Russell Thurlow Vought (IPA: /voʊt/ VOHT, born March 26, 1976) is an American political analyst who has been the director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) since February 2025.

[1] He has also played a significant role in Project 2025, an initiative led by the Heritage Foundation that aims to advance conservative, right-wing policies and reshape the federal government.

[13][14] In 2019, Vought was one of nine government officials who defied a subpoena to testify before Congress in relation to the Trump–Ukraine scandal and the administration's decision to freeze military aid to Ukraine.

[21] In May 2020, Vought broke the OMB's long-standing practice of publishing updated economic forecasts,[16] citing disruption caused by the coronavirus pandemic.

[16] On September 4, 2020, Vought, at Trump's direction, published an OMB memo instructing federal agencies to stop all training on "critical race theory" or "white privilege", along with "any other training or propaganda effort that teaches or suggests either (1) that the United States is an inherently racist or evil country or (2) that any race or ethnicity is inherently racist or evil".

The memo further directed that agencies begin to identify legal avenues to cancel contracts or otherwise divert the "millions of taxpayer dollars" being spent on such training, which it said "engenders division and resentment within the federal workforce.

[30] On June 8, 2021, Citizens for Renewing America (CRA), the advocacy arm of Center for American Restoration, released a guide to "combatting critical race theory.

"[31] Vought told Fox News the 33-page handbook is "a crash course in CRT, a 'one-stop shopping' for parents trying to hold their school board members accountable.

"[32] On June 22, 2022, Vought confirmed that federal agents conducted a search of the home of his organization's director of litigation, Jeffrey Clark, a former U.S. Department of Justice official who participated in efforts to challenge the results of the 2020 presidential election.

[33] In February 2023, CRA published a paper arguing for a "dormant NATO, wherein Europe is the primary security provider of the European front.

"[34] CRA is a member of the advisory board of Project 2025,[35] a collection of conservative and right-wing policy proposals from the Heritage Foundation to reshape the United States federal government and consolidate executive power should the Republican nominee win the 2024 presidential election.

[37] Vought plays a major role in Project 2025, a collection of conservative and right-wing policy proposals from the Heritage Foundation to reshape the United States federal government and consolidate executive power should the Republican Party candidate win the 2024 presidential election.

[38][39][40] It proposes reclassifying tens of thousands of merit-based federal civil service workers as political appointees in order to replace them with loyalists more willing to enable the next Republican president's policies.

[1][57] Vought supports expanding presidential authority, proposing the use of the military for domestic law enforcement and revisiting the president's ability to withhold congressionally-appropriated funds, a practice Congress banned in 1974.