It began with an email from Treasury Department leadership to Consumer Financial Protection Bureau operations chief ADAM MARTINEZ at 5:45 p.m. on Feb. 6: DOGE is coming — tonight.
“They were there at 6:15,” Martinez recalled on the witness stand in federal court Monday. “We were anticipating two IT engineers. The two IT engineers ended up not showing up.”
Instead, the visitor was CHRISTOPHER YOUNG, a DOGE detailee to the Office of Personnel Management. Young told Martinez the other two DOGE employees were late because they “were having to order car service because they were being essentially stalked, tailed, followed, harassed.”
What unfolded from there, in Martinez’s under-oath retelling, was a mixture of conflict, chaos and, under the threat of legal scrutiny, a rapid retreat from efforts to permanently break the agency.
“DOGE came in with a very hard fist,” he said, recalling how they demanded access to CFPB’s operational systems, including an organizational chart, travel and finance systems and the agency’s contract procurement process. Martinez said it felt like a “hostile takeover.”
By the next day, Young was officially detailed to CFPB and was joined by two other DOGE affiliates, JORDAN WICK and JEREMY LEWIN. Vought signaled that the three were “acting on his behalf,” Martinez recalled, and that they should be granted access to the agency’s systems.
CFPB staff received DOGE’s arrival with a mixture of fear and confrontation. Martinez recalled being in a conference room designated for DOGE’s work when they noticed “employees circling the hallways of the basement” trying to get a peek at the action.
Martinez recalled the DOGE staffers eyeing someone “pushing a baby stroller down the hallway taking pictures of us through the window.” When the DOGE team moved to another conference room — this one with covered windows — “sheer chaos” ensued. One employee walked into the room, began taking photos and got “face to face” with one of the CFPB staff members working with DOGE. Four security guards had to defuse the situation, Martinez said. Meanwhile, protests outside the building were growing.
Martinez quickly discerned the DOGE playbook in those first few days: Shut down the entire agency. He thought the team might leave a bare-bones staff to meet legally required functions, but would essentially mass terminate contracts, expedite termination of employees and place most staff on administrative leave.
As legal pressure began to mount, however, Martinez noticed a change in posture. The next week, more detailees arrived from Vought’s OMB office who seemed to have a slightly less aggressive mission.
“There was, in my opinion, misalignment between the DOGE people and the OMB people,” Martinez said, describing the OMB contingent as “the adults.” Soon, Vought’s close adviser MARK PAOLETTA greenlit efforts to recall some staff and reinstate contracts.
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