Stephen Wheeler, a data scientist at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau since 2022 and chair of the CFPB union organizing committee, was placed on administrative leave earlier this month and is under an undisclosed investigation, the National Treasury Employees Union Chapter 335 said. The union says it was not provided any specific violations or details of the probe; Wheeler called the move "bullying and intimidation" and said the investigation is a "fishing expedition." The action follows a pattern of clashes at the agency after Russell Vought was appointed to oversee the CFPB in February, a tenure that included halting most agency work in February 2025 and the deletion of nearly 4,000 webpages earlier this year. Another union member, Alexis Goldstein, was placed on leave in February 2025 and fired in February 2026 after confronting outside personnel she accused of lacking CFPB credentials; the union has filed a grievance and arbitration is pending but delayed by an agency official on leave. Workers say recent relocation and return-to-office mandates are being used to push resignations, and an appeals court blocked the administration's attempted mass firings in June 2026. The union noted that the CFPB has returned at least $21 billion to consumers since 2010, a figure it uses to argue the agency's continued public value amid the dispute.
