, DOGE claims it cut more than $53 million from canceling contracts from the CFPB in D.C., Maryland and Virginia alone. The alleged collective value of all the contracts in the area is nearly $295 million.

Despite all these numbers, the difficult-to-navigate website is even harder to verify. WUSA9 has not been able to independently verify the DOGE numbers at this time.