He has helped craft proposals for Donald Trump to deploy the military to quash civil unrest, seize more control over the Justice Department and assert the power to withhold congressional appropriations — and that’s just on Trump’s first day back in office.

Vought, 48, is poised to steer this agenda from an influential perch in the White House, potentially as Trump’s chief of staff, according to some people involved in discussions about a second term.
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Vought aims to harness what he calls the “woke and weaponized” bureaucracy that stymied the former president by stocking federal agencies with hardcore disciples who would wage culture wars on abortion and immigration.
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Some of Vought’s recommendations, such as bucking the Justice Department’s tradition of political independence, have long percolated in the conservative movement. But he is taking a harder line — and seeking to empower a presidential nominee who has openly vowed “retribution,” alarming some fellow conservatives who recall fighting against big government alongside Vought long before Trump’s election.
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Vought’s long career as a staffer in Congress and at federal agencies has made him an asset to Project 2025, an initiative led by the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, to lay the groundwork for a second Trump term. Vought wrote the chapter on the executive office of the president in Project 2025’s 920-page blueprint, and he is developing its playbook for the first 180 days, according to the people involved in the effort.
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Vought supports prosecuting officials who investigated [Trump] and his allies. “It can’t just be hearings,” he told right-wing activist Charlie Kirk on his podcast. “It has to be investigations, an army of investigators that lead to firm convictions.”
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“No institution set up within its first two years [has] had the impact of [Vought’s] organization,” [currently imprisoned Stephen K.] Bannon said. “We’re going to rip and shred the federal government apart, and if you don’t like it, you can lump it.”