White House Presidential Personnel Office
Main human resources division of the US chief executive's workplace
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The White House Presidential Personnel Office (PPO), sometimes written as Office of Presidential Personnel, is the part of the White House Office tasked with vetting new appointees.[1][2] Its offices are on the first floor of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building in Washington, D.C.[2] The PPO is one of the offices most responsible for assessing candidates to work at or for the White House.[3]
- Dan Scavino, Director
- Vacant, Deputy Director
| |
 | |
| Agency overview | |
|---|---|
| Headquarters | Eisenhower Executive Office Building Washington, D.C., U.S. 38°53′51.24″N 77°2′20.93″W |
Agency executives |
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Parent department | White House Office |
The office is responsible for approximately 4,000 political appointment positions, of which 1,600 require Senate confirmation.[4] The White House Presidential Office recruits candidates to serve in departments and agencies throughout the Executive Branch. It presents candidates for presidential appointments with Senate confirmation (PAS) to the Senate after they have been approved by the president of the United States.[5] The mission of the office is to provide the president with the best applicants possible for presidency-appointed positions. Lastly, it also provides policy guidance for federal department and agency heads on conduct for political activities.[6]
Responsibilities
History
The White House Personnel Office (WHPO) was created by Frederick V. Malek in 1971 to standardize the White House's hiring process.[7][8] In 1974, President Gerald Ford renamed the WHPO to the Presidential Personnel Office (PPO) and restructured it to focus more on presidential appointments, relying more on department heads to secure non-presidential appointments in their departments.[7][6]
On January 4, 2017, President Donald Trump named Johnny DeStefano Director of PPO in the incoming Trump administration.[9] On January 30, 2017, DeStefano wrote a letter to Acting Attorney General Sally Yates informing her of her dismissal.[10] DeStefano left the position on May 24, 2019.[11]
In 2018, the PPO was made up of about 30 members, about one-third of its usual staff. The professionalism of the PPO under President Trump was challenged, with The Washington Post reporting that the office was staffed with largely-inexperienced personnel.[2][12] As of July 2021, the PPO under President Biden returned to its usual staffing numbers, with about 80 people in the office.[13]
In January 2020, Trump appointed John McEntee Director of PPO,[14] reporting directly to Trump, who tasked him with identifying and removing political appointees and career officials deemed insufficiently loyal to the Trump administration.[15][16][17][18][19] On October 21, 2020, two weeks before the 2020 elections, President Trump signed an executive order creating a new Schedule F category within the excepted service for employees “in confidential, policy-determining, policy-making and policy-advocating positions”. He also instructed agencies to identify and transfer competitive service employees that meet that description into the new job classification, an initiative that could strip hundreds of thousands of federal workers of their civil service protections and effectively make them at-will employees. Reviews by agencies are due at the PPO by January 19, 2021, a day before the end of the Trump presidency.[20]
Leadership
| Name | Start | End | President | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fred Malek[21] | September 1970 | January 1973 | Richard Nixon (1969–1974) | |
| Jerry Jones[22] | January 1973 | April 1974 | ||
| David Wimer[23] | April 1974 | September 1974 | ||
| Gerald Ford (1974–1977) | ||||
| William Walker[24] | October 1974 | June 1975 | ||
| Douglas Bennett[25] | June 1975 | January 20, 1977 | ||
| James Gammill[26] | January 20, 1977 | October 17, 1978 | Jimmy Carter (1977–1981) | |
| Arnold Miller[26] | October 17, 1978 | January 20, 1981 | ||
| Pendleton James[27] | January 20, 1981 | 1982 | Ronald Reagan (1981–1989) | |
| John Herrington | February 1983 | February 7, 1985 | ||
| Robert Tuttle[28] | February 7, 1985 | January 20, 1989 | ||
| Chase Untermeyer[29] | January 20, 1989 | August 24, 1991 | George H. W. Bush (1989–1993) | |
| Constance Horner[29] | 1991 | January 20, 1993 | ||
| Bruce Lindsey[30][31] | January 20, 1993 | April 1995 | Bill Clinton (1993–2001) | |
| Bob Nash[32] | 1995 | January 20, 2001 | ||
| Clay Johnson | January 20, 2001 | January 2003 | George W. Bush (2001–2009) | |
| Dina Powell | January 2003 | July 2005 | ||
| Liza Wright[33] | July 18, 2005 | September 2007 | ||
| Joie Gregor | 2007 | 2008 | ||
| Don Gips | January 20, 2009 | July 2009 | Barack Obama (2009–2017) | |
| Nancy Hogan[34][35] | July 2009 | July 2013 | ||
| Jonathan McBride | July 2013 | February 2015 | ||
| Valerie Green | February 2015 | March 2016 | ||
| Johnny DeStefano[2][36] | January 20, 2017 | February 9, 2018 | Donald Trump (2017–2021) | |
| Sean Doocey[37] | February 9, 2018 | January 8, 2020 | ||
| John McEntee | January 8, 2020 | January 20, 2021 | ||
| Cathy Russell | January 20, 2021 | January 31, 2022 | Joe Biden (2021–2025) | |
| Gautam Raghavan | January 31, 2022 | January 20, 2025 | ||
| Sergio Gor | January 20, 2025 | October 13, 2025 | Donald Trump (2025–present) | |
| Dan Scavino | October 13, 2025 | present | ||