WaPo: 24-Year-Old At Highest Levels Of Drug Czar Office Will Leave This Month

The inexperienced 24-year-old who quickly ascended from Trump campaign volunteer to the highest levels of the White House’s Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) will leave that office by the end of the month, the White House confirmed to the Washington Post Wednesday night.

The Post first profiled Taylor Weyeneth 11 days ago, reporting based on public records requests that his resumes misleadingly included a masters degree from Fordham University (one he never completed) and a claim that he’d worked at a New York law firm for eight months longer than he had (he was “discharged” after not showing up for work), among other irregularities.

Weyeneth joined the ONDCP, the director of which is known as the White House’s “drug czar,” in March, from a job at the Treasury Department, where he’d begun shortly after Trump’s inauguration. Having graduated from St. John’s University in May 2016, the Post reported, Weyeneth’s only professional experience after college had been with the Trump campaign.

Within months, due to staff turnover and vacancies, the Post reported, Weyeneth was named deputy chief of staff of the office. According to a memo from Jan. 3 of this year, his responsibilities in that role included covering for the vacant chief of staff role, along with the office’s acting director — the drug czar himself.

“ONDCP leadership recognizes that we have lost a few talented staff members and that the organization would benefit from an infusion of new expert staff,” OBDCP Acting Director Richard Baum wrote in the memo, obtained by the Post. “The functions of the Chief of Staff will be picked up by me and the Deputy Chief of Staff.”

The Post’s reporting seemingly pushed the White House to demote Weyeneth back to his former post, as White House liaison for the office. Less than two weeks later, the White House has announced his departure.