GOP Lawmakers Decry Trump’s Axing of Lending Agency Staff

House and Senate Republicans are circulating a letter in support of the Community Development Financial Institutions Fund, which had all of its staff eliminated by the Trump administration, Katherine Hapgood reported for Politico.

The Trump administration terminated all of the Treasury Department’s CDFI Fund employees—about 100—from their positions last week.

They are pressing the Trump administration to reverse its decision to fire all employees at the widely supported, bipartisan Community Development Financial Institutions Fund (CDFI).

The bicameral GOP draft letter, led by Rep. Young Kim (R-Calif.), a member of the House Financial Services Committee, and Sen. Mike Crapo (R-Idaho), who chairs the Senate’s Community Development Finance Caucus, “strongly urges the administration to continue carrying out the statutory obligations of the CDFI Fund that are essential to ensuring private investments reach our states and districts.”

The fund awards federal dollars to CDFIs—community banks, credit unions, and other financial institutions that lend and provide capital as part of a public-private partnership designed to increase access to financial services in communities traditionally underserved by the banking industry.

The draft letter, dated Oct. 23 and addressed to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought, has been circulated by Crapo and Kim’s staff to Senate and House Republicans, said a source with direct knowledge who was granted anonymity to discuss private conversations.

The Trump administration terminated all of the Treasury Department’s CDFI Fund employees—about 100—from their positions last week as part of a mass firing of government employees.

The administration said in a letter to the fired employees that the reduction-in-force (RIF) was necessary to implement the abolition of the entire CDFI Fund program.

The firings are subject to ongoing litigation.