11/19/25

President Donald Trump has nominated a top aide to White House budget director Russ Vought to be the permanent head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, a move designed to empower Vought to continue leading the agency as he moves to shut it down in the coming months.

Trump formally nominated Stuart Levenbach, a senior Office of Management and Budget official overseeing natural resources and energy issues, to serve as the permanent CFPB director on Tuesday, according to records.  

A CFPB spokesperson said the nomination was a “technical” maneuver intended to extend Vought’s ability to continue serving as the acting director of the agency without needing Senate confirmation. His ability to serve as the acting CFPB head was set to expire in December under the Vacancies Act, which typically limits such acting appointments to 210 days but extends that period if the president nominates another person for the job.

Vought, who has served as the acting CFPB director since February, has moved to freeze large swaths of the agency’s operations and terminate roughly 90 percent of its staff. In court last week, the Trump administration said the CFPB was on track to run out of money to operate at the beginning of next year and argued that it was legally prohibited from seeking an infusion of funding from the Federal Reserve, which is the bureau’s primary source of funding.

It’s not clear if the Senate Banking Committee will move to process Levenbach’s nomination or hold a hearing.