Russell Vought used his powerful perch in President-elect Donald Trump’s first administration to slow down billions of dollars in disaster aid to Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria destroyed the island in 2017. At the time, much of the island remained without power and tens of thousands of Americans were living under tarps.
Now, Vought is set to return as director of the Office of Management and Budget if the Senate confirms him.
Vought would have vast control over federal spending under Trump, who while campaigning vowed to withhold disaster aid to force a Democratic governor to bend to his political will.
“This is the worst-case scenario because it was hard enough the first time around,” said Erica González Martínez, director of Power 4 Puerto Rico, a coalition of Puerto Rican diaspora groups and an organizer of protests over the delayed disaster aid.
“We’ve seen over and over again the standing that Puerto Rico and Puerto Ricans have when it comes to Trump and his administration,” Martínez said, referring to Trump’s and Vought’s response to hurricanes Maria and Irma and to earthquakes that rocked the island in late 2019 and early 2020.
Charlotte Gossett Navarro, chief director for Puerto Rico at the Hispanic Federation, fears Trump and Vought will again take steps to delay the U.S. territory’s recovery.
“Under the Trump administration, it was particularly antagonistic, and its view of Puerto Rico was very negative,” Navarro said. “You constantly felt like you were battling with someone who wants to see you fail.”
Vought has indicated he may be more aggressive in using the OMB to block disaster aid in the next Trump term. He has called for an expansion of the president’s powers. In the Project 2025 conservative policy playbook, Vought explains how to give the executive branch more power to override Congress and officials at federal agencies.
“The Director must view his job as the best, most comprehensive approximation of the President’s mind as it pertains to the policy agenda,” Vought wrote in Project 2025, describing the role of the OMB chief.
From 2018 to 2020, Vought slowed the release of $16.5 billion in disaster aid to Puerto Rico by setting up extra hurdles, according to a federal investigation and a former Trump White House official.
The hurdles, imposed due to concern about “alleged corruption and fiscal mismanagement” in Puerto Rico, caused $8.3 billion in aid to be delayed by 4 ½ months and a separate $8.2 billion allocation to be delayed six months, according to the Department of Housing and Urban Development inspector general. The money was part of $28 billion in disaster aid that Congress gave HUD in early 2018 to distribute for numerous disasters.
After questioning HUD’s delay in approving aid to Puerto Rico, members of Congress asked HUD’s inspector general for an investigation, which ran from March 2019 to April 2020.
Vought was “in the middle” of the administration’s handling of the Puerto Rico aid, said Olivia Troye, a former Trump White House homeland security adviser.
“He was definitely one of the people stalling it, and we couldn’t get it to move,” Troye said of Vought. “It was a slow, slow walk. That’s what they do, they just don’t move on it.”
The OMB hurdles for Puerto Rico drew strong opposition from senior HUD officials at the time. Brian Montgomery, who was HUD’s deputy secretary, told the inspector general that “OMB’s actions were tantamount to holding disaster-relief funds ‘hostage.’”
“These demands they were putting on us . . . had never been done,” Montgomery told the IG. Montgomery, now a consultant, did not respond to a request for comment.
Vought did not return a request for comment through the Center for Renewing America, the pro-Trump think tank he founded in 2021. Vought obstructed the investigation and would not be interviewed, the IG report says.
In response to questions from POLITICO’s E&E News, Trump transition spokesperson Liz Huston said: “President Trump and his Cabinet officials will serve ALL Americans, even those who did not vote for him in the election. President Trump will unify the country through success and Russell Vought will play an important role in delivering unmatched prosperity and ingenuity to the American people.”
The inspector general uncovered tension between Vought and then-HUD Secretary Ben Carson, who had “mounting concerns and frustrations regarding HUD’s inability to make progress on disbursing” the aid. Carson later accepted Vought’s demands, the report found.
As OMB held back aid to Puerto Rico in 2018 and 2019, it took steps to ensure that HUD aid was not delayed to Florida, Missouri and Texas, according to the inspector general’s report.
Vought role in the process that delayed aid to Puerto Rico was “significant,” the report says.
Pushback inside the White House
Some in the White House pushed back against steps Vought, Trump and others at OMB were taking that slowed disaster aid, said Troye, who has become a Trump critic and campaigned for Vice President Kamala Harris in the election. Troye said she repeatedly had to prod Vice President Mike Pence to intervene.
Internal allies are likely to be harder to find in Trump’s upcoming administration, Troye said. Trump is filling top jobs with loyalists such as South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem (R), nominated to run the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees FEMA.
John Bolton, Trump’s former national security adviser, said in a recent interview that he worked with Vought on issues including disaster recovery and was not aware of aid being delayed to Puerto Rico. Bolton said Vought had a reputation for steamrolling through proper government procedures to impose his political will, which often brought resistance.
“There are ways to do it, ways not to do it, and I think he didn’t get the process point,” Bolton said. “And I’m not making a moral judgment, I’m making a political judgment. You can hurt yourself worse if you don’t understand the process game.”
OMB delayed aid to Puerto Rico by imposing new conditions that blocked minimum wage requirements and required a property tax overhaul only for Puerto Rico, the inspector general found. That slowed the distribution of funds and made it harder for HUD to distribute them in a timely manner.
HUD’s Montgomery “reacted with frustration” at the new OMB conditions on HUD aid, which he noted applied only to Puerto Rico. He also questioned whether it was “even legal” to put such conditions in place, the report found.
“How many poison pills are in here?” Montgomery wrote in an email to HUD colleagues.
Vought headed OMB at a time when Trump delayed Federal Emergency Management Agency disaster aid to California and Washington state amid disputes with their Democratic governors. Three states with Republican governors who had criticized Trump also faced delays in getting FEMA aid, E&E News has reported.
While campaigning this year, Trump said a number of times that he would withhold disaster aid from California for its notorious wildfires unless Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) changed his water policy stance.
OMB slows down disaster aid as part of its routine oversight of federal spending, said Craig Fugate, who led FEMA in the Obama administration. There has long been tension between OMB and FEMA, under both Democratic and Republican administrations, Fugate said.
However, Fugate said, OMB can harm disaster victims if it starts throwing up roadblocks for political purposes. The office “has a lot of power,” Fugate said.
“We quibble over, did they get to the [funding] threshold or not, that’s always existed,” Fugate said. “The question is, are people proposing to weaponize that?”
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Publish date : 2024-12-19 21:19:00
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