With President Joe Biden’s term nearly over, federal agencies should be winding down activities for the year and preparing for enormous changes in their leadership and policy goals. However, one relatively small but powerful agency, the Consumer Financial Protection Board (CFPB), is doing the opposite.

The CFPB is tasked with the worthy goal of helping represent consumers in the financial industry, though it has often opted to pursue politically motivated, ideological goals rather than sticking to its core mission.
This has been especially true under its current chair, Rohit Chopra. At this point, Chopra should be packing up his office and preparing to hand over the reins to President-elect Donald Trump’s yet-to-be-announced pick. Instead, under his leadership, the CFPB has launched a last-minute assault on a wide array of American businesses and advanced a series of last-minute regulations that could prove harmful and costly to American consumers and companies.
The 11th-hour shenanigans are almost unbelievable. In the days before Christmas, while many Americans were focused on the holidays, Chopra’s CFPB was filing lawsuits almost as quickly as children opening advent calendars.
On Dec. 20, the CFPB went after nearly every large bank in the country with a lawsuit that alleges improper oversight of the Zelle payment platform, which is jointly owned by seven large banks. Zelle pointed out that fraud on its network has actually fallen by 50 percent since 2023.
Just a few days later, on Dec. 23, the CFPB targeted the world’s largest retail company, Walmart, with a lawsuit alleging that it forced delivery drivers into a payment system that resulted in junk fees. Walmart responded by noting the rushed nature of this action and its failure to follow due process.
The same day, the CFPB filed another dubious lawsuit against Rocket Homes, claiming that the company’s referral incentive program was actually an illegal kickback scheme. Rocket pulled no punches in its response, ...