Former Trump HHS official tapped to be RFK Jr’s chief of staff: report

elected president Donald Trump’s The transition team tapped a former health official from the first Trump administration and an ally of top Trump loyalist Harmeet Dhillon to be chief of staff to Health and Services secretary nominee Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Humans, a new report said on Monday.

Heather Flick, a lawyer who previously held several important positions at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). during the first Trump administration, he has been working closely with Kennedy in recent weeks as his informal chief of staff, according to Politico. The outlet added Monday that Trump’s transition team had tapped him to fill the role permanently, according to four familiar sources. The announcement has yet to be made public.

Meanwhile, the law firm that currently employs Flick, as well as its founder, congratulated her on the new role on their social media accounts this week. Fox News Digital reached out to him Trump-Vance Transition Team for confirmation but not heard in time for publication.

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Flick’s selection to work in Trump’s second administration is just the latest pick in a long list of Trump loyalists who have been given jobs in the administration during his second term. When Flick first joined the Trump administration, she was the acting general counsel of HHS before becoming his acting secretary of administration and eventually senior adviser to then-HHS secretary , Alex Azar.

Before first joining HHS, Flick was an attorney at Dhillon Law Group, an established firm by Dhillon, whom Trump has selected this time to be his deputy attorney general.

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Dhillon has represented clients in major conservative civil rights cases and defended Trump supporters in court. During the pandemic, he defied California’s Democratic governor, Gavin Newsom stay-at-home orders, and in 2020, she served as co-chair of Lawyers For Trump, a conservative lawyers’ group that supported Trump during the 2020 election. Most recently, Dhillon helped lead the Trump’s election integrity team in Arizona during the 2024 election.

“Heather Flick is exceptional and will undoubtedly help soon-to-be Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.,” Trump’s former national security adviser Michael Flynn said in a post on X following the news of Flick’s new role.

Flick’s appointment comes amid rumors from some of Kennedy’s allies that he might advance an agenda that is not entirely in line with Trump’s world, but rather focused on Kennedy’s priorities, Politico reported.

The potential HHS secretary has been meeting with lawmakers capitol hill recently in an attempt to bolster support. Both Democrats and Republicans have been highly critical of the HHS secretary-designate’s views on vaccines, while Republicans have also been probing Kennedy during meetings about his past pro-choice views on the abortion

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Kennedy’s critics have questioned his ability to handle major crises like the COVID-19 pandemic, and suggested that Kennedy pushes conspiracy theories about things like vaccines and antidepressants. Meanwhile, business leaders have suggested there is also cause for concern, given Kennedy’s past claims about the dangers of food additives, pesticides and vaccines.

Flick will take it upon himself to help Kennedy clean up some of that criticism. A former Food and Drug Administration official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to speak openly, told Politico that, depending on how involved HHS secretaries are in the agency’s work, his chief of staff may end up being “very, very involved.”

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“On really high-profile things, if she’s an effective chief of staff, she could be very involved,” the former official added. “I certainly saw that happen in multiple administrations.”