New York
CFPB drops enforcement lawsuits against Capital One, Rocket Homes and more
NEW YORK (AP) — The Consumer Finance Protection Bureau has dropped several enforcement actions against companies like Capital One and Rocket Homes, just weeks under new leadership and turmoil at the agency caused by orders from Trump administration.
In notices of voluntary dismissals filed on Thursday, the CFPB dropped lawsuits it had brought against Capital One, Rocket Homes, Vanderbilt Mortgage and Finance, owned by Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway, and others.
Those suits were all filed under the agency’s previous director, Rohit Chopra, who President Donald Trump fired just weeks ago. The CPFB has since plunged into turmoil — with the White House later ordering it to halt nearly all its work. The administration also closed the agency’s headquarters and moved to fire scores of its workers.
Trump has defended his administration’s broadside against the CFPB — including recent claims about the agency being “set up to destroy people.” But supporters of the agency stress that it provides crucial oversight and protects consumers from being vulnerable to predatory business practices.
Trump nominated former Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation board member Jonathan McKernan to be agency’s new director, who faced a Senate committee hearing Thursday.
The CFPB is tasked with creating rules and taking enforcement actions to protect consumers from unfair, deceptive, or abusive practices by a wide range of businesses and other institutions. Since its founding, the bureau has said that it’s obtained nearly $20 billion in financial relief for U.S. consumers — in the form of canceled debts, compensation, and reduced loans.
Legal action from the CFPB often involves banks, mortgage servicers, credit card companies, student loan processors, payday lenders, money transfer providers, credit reporting agencies and debt collectors.
Last month, prior to Trump taking office, the CFPB sued Capital One for allegedly misleading consumers about its offerings for high-interest savings accounts — with the bureau accusing the banking giant of “cheating” customers out of more than $2 billion in lost interest payments as a result. Meanwhile, its Jan. 6 suit against Vanderbilt Mortgage accused the lender of pushing consumers into loans they couldn’t afford to buy manufactured homes. And the CFPB’s December complaint against Rocket Homes alleged a “kickback scheme” from the company to illegally steer prospective borrowers to Rocket Mortgage, which operates under the same parent company, and away from other competitors.
But all those cases will now be discontinued with Thursday’s actions. Court filings in the Rocket Homes case notes that the “Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, dismisses this action, with prejudice, against all Defendants.” Dismissing a case with prejudice means that it cannot be refiled. Similar wording was used in the dismissals of the CFPB’s Capital One and Vanderbilt Mortgage suits.
In a statement Thursday, Rocket Homes welcomed its dismissal and said “it is good to see the truth come to light.” The company called the suit “an empty claim brought forth by former CFPB director Chopra for the sole purpose of seeing his name in headlines during the final days in public office.”
Capital One welcomed the CFPB’s Thursday decision, too, noting that it had “strongly disputed” the action filed against the company. The Associated Press also reached out to Vanderbilt Mortgage for comment.
The CPFB isn’t the only federal agency to signal a pullback on previous enforcement action under the new administration. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, for example, has either closed or paused legal action against several cryptocurrency platforms in recent weeks, as the regulator tries to present itself as more crypto-friendly under Trump.
Earlier this month, Binance and the SEC filed a joint motion to pause its high-profile lawsuit against the crypto exchange. And both Coinbase and Robinhood have said that cases against them have also been dismissed or closed, although the SEC declined to immediately comment further.
Colorado
Mountain West Conference seeks mediation over $55 million in dispute in Pac-12 ‘poaching’ lawsuit
The Mountain West Conference said Thursday it is seeking mediation in the lawsuit the Pac-12 filed against it in an attempt to avoid paying $55 million in “poaching” fees for bringing five Mountain West teams into its own league.
The Pac-12 and some of the schools it is adding filed lawsuits last year, claiming the poaching clause it agreed to when it signed a scheduling agreement for its football teams for last season was invalid.
The clause called for payments to the Mountain West of $10 million for the first team that left, with the amount growing by $500,000 for every additional team. That was on top of the $17 million-plus exit fees schools were responsible for as part of a different agreement.
Colorado State, Utah State, San Diego State, Fresno State and Boise State are all set to join the Pac-12 starting in 2026.
“The goal is to resolve the parties’ disputes through terms mutually agreed to by the parties,” the Mountain West said in a statement. “While the Conference remains confident in its legal positions, the ongoing litigation matters are a distraction from our main priorities: serving our member institutions and our student-athletes.”
The Pac-12 did not immediately respond to messages from The Associated Press seeking comment.
The once-storied conference nearly folded when all its programs besides Washington State and Oregon State left to join the Big Ten and Atlantic Coast Conferences last year.
That led to the scheduling agreement with the Mountain West to help the Cougars and Beavers piece together a football season in 2024. While that was playing out, the Pac-12 agreed to absorb five of the Mountain West teams, which triggered the poaching clause and, thus, the lawsuit.
The Pac-12 needs one more program to get to eight teams, which is the minimum it would need to be eligible for an automatic bid for its conference champion in the College Football Playoff.
The Mountain West has added UTEP, Hawaii and Northern Illinois for football starting in 2026.
Indiana
No charges for deputy in fatal traffic stop shooting of man pardoned by Trump
RENSSELAER, Ind. (AP) — A sheriff’s deputy in northwestern Indiana will not face charges in the fatal shooting during a traffic stop of a man who days earlier had been pardoned by President Donald Trump for a misdemeanor related to the 2021 U.S. Capitol riot.
The Jasper County deputy was “legally justified in using deadly force to defend himself” in the Jan. 26 killing of Matthew Huttle, the Clinton County prosecutor’s office said in a release.
The deputy had stopped Huttle, 42, of Hobart for driving 70 mph (112.6 kph) in a 55 mph (88.5 kph) zone. When informed that he was under arrest for being a habitual traffic violator, Huttle ran back to the driver’s seat of his vehicle and “reached in a manner consistent with retrieving a weapon,” prosecutors said Thursday.
Huttle and the deputy then struggled. The deputy fired multiple shots after seeing Huttle raise a firearm while stating “I’m shooting myself,” according to prosecutors.
Investigators found a loaded 9mm handgun and additional ammunition inside Huttle’s vehicle. Police dash camera video also confirmed Huttle raised “an object” while inside the vehicle.
The Associated Press left a message Friday seeking comment from an attorney who was representing Huttle in pending motor vehicle cases in Lake County.
In 2023, Huttle was sentenced to six months in custody after pleading guilty to entering a restricted building, the U.S. Capitol. He had traveled with his uncle to Washington to attend the Jan. 6, 2021, pro-Trump rally. Huttle was inside the Capitol for 16 minutes and recorded it on video.
“He is not a true believer in any political cause,” defense attorney Andrew Hemmer said in a court filing related to the U.S. Capitol charges. “He instead went to the rally because he thought it would be a historic moment, and he had nothing better to do after getting
Florida
Judge rips SafeSport Center for withholding evidence and ‘perpetrating fraud’
A Florida judge excoriated the U.S. Center for SafeSport for perpetrating fraud against the court and intentionally withholding exculpatory evidence in a case involving a teen water polo player whose own complaint to the center resulted in her being arrested on her high school campus for assault.
The order this week from Seminole County Judge John Woodard — in a ruling the center described as a “stunt” intended to undermine the agency — officially erased any record of criminal proceedings against Kelsey McMullen, who was 18 when a SafeSport investigator turned over evidence to police after speaking to a witness in a case involving a girl McMullen had accused of bullying her.
Law enforcement arrested McMullen at her school and opened an investigation that took 14 months before the charges were dropped.
Woodard ruled that prosecutors received only partial information from the center as they looked into the case beginning in 2022, and that the center would not cooperate when law enforcement opened new cases against McMullen’s accusers and the center for reporting false information.
Though the order carries no penalty against the center, it nevertheless stands as a rare legal rebuke to the agency that opened in 2017 to combat sex abuse in Olympic sports.
The center called the order “a stunt designed to interfere in the Center’s ability to hold individuals accountable for sexual misconduct.”
It explained that it sent a letter to the court explaining it would not respond to subpoenas seeking sensitive information about claimants because the subpoenas needed to “be served through a Colorado Court so that they could be challenged in the appropriate venue.”
“The Order is without jurisdictional, factual, or legal basis and the Center is weighing its legal response,” it said in a statement. “The Center was not a party to this criminal proceeding. As such we were never notified, never appeared, and were never afforded an opportunity to present evidence or arguments to refute the false information provided by the lawyer to the court in this case.”
The court order said the center “perpetrated a fraud upon the court, the People of the State of Florida, the Sheriff’s Office, the State’s Attorney Office, and defendant;” “intentionally withheld exculpatory evidence;” and “acted in bad faith, intentionally, and with malice.”
McMullen’s attorney, Russell Prince, said “none of this is surprising to those that deal with the Center.”
“These actions are consistent with a pattern of conduct that the Center employs on a regular basis,” he said. “This time, they were finally held accountable according to commonly accepted standards of fairness and due process. Beyond that, the Order is particularly harsh, pointed in the findings, and self-explanatory.”
CFPB drops enforcement lawsuits against Capital One, Rocket Homes and more
NEW YORK (AP) — The Consumer Finance Protection Bureau has dropped several enforcement actions against companies like Capital One and Rocket Homes, just weeks under new leadership and turmoil at the agency caused by orders from Trump administration.
In notices of voluntary dismissals filed on Thursday, the CFPB dropped lawsuits it had brought against Capital One, Rocket Homes, Vanderbilt Mortgage and Finance, owned by Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway, and others.
Those suits were all filed under the agency’s previous director, Rohit Chopra, who President Donald Trump fired just weeks ago. The CPFB has since plunged into turmoil — with the White House later ordering it to halt nearly all its work. The administration also closed the agency’s headquarters and moved to fire scores of its workers.
Trump has defended his administration’s broadside against the CFPB — including recent claims about the agency being “set up to destroy people.” But supporters of the agency stress that it provides crucial oversight and protects consumers from being vulnerable to predatory business practices.
Trump nominated former Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation board member Jonathan McKernan to be agency’s new director, who faced a Senate committee hearing Thursday.
The CFPB is tasked with creating rules and taking enforcement actions to protect consumers from unfair, deceptive, or abusive practices by a wide range of businesses and other institutions. Since its founding, the bureau has said that it’s obtained nearly $20 billion in financial relief for U.S. consumers — in the form of canceled debts, compensation, and reduced loans.
Legal action from the CFPB often involves banks, mortgage servicers, credit card companies, student loan processors, payday lenders, money transfer providers, credit reporting agencies and debt collectors.
Last month, prior to Trump taking office, the CFPB sued Capital One for allegedly misleading consumers about its offerings for high-interest savings accounts — with the bureau accusing the banking giant of “cheating” customers out of more than $2 billion in lost interest payments as a result. Meanwhile, its Jan. 6 suit against Vanderbilt Mortgage accused the lender of pushing consumers into loans they couldn’t afford to buy manufactured homes. And the CFPB’s December complaint against Rocket Homes alleged a “kickback scheme” from the company to illegally steer prospective borrowers to Rocket Mortgage, which operates under the same parent company, and away from other competitors.
But all those cases will now be discontinued with Thursday’s actions. Court filings in the Rocket Homes case notes that the “Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, dismisses this action, with prejudice, against all Defendants.” Dismissing a case with prejudice means that it cannot be refiled. Similar wording was used in the dismissals of the CFPB’s Capital One and Vanderbilt Mortgage suits.
In a statement Thursday, Rocket Homes welcomed its dismissal and said “it is good to see the truth come to light.” The company called the suit “an empty claim brought forth by former CFPB director Chopra for the sole purpose of seeing his name in headlines during the final days in public office.”
Capital One welcomed the CFPB’s Thursday decision, too, noting that it had “strongly disputed” the action filed against the company. The Associated Press also reached out to Vanderbilt Mortgage for comment.
The CPFB isn’t the only federal agency to signal a pullback on previous enforcement action under the new administration. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, for example, has either closed or paused legal action against several cryptocurrency platforms in recent weeks, as the regulator tries to present itself as more crypto-friendly under Trump.
Earlier this month, Binance and the SEC filed a joint motion to pause its high-profile lawsuit against the crypto exchange. And both Coinbase and Robinhood have said that cases against them have also been dismissed or closed, although the SEC declined to immediately comment further.
Colorado
Mountain West Conference seeks mediation over $55 million in dispute in Pac-12 ‘poaching’ lawsuit
The Mountain West Conference said Thursday it is seeking mediation in the lawsuit the Pac-12 filed against it in an attempt to avoid paying $55 million in “poaching” fees for bringing five Mountain West teams into its own league.
The Pac-12 and some of the schools it is adding filed lawsuits last year, claiming the poaching clause it agreed to when it signed a scheduling agreement for its football teams for last season was invalid.
The clause called for payments to the Mountain West of $10 million for the first team that left, with the amount growing by $500,000 for every additional team. That was on top of the $17 million-plus exit fees schools were responsible for as part of a different agreement.
Colorado State, Utah State, San Diego State, Fresno State and Boise State are all set to join the Pac-12 starting in 2026.
“The goal is to resolve the parties’ disputes through terms mutually agreed to by the parties,” the Mountain West said in a statement. “While the Conference remains confident in its legal positions, the ongoing litigation matters are a distraction from our main priorities: serving our member institutions and our student-athletes.”
The Pac-12 did not immediately respond to messages from The Associated Press seeking comment.
The once-storied conference nearly folded when all its programs besides Washington State and Oregon State left to join the Big Ten and Atlantic Coast Conferences last year.
That led to the scheduling agreement with the Mountain West to help the Cougars and Beavers piece together a football season in 2024. While that was playing out, the Pac-12 agreed to absorb five of the Mountain West teams, which triggered the poaching clause and, thus, the lawsuit.
The Pac-12 needs one more program to get to eight teams, which is the minimum it would need to be eligible for an automatic bid for its conference champion in the College Football Playoff.
The Mountain West has added UTEP, Hawaii and Northern Illinois for football starting in 2026.
Indiana
No charges for deputy in fatal traffic stop shooting of man pardoned by Trump
RENSSELAER, Ind. (AP) — A sheriff’s deputy in northwestern Indiana will not face charges in the fatal shooting during a traffic stop of a man who days earlier had been pardoned by President Donald Trump for a misdemeanor related to the 2021 U.S. Capitol riot.
The Jasper County deputy was “legally justified in using deadly force to defend himself” in the Jan. 26 killing of Matthew Huttle, the Clinton County prosecutor’s office said in a release.
The deputy had stopped Huttle, 42, of Hobart for driving 70 mph (112.6 kph) in a 55 mph (88.5 kph) zone. When informed that he was under arrest for being a habitual traffic violator, Huttle ran back to the driver’s seat of his vehicle and “reached in a manner consistent with retrieving a weapon,” prosecutors said Thursday.
Huttle and the deputy then struggled. The deputy fired multiple shots after seeing Huttle raise a firearm while stating “I’m shooting myself,” according to prosecutors.
Investigators found a loaded 9mm handgun and additional ammunition inside Huttle’s vehicle. Police dash camera video also confirmed Huttle raised “an object” while inside the vehicle.
The Associated Press left a message Friday seeking comment from an attorney who was representing Huttle in pending motor vehicle cases in Lake County.
In 2023, Huttle was sentenced to six months in custody after pleading guilty to entering a restricted building, the U.S. Capitol. He had traveled with his uncle to Washington to attend the Jan. 6, 2021, pro-Trump rally. Huttle was inside the Capitol for 16 minutes and recorded it on video.
“He is not a true believer in any political cause,” defense attorney Andrew Hemmer said in a court filing related to the U.S. Capitol charges. “He instead went to the rally because he thought it would be a historic moment, and he had nothing better to do after getting
Florida
Judge rips SafeSport Center for withholding evidence and ‘perpetrating fraud’
A Florida judge excoriated the U.S. Center for SafeSport for perpetrating fraud against the court and intentionally withholding exculpatory evidence in a case involving a teen water polo player whose own complaint to the center resulted in her being arrested on her high school campus for assault.
The order this week from Seminole County Judge John Woodard — in a ruling the center described as a “stunt” intended to undermine the agency — officially erased any record of criminal proceedings against Kelsey McMullen, who was 18 when a SafeSport investigator turned over evidence to police after speaking to a witness in a case involving a girl McMullen had accused of bullying her.
Law enforcement arrested McMullen at her school and opened an investigation that took 14 months before the charges were dropped.
Woodard ruled that prosecutors received only partial information from the center as they looked into the case beginning in 2022, and that the center would not cooperate when law enforcement opened new cases against McMullen’s accusers and the center for reporting false information.
Though the order carries no penalty against the center, it nevertheless stands as a rare legal rebuke to the agency that opened in 2017 to combat sex abuse in Olympic sports.
The center called the order “a stunt designed to interfere in the Center’s ability to hold individuals accountable for sexual misconduct.”
It explained that it sent a letter to the court explaining it would not respond to subpoenas seeking sensitive information about claimants because the subpoenas needed to “be served through a Colorado Court so that they could be challenged in the appropriate venue.”
“The Order is without jurisdictional, factual, or legal basis and the Center is weighing its legal response,” it said in a statement. “The Center was not a party to this criminal proceeding. As such we were never notified, never appeared, and were never afforded an opportunity to present evidence or arguments to refute the false information provided by the lawyer to the court in this case.”
The court order said the center “perpetrated a fraud upon the court, the People of the State of Florida, the Sheriff’s Office, the State’s Attorney Office, and defendant;” “intentionally withheld exculpatory evidence;” and “acted in bad faith, intentionally, and with malice.”
McMullen’s attorney, Russell Prince, said “none of this is surprising to those that deal with the Center.”
“These actions are consistent with a pattern of conduct that the Center employs on a regular basis,” he said. “This time, they were finally held accountable according to commonly accepted standards of fairness and due process. Beyond that, the Order is particularly harsh, pointed in the findings, and self-explanatory.”
