Trump-era staff reductions have significantly hampered enforcement at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and its ability to regulate burgeoning new prediction and cryptocurrency markets, where hundreds of billions are traded each week. By the end of 2025, the CFTC had 21% fewer staff on its payroll when compared to the previous 10-year average, according to U.S. Office of Personnel Management data.
Between January 2024 and January 2025 alone, staffing dropped 22%. And the number of CFTC enforcement actions dropped even further. The agency made nearly 80% fewer enforcement actions in 2025 when compared to the annual average for the previous decade, according to the agency's annual reports.
The CFTC started hemorrhaging staff soon after President Trump won the 2024 election. This was not a coincidence, according to Jeff Le Rich, who worked as a CFTC enforcement lawyer between 2005 and 2025. "The Trump administration had run partially on a platform that it would be friendlier to the crypto industry," Le Rich said.
Leading up to the 2024 election, the CFTC under the Biden administration had leveled enforcement cases against cryptocurrency companies such as Gemini, Mirror Trading, Voyager, Celsius and FTX for fraud. It did the same against the crypto prediction market Polymarket. After President Trump's inauguration, "in order to show results to that industry, some people were punished for bringing those cases," Le Rich continued.
"The end result was that a lot of the people that worked on those cases either left or were forced out." In a statement to NPR, the CFTC did not address that claim directly, but praised the work of current agency head Michael Selig. "The CFTC remains committed to promoting integrity and responsible innovation in U.S. derivatives markets, and Chairman Selig is grateful to the dedicated staff who continue to support this mission each day," CFTC spokesman Zach Fulton wrote in part. To Le Rich, the 21% drop in employees and the nearly 80% decline in enforcement action go hand in hand.
"It castrated the enforcement team," Le Rich said. "Many of the people who were targeted were high-performing attorneys who had brought some of the most consequential and complicated cases over the past few years." Joe Konizeski, who worked as a CFTC enforcement lawyer for 26 years, was one of the dozens forced out in 2025. "The acting chair [Caroline Pham] said, 'We're closing all our crypto [cases],'" Konizeski said.
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