WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — The Trump administration has informed staff at the US consumer protection agency that it is temporarily shuttering its headquarters and pausing all work, according to an email shared Monday with AFP.

In the message to staff, Russell Vought, the acting director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, said the CFPB’s Washington office would be closed this week, and told employees not to show up.

“Please do not perform any work tasks,” said Vought, President Donald Trump’s new director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, and the architect of the conservative plan known as Project 2025 to reform the federal government.

Vought added that staff would need to seek written permission from him before doing any urgent work going forward, and should otherwise “stand down from performing any work task.”

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau was set up in the wake of the 2008 global financial crisis and is tasked with protecting American consumers from corporate misconduct.

Republicans have long accused the independent agency of overreach, with some of Trump’s most ardent supporters — including the tech billionaire Elon Musk — calling for its closure.

The decision to pause all work at CFPB and close down its offices appears to be an attempt to curtail its oversight powers without shuttering it entirely — something that would require congressional approval.

“Congress built the CFPB, and no one other than Congress — not the president, not Musk, not Vought — can shut it down,” Democratic senator and long-time CFPB supporter Elizabeth Warren said in video message.