A former federal worker at an agency protecting consumers who was fired as part of president Donald Trump and Elon Musk’s race to cut the federal government said her abrupt firing was shocking, and that the move could have lasting effects on everyday Americans. Elizabeth Aniskevich shared her experience with CNN’s Boris Sanchez on Monday.
Aniskevich was a senior litigation counsel at the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The agency fired some probationary staff last week via an email that read, “unfortunately, the agency finds that you are not fit for continued employment because your ability, knowledge and skills do not fit the agency's current needs.”
“My reaction to receiving the notice was complete and utter shock,” Aniskevich said, “not only because I believe that I have the ability and knowledge and skills that fit the agency's mission and needs, but because of the way that it happened. My paycheck was done as of that day. I have no information about exactly how long my health insurance will continue. I have not received forms that are necessary to file for unemployment, and there's just a lot of questions about what we are supposed to do next, to take care of ourselves.”
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Aniskevich was a probationary worker; she had started her job in June 2024 and could have worked until June 2026. However, she has been practicing law since 2011.
“I think DOGE is focused on probationary employees because they believe that they can just mass terminate us without any recourse, Aniskevich said. “Nobody who has knowledge of my skills or my ability was involved in the decision to terminate me,” she added.
Sanchez asked about what she thinks CFPB acting director Russell Vought thinks the agency’s role is.
“It's hard for me to understand what the acting director thinks the agency's mission or direction should be, given how dedicated I am to what the mission has been, and the fact that I was told my knowledge no longer fits the agency's needs,” she said.
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She said major consequences could come from the firings.
“I can say the fallout of losing the CFPB will be immense. The CFPB oversees 19 different statutes. If you have a credit card, if you take out a mortgage, if you have an auto loan, if you have medical debt, the CFPB had your back in those transactions. We oversee the Military Lending Act. If you're an active military employee, we protect you from predatory lending practices. We are with consumers at every step of their financial life, protecting them and the loss of that, it opens a huge vacuum for anyone to come in and exploit consumers. And we are all consumers, and as the marketplace gets more complex, none of us are immune from predatory practices or from scammers,” she said.
Aniskevich said that the CFPB was compared to the Federal Trade Commission and the Securities and Exchange Commission, but they aren’t the same.
“The CFPB is the only agency that is on the consumer side 100% of the time,” she said. “That's our marching orders, and that's our mission. Really the only thing that we overlap in is the ability to regulate some of the very entities that Elon Musk controls.”
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