House Oversight Democrats Criticize Trump for Picking Project 2025’s ‘Chief Architect’ to Lead OMB

On November 25, 2024By Littum

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), the top Democrat on the House Oversight and Accountability Committee, and committee member Rep. Melanie Stansbury (DN.M.) condemned President-elect Trump for tapping Project 2025 co-author Russell Vought to serve as director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) during his second administration.

“After vehemently denying his ties to Project 2025 throughout the campaign, the president-elect has just tapped its chief architect, Russell Vought, to run his upcoming government-wide purge as director of the Office of Management and Budget,” the lawmakers said. in one joint statement.

Vought served as Trump’s OMB deputy director during Trump’s first term in the Oval Office.

Vought wrote the chapter on the Executive Office of the President of the United States—which largely refers to the OMB—in The Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025, a “governance agenda” filled with conservative priorities and insights from scholars and policy experts.

Trump on the campaign trail tried to distance himself from the playbook, saying in the past that he has “nothing to do with it,” especially as it came under fire for some of its more controversial policies. Democrats launched a campaign earlier this year to push back Project 2025, forming a task force to combat what they said is a threat to the institutions of American democracy and government.

In their statement, Raskin and Stansbury hit out at Vought about decisions he made while serving Trump’s first administration, such as performs an executive order signed by Trump in 2020 that targeted diversity training for government employees by banning the teaching of “divisive concepts”.

“As Democratic members of the House Oversight Committee, the headquarters for opposition to this plan, we will fight Vought’s radical agenda, act to protect vital government services the American people depend on, and stand up to defend our fellow citizens who are honorable federal workers every step of the way,” they said in the statement.

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