Who He HiredAll 35 people
Russ Vought at a DHS meeting, September 2025

Russ Vought

Director, Office of Management and Budget

4 findings

What the labels mean
  1. ConvictedA criminal jury found them guilty.
  2. Found liableA civil jury ruled against them.
  3. Court ruledA judge ruled against them or their policy.
  4. Watchdog foundAn inspector general, Congress's auditors at the GAO or UN investigators.
  5. AdmittedThey acknowledged it, or their own government's records and court filings show it.
  6. On recordSomething they said or did in public.
  7. ReportedNews reporting they deny or haven't confirmed.
  8. AllegedAccusations in lawsuits, complaints or from sources. Unproven.

Verdicts and rulings 2

  1. Court ruled

    On shutdown layoffs: “We’re going to keep those RIFS rolling.” A judge blocked them: “ready, fire, aim.”

    He used the 2025 shutdown to start mass layoffs (RIFs, reductions in force) of federal workers, at least 4,000 by court filings. Judge Susan Illston temporarily blocked them: “It’s very much ready, fire, aim on most of these programs, and it has a human cost.”

    Sources: PBS, PBS

  2. Court ruled

    Judges ordered him to keep funding the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and to put a public spending database back online.

    Judge Amy Berman Jackson said his reason for cutting off the CFPB was “not a valid justification for the agency’s unilateral decision to abandon its obligations”; he complied “under protest.” Judge Emmet Sullivan found OMB was “relying on an extravagant and unsupported theory of presidential power” in taking its spending site down; it was restored.

    Sources: The Guardian, American Banker, FedScoop, MeriTalk

Watchdog findings 1

  1. Watchdog found

    Congress’s auditors found his budget office can’t keep withholding money Congress approved.

    In September 2026 the GAO said withholding funds past their expiration “subverts both the constitutional process for enacting federal law and Congress’s constitutional power of the purse.” It has found violations of the Impoundment Control Act, the law that bars a president from withholding money Congress approved, across agencies in 2025 and 2026, including that the NIH “violated the ICA by withholding funds from obligation and expenditure.”

    Sources: GAO, GAO, GAO

Admitted or on record 1

  1. On record

    “We want the bureaucrats to be traumatically affected.”

    “We want to put them in trauma,” he said in a speech recorded before Trump’s second term. He didn’t respond to ProPublica.

    Sources: ProPublica