President Donald Trump‘s nominee for Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), Russell Vought, came under fire during his nominee hearing today in the U.S. Senate.
Vought, whose nomination the Budget Committee will vote on in the coming weeks, served as director of the OMB during Trump’s first term as president. OMB, the largest office within the president’s executive office, prepares and evaluates the president’s annual budget. OMB also has jurisdiction over the performance of federal agencies.
Repeatedly, Vought has made attempts to weaken protections of federal workers and disrupt federal agencies by moving their options elsewhere in the United States. U.S. Sen. Mark R. Warner of Virginia, who is chair of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, made clear he is not impressed with Vought’s 12 years of experience in Washington. Warner, a former technology entrepreneur, said he has experience running a business and making a payroll. And, from a management perspective, Warner said Vought seems to only want to find out how many federal workers he can get to quit and how many federal agencies he can relocate.
“And I got to tell you, your words, ‘We want the bureaucrats to be traumatically affected because they are increasingly viewed as villains. We want to put them in trauma.’ I got to tell you, you want to be OMB Director and help oversee this workforce and you want to put the workforce in trauma? Sir, that would be management malpractice,” Warner said today.
Warner, who said he considered the nomination hearing to be a job interview for director of the OMB, said that, in 2019, Vought had the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) move, which resulted in a 170 percent increase in job vacancies. According to the U.S. Government Accountability Office, an entity which remains independent, moving the BLM “dramatically impaired its ability to serve the American people.” Warner also counted Vought’s decision to move two bureaus of the U.S. Department of Agriculture as a disaster which led to 40 to 60 percent reductions in effectiveness.
Warner did give Vought credit for what he called Vought’s “madness” as architect of Project 2025, and that Vought put in writing a far-right blueprint for Trump’s second term as president with details for an expansive vision to slash and relocate key portions of the federal workforce.
“Sir, I do appreciate the fact, one of the things you said which was you think it’s important for the federal government to keep our nation safe,” Warner said. “Probably the most important thing I’ve done in this job is my work with the intelligence community.”
Thousands of American men and woman work in the intelligence community. Project 2025 contains a proposal to break up the intelligence community. Warner said that keeping the National Security Administration, the Central Intelligence Agency, the Pentagon and the Federal Bureau of Investigations close to Trump in D.C., the agencies are able to keep America safe.
“I would ask you, sir, can you show any evidence that somehow how we would make our nation safer if you put your political litmus test and this idea of bringing ‘trauma’ to the federal workforce by taking the intelligence community, which has been supported on a bipartisan basis year in and year out, and somehow breaking it up and spreading it hither and yon just for a political purpose. How does that make our nation safer?” Warner asked Vought.
Vought proceeded to claim that he did not propose moving the intelligence community out of D.C. and that Trump has disassociated himself from the document.
Warner said he is “all for effectiveness,” but Vought would have to make a case that moving the intelligence agencies out of D.C. is good business.
“I hope my colleagues will raise, I think your completely irresponsible actions on Schedule F. But I urge you, sir, if you become in this position, think long and hard about the men and women of the national security and the intelligence community before you go on some political jihad of trying to score points by simply trying to break up an operation that actually functions better because of their close collaboration. And your comments about the federal workforce I find disqualifying on this basis.”
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Rebecca Barnabi
