By Gram Slattery and Alexandra Ulmer
(Reuters) – President-elect Donald Trump plans to tap conservative loyalist Russell Vought as director of the U.S. Office of Management and Budget, according to two sources close to his transition efforts, putting him at the helm stand of a powerful agency that helps determine a president’s policy priorities and how to pay for them.
Vought served as OMB chief during Trump’s first term and would play a key role in rolling back government regulations and setting budget priorities. In this position, he would be in a position to implement a policy known as Schedule F, which in practice would strip thousands of federal employees of some important civil service protections.
Vought helped produce a blueprint called Project 2025 by a coalition of conservative groups for a second Trump term in the White House. One of the proposals is to drastically restructure the government so that appointed conservatives have power over key decisions that are usually delegated to civil servants.
Trump could change his mind, and one of the sources said there were other candidates for the role recently.
The Trump transition team and Vought did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Trump repeatedly denied ties to Project 2025 during his presidential campaign, even though many of its authors were former officials of his first administration, including Vought.
At OMB, Vought will work with X CEO Elon Musk and former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy to implement Trump’s campaign promise to reduce government spending and regulations.
Musk and Ramaswamy have been tapped by Trump to jointly lead a newly created Department of Government Efficiency, an entity that Trump has indicated will operate outside the boundaries of government.
(Reporting by Gram Slattery, Alexandra Ulmer, Editing by Ross Colvin and Deepa Babington)
