Lyssie

:head in hands:  This is the exact opposite of the way that current peer review works.  Yes, science agencies have always had priorities and shifted funding toward initiatives that might be priorities of the current administration, but not at this nitty gritty grant level.  Before, you might fund, say, the BRAIN initiative because it's something the president backs.  But you would then let the peer review process (ie, actual brain experts) figure out who should get the funding.  Now?  Now a political appointee could decide they don't like a project for apparently literally any reason, and even though it's actual, non-sarcastic "gold-standard science", it could be passed over.  

This opens up all kinds of corruption influences.  Who is going to be watching the watchers?  What criteria are appointees allowed to use to thumbs-down these grants...or can they do it for any reason at all?  Are they just looking for a keyword?  Are they looking at the PI's internet history?  The Institution, to see who the administration is fighting with now?  Are they relying on their unscientific opinion of what "sounds important"?  Are they open to bumping up funding for PIs or institutions that are friendly to them or their higher-ups. regardless of the science involved?

And the anecdotes at the end from how all this is affecting the peer review process--how scientists are starting to nope out of this onerous and increasingly apparently thankless task--are the predictable signs of a scientific funding process in absolute crisis.  Scientific review runs on volunteers, and people stop wanting to volunteer if they feel they're just going to be ignored, jerked around, and wronged.