GAO plans review of CFTC cuts as staffing and enforcement decline

The Government Accountability Office is expected to begin a review of staffing cuts at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission in December, following Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s request for an inquiry into whether the reductions weakened enforcement and the agency’s broader derivatives-market mandate.

The planned review comes after a sharp contraction in the regulator’s workforce and enforcement output. By the end of 2025, the CFTC had 21% fewer employees than its average over the preceding decade, while the number of enforcement actions that year was nearly 80% below the prior decade’s annual average, according to CapRadio.

Warren’s July 21 letter to the GAO put the decline differently, saying staffing had fallen 25% since January 2025. She asked the watchdog to assess both the workforce reductions and their effect on enforcement. Her letter said the agency was offering buyouts and early-retirement packages as of June 1.

The measures use different timeframes and baselines. As of July, the CFTC workforce was 16% below its decade average, or about 100 employees short. The agency said it was on track to hire roughly 100 staff for mission-critical areas by the end of 2026, and had seven full-time vacancies open. Reuters reported that the CFTC expected to expand its workforce and believed it had enough resources to meet its obligations, partly through artificial intelligence.

The enforcement decline was also evident in figures cited in Warren’s letter. The CFTC brought 58 enforcement actions and won more than $17.1 billion in monetary relief in fiscal 2024. In the 12 months following the change in administration, it brought 11 actions and obtained less than $1 billion in relief. Those periods are not identical to the calendar-year comparison showing an almost 80% decline in 2025 actions.

The CFTC began losing staff soon after Donald Trump’s 2024 election victory. Former CFTC lawyers said personnel associated with crypto cases were punished, forced out or departed after Trump’s inauguration. Jeff Le Rich attributed departures to the administration’s stated aim of being friendlier to the crypto industry.

Under the Biden administration, the CFTC brought cases involving Gemini, Mirror Trading, Voyager, Celsius, FTX and Polymarket. After Trump took office, the agency rolled back enforcement actions against Gemini, Celsius and FTX. Reduced staffing also contributed to the dismissal of a foreign-exchange fraud case against WorldWideMarkets Inc., which had been accused of defrauding users of millions of dollars.

A separate Paul Weiss review found that the agency consolidated nine specialised enforcement task forces into two during 2025 and closed about half its open enforcement matters. By May 2025, the enforcement division had dispositioned 50% of its open matters, covering several hundred investigations, preliminary investigations and litigation matters.

The staffing decline has hampered the CFTC’s enforcement and its ability to regulate growing crypto and prediction markets, where hundreds of billions of dollars trade each week. The agency historically concentrated on derivatives such as grain and stock futures, but its fiscal 2025 report said it oversees U.S. futures, options and swaps markets. It estimated the notional value of U.S. futures at $31 trillion and U.S. swaps at $352 trillion.

The CFTC authorised six prediction markets in 2025, three times the prior decade’s average annual rate. It had approved another six in 2026 and had 18 applications pending. Warren noted that the agency has asserted exclusive jurisdiction over prediction markets, potentially displacing state and tribal gambling authorities, while pending crypto market-structure legislation could demand substantial additional resources.

The regulator is nevertheless proceeding with crypto rules. On Oct. 5, it published an advance notice of proposed rulemaking for a comprehensive framework governing retail commodity transactions involving crypto assets. The CFTC said the framework is intended to prevent abusive practices and fraud, rather than rely only on enforcement after harm has occurred.