President Trump announced early Sunday that he was appointing Dan Scavino, a deputy chief of staff and one of Mr. Trump’s most trusted advisers, as the head of the presidential personnel office.
Mr. Scavino will replace Sergio Gor, whom Mr. Trump in August said he would nominate to be the U.S. ambassador to India.
The personnel office role has traditionally been largely administrative but can come with significant power. This could be particularly true under a president who has been focused on whether prospective staff members meet his perception of loyalty. The office helps the president hire and fire thousands of political appointees.
“Dan will be responsible for the selection and appointment of almost all positions in government, a very big and important position,” Mr. Trump said in a social media post. He added that Mr. Scavino would retain his role as deputy chief of staff.
Mr. Scavino’s appointment comes as the presidential personnel office is mired in uncertainty about whether hundreds of thousands of federal workers who have been furloughed because of the government shutdown will automatically receive back pay once the government reopens.
The Trump administration has indicated in a private memo that only workers who are deemed essential may be automatically entitled to pay once the stalemate ends. But the office said in a question-and-answer document posted online that “employees who were furloughed as the result of the lapse will receive retroactive pay for those furlough periods.”
Both Mr. Scavino and his predecessor, Mr. Gor, have been valued by Mr. Trump for their perceived loyalty. Mr. Scavino was Mr. Trump’s golf caddy and one of the original aides in his 2016 presidential campaign. He helped craft the first Trump campaign’s social media presence, and he is among a small group of aides who have earned Mr. Trump’s confidence.
He served as the White House deputy chief of staff for communications in the final months of Mr. Trump’s first administration, and last year was named a deputy chief of staff after Mr. Trump’s re-election.
Mr. Gor helped run the publishing company that produced Mr. Trump’s books, and he ran a multimillion-dollar super PAC that supported Mr. Trump. Under his leadership, the personnel office helped conduct loyalty tests for applicants for government posts.
Some applicants for the jobs, including those inside the Pentagon and the intelligence agencies, said they were asked which political candidates they had supported, their thoughts about the storming of the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and whether they believed the 2020 election was stolen, according to some applicants and those involved in the process.
Yan Zhuang is a Times reporter in Seoul who covers breaking news.
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