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President Donald Trump’s attempt to fire nearly everyone at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau was paused on Friday by a federal judge, who said she was deeply concerned about the plan. The decision leaves in limbo a bureau created after the Great Recession to safeguard against fraud, abuse and deceptive practices. Trump administration officials argue that it has overstepped its authority and should have a more limited mission. On Thursday, the administration officials moved to fire roughly 1,500 people, leaving around 200 employees, through a reduction in force that would dramatically downsize the bureau. U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson said she was worried the layoffs would violate her earlier order stopping the Republican administration from shutting down the CFPB. She’s been considering a lawsuit filed by an employee union that wants to preserve the bureau. Jackson scheduled a hearing on April 28 to hear testimony from officials who worked on the reduction in force, or RIF. Im willing to resolve it quickly, but Im not going to let this RIF go forward until I have, she said. It’s the latest example of how Trump’s plans have faced legal hurdles as he works to reshape the federal government, saying its rife with fraud, waste and abuse. Other layoffs and policies have been subjected to stop-and-go litigation and court orders. The CFPB has long frustrated businesses with its oversight and investigations, and Trump adviser Elon Musk made it a top target of his Department of Government Efficiency. Mark Paoletta, the CFPB’s chief legal officer, wrote in a court declaration that “the bureau’s activities have pushed well beyond the limits of the law,” including what he described as intrusive and wasteful fishing expeditions. He said officials have spent weeks developing a much more limited vision for enforcement and supervision activities with a smaller, more efficient operation. Some of the CFPB’s responsibilities are required by law but would have only one person assigned to them under the Trump administration’s plan. The enforcement division is slated to be cut from 248 to 50 employees. The supervision division faces an even deeper reduction, from 487 to 50, plus a relocation from Washington to the Southeastern region. Before Fridays hearing, attorneys for the National Treasury Employees Union filed a sworn statement from a CFPB employee identified only by the pseudonym Alex Doe. The employee said Gavin Kliger, a member of DOGE, was managing the agencys RIF team charged with sending layoff notices. He kept the team up for 36 hours straight to ensure that the notices would go out yesterday, the employee said. Gavin was screaming at people he did not believe were working fast enough to ensure they could go out on this compressed timeline, calling them incompetent. The bureaus chief operating officer, Adam Martinez, told the judge that he believes Kliger is an Office of Personnel Management employee detailed to the CFPB and doesnt work directly for DOGE. Jackson said she will require Kliger to attend and possibly testify at the April 28 hearing. She said she wants to know why he was there and what we was doing. Were not going to decide what happened until we know what happened, Jackson said. The pseudonymous employee said team members raised concerns that the bureau had to conduct a particularized assessment before it could implement an RIF. Paoletta told them to ignore those concerns and move forward with mass firings, adding that leadership would assume the risk, the employee stated. White House officials did not immediately respond to questions about the judge’s decision or the employee’s court declaration. Michael Kunzelman and Chris Megerian, Associated Press
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E-Commerce
Some wealthy Americans are fleeing the United Stateswith their money, at the very least. The uncertainty wrought by President Donald Trumps second term in office has benefitted Swiss banks, as theres been an uptick in the number of Americans seeking to open banking and investment accounts in recent months, according to reporting by CNBC and The Financial Times. Swiss banks have a long reputation for offering strong financial stability, asset protection, and client confidentiality. While the recent wave of account openings is notable, its a familiar phenomenon: Past periods of turmoil in the U.S. have also seen Americans taking their money to Switzerland. The interest now is comparable to the 2007-2008 financial crisis, a wealth management advisor told The Financial Times last month. It comes in waves, Pierre Gabris, CEO of Alpen Partners International, a Swiss financial consulting firm, told CNBC in a piece published Friday. When [former President Barack Obama] was elected we saw a big wave. Then Covid was another wave. Now tariffs are causing a new wave. DIVERSIFYING BEYOND THE DOLLAR While the specific motivation for moving money may differ, a common theme is currency diversification. The value of the U.S. dollar has weakened relative to other major currencies this year, falling more than 8% this year and reached a three-year low on Friday. Many Americans are realizing that 100% of their portfolio is in U.S. dollars so theyre thinking, Maybe I should diversify, Gabris told CNBC. A lot of inquiries about moving assets to Swiss banks have come from Americans who have more international backgrounds, such as Israeli or Indian roots, Gabris told The Financial Times. Many are driven by fear. BANKING IN SWITZERLAND While there are fairly straightforward ways for U.S. citizens living in Switzerland to open accounts, according to information from the U.S. Embassy in Switzerland and Lichtenstein, navigating this process from abroad is a bit more complex, albeit legal. Opening an account in Switzerland probably does require a guiding hand to ensure compliance with U.S. regulations that are aimed at ensuring Americans dont evade taxes thanks to the secrecy of banking rules elsewhere. That said, Swiss financial institutions have become more comfortable covering U.S. customers in recent years after dealing with tax issues that had cost Swiss banks billions of dollars in fines, the head of a small U.S.-based wealth-management business told The Financial Times.
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E-Commerce
There’s a lot to say about the White House’s new COVID-19 webpage. Before we get into it, here’s what happened. The Trump administration has replaced COVID.gov (which is now unavailable), the federal government’s main source of information about the coronavirus, redirecting it to a revamped new page on whitehouse.gov called “Lab Leak: The True Origins of COVID,” which is riddled with misleading and conspiratorial claims about the coronavirus, asserting that the virus leaking from a lab in Wuhan, China, is the “most likely” origin. It’s a theory that emerged in the early days of the pandemic and has been repeatedly disputed by health experts. (A team of WHO-appointed scientists flew to Wuhan in early 2021 to investigate the source of the pandemic concluded the lab-leak theory was “extremely unlikely.”) The original website, launched under Biden, promoted information about the coronavirus vaccine, treatment, and testing. The new one rewrites the historic timeline of the COVID-19 pandemic, the role Democrats played in it, along withyou guessed itthe role of the media, which it also blames for discrediting its lab leak theory. The Proximal Origin of SARS-CoV-2 publication which was used repeatedly by public health officials and the media to discredit the lab leak theory was prompted by Dr. Fauci to push the preferred narrative that COVID-19 originated naturally,” the site reads. “This administration prioritizes transparency over all else,” a senior administration official told Fox News Digital. “The American people deserve to know the truth about the Covid pandemic and we will always find ways to reach communities with that message.” Old grudges resurface The site blames the Biden administration, and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) in particular (which now faces a massive overhaul, including staff layoffs, as DOGE slashes its budgets and staff), for engaging “in a multi-year campaign of delay, confusion, and non-responsiveness in an attempt to obstruct the Select Subcommittees investigation and hide evidence that could incriminate or embarrass senior public health officials.” It also takes a swipe at former National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Anthony Fauci, claiming that he misled the public with his recommendation that Americans keep “6 feet apart” and use masksboth of which were credited with helping to reduce the spread of COVID-19. Instead, it argues “there was no conclusive evidence that masks effectively protected Americans from COVID-19.” The site also insinuates that former President Joe Biden pardoned Fauci for how he handled the pandemic. (Biden has said that he issued preemptive pardons for Fauci and a host of others, as a guard against potential “revenge” from Trump in his second term.) Finally, a lot has been said about the White House website’s dramatic bold redesign, and this page is no exception. On social media, users are making fun of the layout and font of the page, which looks both imposing and flashy, and unusual for a sitting president.
Category:
E-Commerce
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