The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is being sued to release records related to its actual, and alleged, investigations into two big lenders. 

Two separate lawsuits filed in the past week regard inquiries for internal bureau documents on Rocket Homes and Veterans United. While the CFPB dropped its Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act case against Rocket Homes last year, it is allegedly neither confirming nor denying whether it had investigated Veterans United. 

Neither lender is named as a defendant in the Freedom of Information Act cases in federal courts. The FOIA lawsuit regarding Rocket Homes records was filed by British newspaper The Guardian. The Veterans United FOIA request was filed by Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro LLP, the international law firm behind newer, unrelated consumer RESPA cases against both lenders. 

The plaintiffs say the FOIA office at the embattled regulator responded to them, but either rejected their requests, or have failed to provide updates in violation of the statute. The CFPB has limped along under the Trump administration, as acting Director Russell Vought has put most of the office's employees in limbo in a fight over a mass firing. 

National Mortgage News asked attorney Steve Berman of Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro if he was concerned about delays in accessing the alleged Veterans United records because of the bureau's status.  

"I don't see that concern, as the Trump administration seems pro veteran," he wrote in an email Thursday. 

A spokesperson for The Guardian on Thursday afternoon confirmed the newspaper's interest in the records. 

"The public has a right to know more about the facts in this case, which was dropped soon after the current administration took office," the statement read. 

A spokesperson for the CFPB did not return a request for comment. 

CFPB's tabs on big lenders

The Guardian is seeking voluminous records of the bureau's investigation into Rocket Homes, a four-year probe which culminated in a federal lawsuit in late 2024. The regulator then accused Rocket Cos.' home search business of conducting a kickback scheme with a brokerage to increase origination volume. 

The Trump administration quickly dismissed the case last year. The Guardian, in its lawsuit filed last week, said it sent its FOIA request to the CFPB in March for investigative records ranging from interview transcripts, emails, and a plethora of other communications. 

The CFPB acknowledged the FOIA in early May and told The Guardian it had a backlog of pending requests, but it never followed up, the suit claims. 

Consumers filed their own class action RESPA case against Rocket in January, based on the bureau's probe, and the lender has rejected those accusations. 

Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro filed a RESPA class action on behalf of consumers against Veterans United in February, although the CFPB never acknowledged or publicized scrutiny of that firm. That case accuses Veterans United of suggesting to consumers that it was part of the Department of Veterans Affairs and steering them into more costly loans. 

The law firm said it sent a FOIA request in April for any communications and other materials between the CFPB and the lender regarding any alleged RESPA violations. The CFPB last month denied that request and an appeal, as it allegedly refused to neither confirm nor deny the existence of any investigative records, a tactic from the feds known as a Glomar response. 

In suing the bureau this week, the law firm suggested the CFPB put little effort in responding to the FOIA. It wants the federal court to force the CFPB to conduct an adequate search for any relevant records.

"The CFPB's Glomar response contained no substantive reasoning," the complaint read.