AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org. I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González.

We turn now to look at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the CFPB, the agency the Trump administration has been trying to dismantle for over a year. Last week, it fired program manager Alexis Goldstein for documenting a meeting a year ago between the agency and Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE. That’s according to emails obtained by Bloomberg News.

For more, we’re joined now from Washington, D.C., by Alexis Goldstein, longtime financial regulatory expert, who once worked on Wall Street before becoming involved with the Occupy Wall Street movement.

Alexis, welcome back to Democracy Now! Can you explain exactly what happened a year ago with these DOGE temporary workers coming into your agency?

ALEXIS GOLDSTEIN: So, on February 7th of 2025, we had just seen the dismantling of USAID. A wrecking ball was taken to that agency. And it became clear that the second agency that was going to be attacked by this administration was the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

So, I came in like I normally do. I drop off my toddler at daycare. There isn’t stroller parking, so I wheel in my stroller, my empty stroller, to the CFPB headquarters in Washington, D.C. And I was wheeling my stroller around the basement, and I noticed a number of people who I had never seen before who were not wearing the required CFPB badges, and they were accessing what appeared to be CFPB equipment. So I wanted to take a closer look. I wanted to try and investigate.

We are told over and over again that we are supposed to report suspicious activities, that we are supposed to defend the sensitive data that we hold of American people. Millions of people trust us with their vulnerable moments, if they’re scammed by their financial company, if they’re having trouble with their mortgage. The technical term we use for it is “personally identifying information.” And we have a lot of very specific training about how to handle it. And so I was very concerned that the people that I had never seen before were there, appeared to have CFPB equipment. So I tried to take a look.

They moved from one conference room to the other when they saw me, into a conference room that didn’t have a window. And so I decided to go into that conference room. I ran into a co-worker of mine. I asked him if there were DOGE folks in the room. He declined to answer. So I opened the door and introduced myself. And I said, “Hi. Are you my new co-worker? What’s your name? Can I show you around? We have a nice rooftop.”

And there were three individuals in the room. One I now know to be Jordan Wick. He immediately ran away, out of the room. The second was Jeremy Lewin, who was a big part of dismantling USAID. He immediately went into the corner of the room. And then the third DOGE individual was Christopher Young. I didn’t know any of this at the time. I just asked them what their name was. They refused to give me their name. They said that they were authorized to be there, but they didn’t have to tell me their name.

And I said, “We have a lot of really sensitive information and data from Americans. We have personally identifying information. Do you know the trainings that we have to take in order to handle this? Have you had those trainings? Do you know what those trainings are?” And they just stared at me blankly and said that they wished that security would come and kick me out of the building.

A couple minutes passed where I continued to try to ask them their name. They refused to answer. A security guard did come down, asked me to leave the room. I immediately left the room. I presented my CFPB badge, which I had. These individuals did not have CFPB badges. And I asked the security guard, “Who are these individuals? Are they authorized to be here? What are they doing? I see they appear to have a CFPB laptop.” And the security guard didn’t know what to do, so he just turned away from me and got on the phone.

And so, I eventually walked away. I left of my own accord. And then, later that day, I got an email saying I was immediately being placed on administrative leave, and I was not to enter our headquarters in Washington, D.C., nor access any work systems. And I have been on admin leave ever since, until I was fired last week.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Alexis, your termination is the latest escalation between staff at CFPB and the Trump administration. How has the agency been effectively dismantled, as you see it?

ALEXIS GOLDSTEIN: So, the CFPB doesn’t cost the public a single dollar, but has returned $21 billion to consumers in its short lifespan, in the form of relief and restitution. I think that made us a big target. We do a lot of good. We don’t cost the public a single dollar.

So, one of the first things that happened, actually, later that day, was Elon Musk tweeted ”RIP CFPB.” An email went out over the weekend saying that everyone — not just me, but everyone — was banned from going to our headquarters building. We were ordered to stop all work. And then they began slowly, over the coming weeks, to dismiss our lawsuits, over 20 lawsuits against financial firms, including firms like Navy Federal, who had already agreed to a settlement to give $80 million back to consumers. That money never went back to consumers. And these lawsuits were dismissed with prejudice, which means that we can never bring up those lawsuits again.

The supervisor — so, as Amy mentioned, I got my start on Wall Street before, during and after the 2008 financial crisis. And part of the reason that CFPB was created by Congress is because Congress felt the other regulators fell down on the job, and there needed to be a single agency to protect people from predatory scams and discrimination in lending. And they created the CFPB for that reason.

And so, we regulate the nation’s biggest banks. And we are normally — in normal times, we have supervisors who go and sit inside the nation’s biggest banks. One of the first things the Trump administration did is sent all the supervisors home and told them to stop showing up to work. And so, essentially, no one is watching the biggest banks. There’s no one trying to enforce the 18 different laws that the CFPB oversees.

AMY GOODMAN: So, Alexis — 

ALEXIS GOLDSTEIN: And it’s just been — yes.

AMY GOODMAN: So, Alexis, then, what are your plans now?

ALEXIS GOLDSTEIN: So, I’m trying to turn lemons into lemonade, and I’m actually going — I’m running for the House of Representatives in Maryland’s 6th District. It’s a slightly crowded race. There’s two mega-millionaires that are already running in the Democratic primary: April McClain Delaney and David Trone. But I think that the people of the 6th District deserve someone who’s going to fight to build libraries, not ICE jails, like the detention center they’re trying to build in Hagerstown, Maryland; that’s going to fight to fund schools, not data centers, that are giveaways to Big Tech. And I think that the district has shown enormous bravery, the residents there, in standing up for their neighbors, and I think that Maryland 6 deserves a representative that shows the same amount of bravery as ordinary people. I’m not doing this as a vanity project. I’m doing this because I want to fight against fascism in America.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, longtime financial regulatory expert Alexis Goldstein, fired last week from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, announcing now that she’s running for Congress from Maryland.