On June 10, 2026, President Trump nominated Brian Johnson to serve as director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). If confirmed by the Senate, Johnson would replace Russell Vought, who has served as acting director of the CFPB since February 2025, in addition to his duties as director of the White House Office of Management and Budget.
Mr. Johnson is the third person President Trump has nominated to serve as CFPB director in his current term, following Jonathan McKernan and Stuart Levenbach.
Mr. Johnson has spent significant time in leading roles in both the public and private sectors. He is currently an executive at Capital One. Prior to joining Capital One, Mr. Johnson served as acting director and deputy director of the CFPB during the first Trump administration. After leaving the CFPB, he was a partner at a law firm and then a managing director at a financial services consulting firm. He holds a bachelor’s degree in economics from the University of Virginia and a Juris Doctor from the University of Virginia School of Law.
Industry groups have welcomed Mr. Johnson’s nomination. For example, the American Financial Services Association released a statement welcoming Mr. Johnson’s nomination and touting his “deep and varied experience” and his understanding of the consumer credit marketplace and “the importance of clear, consistent regulation that protects consumers while preserving access to credit.” Similarly, the president and CEO of the American Bankers Association stated that Mr. Johnson “will bring a thoughtful approach to setting the Bureau’s priorities in the years ahead if confirmed.” Mr. Johnson—and the current trajectory of the CFPB—are not, however, without critics. In response to his nomination, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) stated that Mr. Johnson is “the next hatchet man to try to…gut an agency that has returned more than $21 billion to cheated consumers.”
Key Takeaways
Mr. Johnson’s nomination signals continuity of the Trump administration’s approach to the CFPB—that is, a narrow focus on fulfilling its statutory obligations while reducing headcount and shifting resources away from supervision and enforcement that may be undertaken by state and other federal agencies.
For entities regulated by the CFPB, this will likely mean a continuation of a less aggressive enforcement posture and a constrained view of the CFPB’s authority, particularly with respect to the limits of its statutory authority in rulemakings and enforcement actions.
While the CFPB reins itself in, state actors—such as state attorneys general and regulatory agencies—are poised to fill the gap. For example, Rohit Chopra, the former CFPB director under the Biden administration who led an active CFPB, was recently appointed by Gov. Gavin Newsom to lead California’s newly created Business and Consumer Services Agency (BCSA). Looking ahead to his role as BCSA secretary, Mr. Chopra stated that “[w]hile federal agencies are making life more expensive and enriching special interests, California will be firing on all cylinders to make sure markets aren’t rigged against families and small businesses.”