President Trump Picks New CFPB Director
Industry Update
November 19, 2025
Source: POLITICO
President Donald Trump has nominated a top aide to White House budget director Russ Vought to be the permanent head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, a move designed to empower Vought to continue leading the agency as he moves to shut it down in the coming months.
Trump formally nominated Stuart Levenbach, a senior Office of Management and Budget official overseeing natural resources and energy issues, to serve as the permanent CFPB director on Tuesday, according to congressional records.
A CFPB spokesperson said the nomination was a “technical” maneuver intended to extend Vought’s ability to continue serving as the acting director of the agency without needing Senate confirmation.
His ability to serve as the acting CFPB head was set to expire in December under the Vacancies Act, which typically limits such acting appointments to 210 days but extends that period if the president nominates another person for the job.
Vought, who has served as the acting CFPB director since February, has moved to freeze large swaths of the agency’s operations and terminate roughly 90 percent of its staff. In court filings last week, the Trump administration said the CFPB was on track to run out of money to operate at the beginning of next year and argued that it was legally prohibited from seeking an infusion of funding from the Federal Reserve, which is the bureau’s primary source of funding.
It’s not clear if the Senate Banking Committee will move to process Levenbach’s nomination or hold a hearing. A spokesperson for Chair Tim Scott (R-S.C.) did not immediately return a request for comment.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), the top Democrat on the panel, blasted the nomination and effort to extend Vought’s tenure “indefinitely as he tries to illegally close down the agency” that she helped create 17 years ago in the wake of the global financial crisis. “Instead of doing everything in their power to lower costs for Americans, Trump and Vought want to make it easier for giant corporations to scam families out of their money,” Warren said in a statement.
Levenbach previously served during Trump’s first term as a White House economic adviser and chief of staff at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
In July, Levenbach was among the handful of White House officials Trump installed at the National Capital Planning Commission amid the administration’s efforts to pressure Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell over the central bank’s $2.5 billion renovation project. The powerful D.C. planning committee now also has oversight over Trump’s construction of a White House ballroom, among other projects.
Trump earlier this year nominated Jonathan McKernan to serve as CFPB director but ultimately withdrew that nomination. McKernan was instead confirmed by the Senate as a top Treasury Department official overseeing domestic finance.
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