President-Elect Donald Trump nominated Russ Vought on Friday to return as director to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB).
Trump’s selection of Vought will likely ensure his campaign promise will be carried out of purging the federal bureaucracy — or “deep state,” as he calls it — of rogue and corrupt actors.
The OMB is a significant department that oversees the implementation of a president’s vision across the Executive Branch, and through it, Trump has the power to axe agency funding that will likely try to operate outside the scope of his agenda.
“Russ knows exactly how to dismantle the Deep State and end Weaponized Government, and he will help us return Self Governance to the People,” Trump posted on Truth Social. “We will restore fiscal sanity to our Nation, and unleash the American People to new levels of Prosperity and Ingenuity.”
Vought graduated from Wheaton College and earned his J.D. from the Washington University School of Law.
“He did an excellent job serving in this role in my First Term – We cut four Regulations for every new Regulation, and it was a Great Success!” Trump said. “I look forward to working with you again, Russ. Congratulations. Together, we will Make America Great Again!”
Vought sat for an interview with Tucker Carlson earlier this week and explained how the administrative state can be curtailed through the levers of OMB. “Bureaucracies hate the American people,” Vought told Carlson. “The American people currently are not in control of their government, and the President hasn’t been either.”
More on Vought’s plan of action is here.
The term “deep state” or “administrative state” describes the phenomenon of unaccountable and unelected administrative agencies, including the national security apparatus, exercising power to create and enforce their own rules. The administrative state uses its rule-making ability to essentially usurp the separation of powers between the three branches of government by creating a so-called fourth branch of government not formed by the Constitution.
Many unelected bureaucrats within the administrative state also use their position to inflict their own agenda on citizens. For instance, before the “laptop from hell” story broke in 2020, 51 intel officials signed a letter that insinuated Hunter Biden’s laptop was Russian disinformation. Politico peddled the letter under the title “Hunter Biden story is Russian disinfo, dozens of former intel officials say.” The 51 signatories, however, seemingly knew the Politico story was false at the time, because the FBI had the laptop that Hunter abandoned at a Delaware computer repair shop. President Joe Biden cited the story during a 2020 presidential debate with Trump to discredit the laptop’s contents. The story was reportedly planted by Secretary of State Antony Blinken for Biden to use during the event.
Wendell Husebo is a political reporter with Breitbart News and a former RNC War Room Analyst. He is the author of Politics of Slave Morality. Follow Wendell on “X” @WendellHusebø or on Truth Social @WendellHusebo.