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Executive capture

Russel Vought: The Pincer Movement Against the State

Active dismantling
Case Dossier EXC-OPS-001
STATUS
Active dismantling
SEVERITY
Critical
DATE
2025-07-23
DOMAIN
Executive Capture
SUBDOMAIN
Personnel
CAPTURE VECTOR
Embedded operator
TAGS
omb cfpb project-2025 schedule-f administrative-state resource-extraction
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Project 2025 architect Russel Vought, holding dual roles as OMB Director and Acting CFPB Director, operationalizes a strategy of 'radical constitutionalism.' He utilizes budget cuts from above and extractive billing from within to dismantle agencies he views as existential threats.

Summary

Russel Vought has closed the loop between ideological design (Project 2025) and executive operation. As OMB Director, he views the federal bureaucracy not as a tool to be managed but as a “constitutionally dire” threat to be neutralized. By July 2025, he simultaneously held the position of Acting Director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB)—an agency he has long sought to abolish. This dual positioning allows him to execute a pincer movement: starving the agency of funds through OMB directives while actively looting its remaining resources from the inside.

Capture Mechanisms

1. The Phase I/II Demolition Protocol

Vought operationalized mass layoffs through a memo establishing strict deadlines for “future-state organizational charts.”

  • Phase I (March 2025): Initial downsizing plans submitted.
  • Phase II (April 2025): Detailed lists of all “term and temporary positions, reemployed annuitants, real estate footprint, and contracts” targeted for elimination.
  • The Theology: Vought justifies this not merely as efficiency but via religious allegory, citing 1 Samuel 8 to frame taxation and bureaucracy as a form of slavery (“He will take the tenth of your flocks… and you shall be his slaves”).

2. Predatory Extraction

While attempting to fire the CFPB’s staff (a move temporarily blocked by federal courts), Vought billed the dying agency $4.7 million for his personal security detail.

  • The Context: This charge came after the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” slashed the CFPB’s budget cap from 12% to 6.5% of Federal Reserve operating expenses.
  • The Inversion: Vought is draining the resources of an agency he claims is “unproductive” to fund his own protection while dismantling it. This exceeds the security spending of full cabinet secretaries in prior administrations.

Analysis

Vought represents the Embedded Operator par excellence. He creates a scenario where the administrative state is attacked from both the supply side (OMB cutting funds) and the demand side (Acting Directors misusing funds). His actions demonstrate that for the new regime, “governance” is indistinguishable from “demolition.” The goal is to make the agency’s survival fiscally and operationally impossible, regardless of statutory mandates.