Tipsheet

Trump Picks a Familiar Name for General Counsel of OMB, and This Time He'll Be Working With DOGE

Rebecca Downs
Rebecca Downs  |  December 09, 2024 7:45 PM

This article has been updated to include a post from Mark Paoletta. 

On Monday night, President-elect Donald Trump announced in a statement that a familiar name, Mark Paoletta, will be returning to serve as the General Counsel of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). 

"I am pleased to announce that Mark Paoletta will be returning as General Counsel of the Office of Management and Budget. Mark will work closely with our DOGE team to cut the size of our bloated Government bureaucracy, and root out wasteful and anti-American spending," Trump announced in a Truth Social post. 
 
"Mark is a brilliant and tenacious lawyer, who worked tirelessly to advance my Agenda in the First Term. As OMB GC in my First Administration, Mark led the charge to identify funding to build the Southern Border Wall, and worked with then-OMB Director Russ Vought to rein in woke and weaponized Government spending. Mark is a partner at the Law Firm, Schaerr Jaffe, and a Senior Fellow at the Center for Renewing America, where he has worked alongside Russ. Mark has served as a Chief Counsel for Oversight and Investigations in Congress for a decade, and was a key lawyer in the White House Counsel’s Office to confirm Justice Clarence Thomas to the U.S. Supreme Court in 1991," Trump continued. "Mark is a conservative warrior who knows the 'ins and outs' of Government - He will help us, Make America Great Again!"

Later on Monday, Paoletta thanked Trump with a post over X, as he called it a "privilege to work for [Trump] again." He also gave a shout out to Russ Vought, the OMB Director for Trump's first term. 

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Just as Trump's statement did, Paoletta mentioned DOGE, which he tagged in his post, noting he and Vought "will once again be the tip of the spear to implement President Trump’s agenda, including working w/ @DOGE to cut wasteful government spending!"

The pick has been praised across X, including by the Article 3 Project's Mike Davis.

In his post, Harris hailed Paoletta as "effective" and declared that Trump "is very fortunate he recruited my good friend and fierce fellow warrior @MarkPaoletta to go back to his prior critical job as the lead attorney at OMB," which he also referred to as "the most important agency about which most American have never heard."

As Trump's statement makes reference to, Paoletta will work with the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). Not long after he was elected last month, Trump announced the creation of DOGE, co-headed by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, which will partner with the OMB. 

DOGE and the DOGE caucus have been making headlines in recent weeks. Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA) held a caucus meeting last week, during which she delivered a report to Musk and Ramaswamy at the the first Senate DOGE meeting, as Sarah covered at the time. She also raised concerns about how 90 percent of federal workers telework and waste taxpayers' money in her "Out of Office" report. The DOGE caucus looks to be a bipartisan endeavor, as Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-FL) has joined the House Caucus. 

Davis' post also came with a warning for federal workers. "Buckle up, bureaucrats," he posted. 

Such an announcement comes not long after Trump also shared on Monday night that he had nominated Harmeet K. Dhillon to serve as Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights at the U.S. Department of Justice.