FILE – Acting OMB Director Russel Vought speaks during a press briefing at the White House, Monday, March 11, 2019, in Washington. (AP Photo/ Evan Vucci, File)
By RICHARD LARDNER Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — Russell Vought, a key architect of the controversial Project 2025 plan, speaks as a general marshaling troops to tame a “woke and weaponized” federal government.
Vought has said political opposition is “enemy fire that’s coming over the target” and has urged allies to be “fearless at the point of attack.” He has described his policy proposals as “battle plans.”
If former President Donald Trump wins a second term in November, Vought, his former White House budget chief, may get the opportunity to go on the offensive; he is expected to be appointed to a high-ranking post in a second Trump administration.
Here are some things to know about Vought and his plans if Trump returns to power.
Project 2025
Vought did not respond to an interview request or to questions first emailed in February to the Center for Renewing America, the pro-Trump think tank he established after leaving government.
The center joined a coalition of conservative organizations, led by the Heritage Foundation, to launch the 920-page Project 2025, a detailed blueprint for governing in the next Republican administration. The project’s public-facing document, “Mandate for Leadership,” examined nearly every corner of the federal government and urged reforms large and small to bridle a “behemoth” bureaucracy.
As part of his work on Project 2025, Vought is at work drafting a so-far secret “180-Day Transition Playbook” to speed the plan’s implementation to avoid a repeat of the chaotic start that dogged Trump’s first term.
Project 2025 calls for the U.S. Education Department to be shuttered, and the Homeland Security Department dismantled, with its various parts absorbed by other federal offices. Diversity, inclusion and equity programs would be gutted. Promotions in the U.S. military to general or admiral would go under a microscope to ensure candidates haven’t prioritized issues like climate change or critical race theory.
In his public comments and in a Project 2025 chapter he wrote, Vought has said that no executive branch department or agency, including the Justice Department, should operate outside the president’s authority.
“The whole notion of independent agencies is anathema from the standpoint of the Constitution,” Vought said during a recent appearance on the Fox Business Network.
Critics warn this may leave the Justice Department and other investigative agencies vulnerable to a president who might pressure them to punish or probe a political foe. Trump, who has faced four separate prosecutions, has threatened retribution against Biden and other perceived enemies.
Controversial blueprint
Democrats have used Project 2025 as a political weapon, tying it to Trump and arguing to voters that the plan is extreme.
Trump has sought to distance himself from the project. He posted on social media last month that he has not seen the plan and has “no idea who is in charge of it, and, unlike our very well received Republican Platform, had nothing to do with it.”
On Tuesday, his disavowed and criticized the blueprint, with his presidential campaign stating he has his own agenda for governing and that Project 2025’s “demise would be greatly welcomed.” That same day, the project’s executive director stepped down.
The effort to disavow ties to Project 2025 is complicated by the connections Trump has with many of its contributors. Vought and more than two dozen other authors served in his administration.
Vought knows how to operate levers of power
Vought is among a small cadre of former officials who have a mechanic’s understanding of how Washington operates.
He honed his credentials as a fiscal hawk on Capitol Hill. When Trump was elected in 2016, Vought became deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget. Combative and loyal to Trump, Vought would later take over as OMB’s top official.
A typically sedate office, OMB builds the president’s budget and reviews proposed regulations. With Vought at the helm, OMB was at the center of showdowns between Trump and Congress over federal spending and the legal bounds of presidential power.
After lawmakers refused to give Trump more money for his southern U.S. border wall, the budget office siphoned billions of dollars from the Pentagon and Treasury Department budgets to pay for it. Under Vought, OMB also withheld military aid to Ukraine as Trump pressured President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to investigate President Joe Biden and his son.
Vought’s selection to be policy director of the Republican Party’s 2024 platform writing committee underscored his proximity to Trump. If Vought were to return to the White House as OMB director, he doesn’t intend to be a paper-pushing, number-crunching bureaucrat. He has also been mentioned as a potential White House chief of staff, among the most powerful jobs in all of Washington.
Originally published at Associated Press