In President Donald Trump’s first term, Russell Vought was a largely behind-the-scenes player who eventually became director of the influential but underappreciated Office of Management and Budget.

Hundreds of pages of communications show career officials grasping for clarity in the weeks after the CFPB’s acting director, Russ Vought, ordered Feb. 10 a total stoppage of all “work tasks.” ...

Donald Trump himself, of course, but also Elon Musk, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and JD Vance. Russell Vought does not make that list. The soft-spoken bureaucrat was recently confirmed to lead the ...

That move, back in 2020, was partly the work of Russell Vought, who is once again leading the OMB. In the four years that Trump was out of power, Vought was busy establishing the framework for the ...

Will you support our work and become a Vox Member today? Russ Vought, Trump’s OMB director, wrote an essay in 2022 that reads like a blueprint for what was to come. Zack Beauchamp is a senior ...