Trump Administration Reportedly Hires 23-Year-Old College Senior To Fill Key Post
The administration of President Donald Trump is filling a key post in the Presidential Personnel Office by hiring a 23-year-old college senior, a new report reveals.
As Politico reported on Tuesday, the next director of operations for the office will be James Bacon, who is currently at Georgetown University studying for a bachelor’s degree. As the report noted, Bacon will succeed Katja Bullock, who is 50 years older than the college student who is now replacing her.
The Presidential Personnel Office is in charge of the selection process for presidential appointees and recruits candidates to serve throughout the administration.
Though he is yet to graduate college, Bacon had already made his way up through the Trump administration by serving in the policy shop of the Department of Transportation and as a confidential assistant to Secretary Ben Carson at the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Bacon also worked on Trump’s campaign and served on the president’s transition team. An official told Politico that Bacon would have already graduated from college had he not taken off time from his studies to work for Trump’s campaign.
As the Politico report noted, Bacon joins an office that is reportedly leading a purge against officials seen as not sufficiently loyal to Donald Trump. He will be working closely with John McEntee, who had originally served as Trump’s personal assistant before being fired in 2018 and then recently hired back.
“McEntee, 29, held a meeting in a conference room in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building last Thursday with White House liaisons of Cabinet departments where he asked officials to find Trump appointees who may be anti-Trump, according to an administration official familiar with the meeting,” the report noted. “McEntee also told them that PPO was going to take a look at all appointees at some point and re-vet them to see if they’ve been disloyal in any way.”
The Trump administration has courted controversy with some young hires in the past. In 2018, a 24-year-old who worked through the ranks of the Office of National Drug Control Policy resigned after it was revealed he had lied on his resume. The Washington Post reported that the employee, Taylor Weyeneth, had no experience for the role and reportedly overstated his experience on his resume. Weyeneth had served as White House liaison to the drug office and adviser to the top official in the office before being promoted to deputy chief of staff for the office.
