By Gram Slattery and Alexandra Ulmer
(Reuters) - President-elect Donald Trump is planning to tap conservative loyalist Russell Vought to be the director of the U.S. Office of Management and Budget, according to two sources close to his transition effort, putting him at the helm of a powerful agency that helps decide a president's policy priorities and how to pay for them.
Vought was OMB chief in Trump's first term and would play a key role in rolling back government regulations and setting budget priorities. In this position, he would be in a position to implement a policy known as Schedule F, which would in practice strip thousands of federal employees of some key civil service protections.
Vought helped produce a blueprint called Project 2025 by a coalition of conservative groups for a second Trump White House term. One of its proposals is to dramatically restructure the government so that appointed conservatives have power over key decisions typically relegated to civil servants.
Trump could change his mind, and there were other candidates for the role as recently as earlier this week, according to one of the sources.
The Trump transition team and Vought did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Trump repeatedly denied when campaigning for president that he had any links to Project 2025, although many of its authors were former officials from his first administration, including Vought.
At OMB, Vought will work with X CEO Elon Musk and former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy to carry out Trump's campaign pledge to slash government spending and regulations.
Musk and Ramaswamy have been tapped by Trump to co-lead a newly created Department of Government Efficiency, an entity Trump has indicated will operate outside the confines of government.