Project 2025 Director Steps Down

Here is more from the Associated Press:

The director of the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 vision for a complete overhaul of the federal government stepped down Tuesday after blowback from Donald Trump’s campaign, which has tried to disavow the program created by many of the former president’s allies and former aides.

Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts said Paul Dans’ exit comes after the project “completed exactly what it set out to do.” Roberts, who has emerged as a chief spokesman for the effort, plans to lead Project 2025 going forward.

The Heritage Foundation said Dans left voluntarily and it was not under pressure from the Trump campaign. Dans didn’t immediately respond to an emailed request for comment.

It was almost certain than Trump’s campaign forced the shakeup, said one former Heritage aide.

Project 2025’s website will remain live and the group will continue vetting resumes for its nearly 20,000-person database of potential officials eager to execute its vision for government, the Heritage Foundation said Tuesday. 

 

The Wall Street Journal Editorial Board had harsh words for Mr. Roberts. 

Politico wrote a major piece saying that Project 2025 was a "mirage" all along.

Pro Publica has also written a major piece about Paul Dans.

The Associated Press has a new piece on Russell Vought and Project 2025, including the so-called 180-Day Transition Playbook.

Update: At least 38 Democratic lawmakers signed a letter to the Kevin Roberts of Heritage to request a meeting to discuss Project 2025 and release the so-called 180-Day Playbook.

And now, Kevin Roberts will reportedly delay the publication of his new book "Dawn's Early Light" after the Project 2025 firestorm.

The Washington Post is reporting that Trump took a private flight in 2022 with Kevin Roberts, chartered by Heritage, where they apparently discussed proposals for 2025.

Larry Hogan, a Republican running for the US Senate, now has ad attacking "the extreme Project 2025."

Here is a ProPublica piece entitled "Inside Project 2025's Secret Training Videos."

WaPo has another story entitled "He found a Project 2025 duffel bag. Then policy showed up at his house."

NOTUS reports that the internal atmosphere inside Heritage is uneasy.

Think Tanker Used Think Tanks to Help Spy for South Korea

Here is more from the New York Times:

Sue Mi Terry, a prominent voice on American foreign policy, had a refined palate, a love for top-shelf sushi and a taste for designer labels. She liked coats by Christian Dior, handbags by Bottega Veneta and Louis Vuitton, and Michelin-starred restaurants.

And, according to federal prosecutors in Manhattan, she accepted such luxury goods and other gifts in exchange for serving the South Korean government in Seoul.

Ms. Terry, a former Central Intelligence Agency analyst and a senior fellow for Korea studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, is accused in a 31-page indictment released Tuesday of a yearslong effort to assist South Korean spies. The indictment says she even introduced the spies to congressional staff members, an action that she described as “bringing the wolf in.”

In April 2023, Ms. Terry hosted an event at a think tank where she invited congressional staff members and worked to study South Korea’s alliance with the United States at the request of the South Korean National Intelligence Service. Ms. Terry then invited the staff members to a happy hour where South Korean intelligence officers were present, allowing the officers to “spot and assess” potential recruits, according to the indictment.

 

Before her current position as a Senior Fellow for Korea Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), Terry worked at the Wilson Center and the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).

CFR has reportedly put Terry on unpaid administrative leave.

Terry's husband, Max Boot, a Russian-born naturalized American, has not been charged with any crime.  Boot is also a Senior Fellow at CFR.

Boot, who co-wrote a series of opinion pieces with Terry,  has signed a $500,000 "appearance bond" using the couple's Manhattan residence as collateral to keep Terri out of prison until her trial begins.

Update: Terry was suspended from her senior fellow position at CFR, and then resigned.  If convicted, she faces 10 years in prison.  No trial date has been set.

Think Tank Quickies (#500)

• CFR launches new China program.  It will pore through Chinese-language material for better-informed policy.
  
• Joshua Wright, a law professor who seduced his students and was considered Big Tech's proudest ally, had a $250,000 contract with the American Enterprise Institute (AEI).
  
• Oren Cass will become chief economist at American Compass and is launching a new Substack, Understanding America.  Abigail Ball is taking over as executive director of the think tank, which is also relaunching its publication The Commons. 
• Former Austrian Foreign Minister Karin Kneissel, who danced with Vladimir Putin at her 2018 wedding, moved to Russia in 2023 where she runs a think tank.  The Russian air force helped mover her household, including her ponies.
  
• Heritage Foundation gave American Accountability Foundation a $100,000 grant to post 100 names of government workers to a website to show a potential Trump administration who might be standing in the way of a second-term Trump.
  
• New CSIS report: China's military could isolate Taiwan, cripple its economy, and make the democratic island succumb to the will of Beijing’s ruling Communist Party without ever firing a shot.
• Jennifer Harris, the "Queen Bee of Bidenomics," now works at the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation where she helps fund people who are proposing new solutions to economic problems, including the think tank American Compass.
• Paul Manafort used think tanks to shape the image of Angolan rebel leader Jonas Savimbi, according to new book on lobbying The Wolves of K Street.
• The Pacific Institute: "A global water think tank."
• AEI has been a client of Echelon Insights.
  

Project 2025 Reported to IRS

Here is more from Newsweek:

TikTokers are urging people to report the conservative think tank behind Project 2025 to the Internal Revenue Service for allegedly violating the rules of its tax-exempt status.

Project 2025 is spearheaded by The Heritage Foundation with input from dozens of conservative-leaning groups and ex-officials from former president Donald Trump's administration. It has published a 900-page road map for a new Republican administration that includes plans to overhaul the federal government and oust thousands of government workers so that loyalists can be installed in their place.

Some TikTok creators have suggested that publishing the document, as well as engaging in political activity, is a violation of the IRS code for tax-exempt organizations.

The IRS website states that 501(c)(3) organizations "may not publish or distribute printed statements or make oral statements on behalf of, or in opposition to, a candidate for public office. Consequently, a written or oral endorsement of a candidate is strictly forbidden."

 

Meanwhile, Heritage has been backing a bill banning TikTok.

Heritage's Project 2025 Gets Hacked

Here is more from Newsweek:

A group of "gay furry hackers" has targeted right-wing think tank The Heritage Foundation—which is behind Project 2025—by releasing the passwords, usernames, and user logs of its users.

The activists, known as SiegedSec, posted approximately two gigabytes of data online that it says was retrieved from the foundation's servers.

The Saturday hacking of the influential policy group came after it made headlines with its controversial Project 2025 document, which seeks to guide a future conservative administration to radically transform the federal government with a far reaching right-wing agenda.

In a Telegram post on Tuesday by SiegedSec, the group of self-described "gay furry hackers" wrote: "Project 2025 threatens the rights of abortion health care and LGBTQ+ communities in particular. so of course, we won't stand for that! ^-^"

SiegedSec is an established cyber-activist group that has previously targeted anti-abortion states. This is the second time it has targeted The Heritage Foundation this year.

 

The Heritage Foundation was also hit by a cyberattack in April. 

Update: The "gay furry hackers" have reportedly been feuding with Heritage Foundation executive Mike Howell.

New Conservative Brain Trust Resettling Across America

Here is more from the New York Times:

The Claremont Institute has been located in Southern California since its founding in the late 1970s. From its perch in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains, it has become a leading intellectual center of the pro-Trump right.

Without fanfare, however, some of Claremont’s key figures have been leaving California to find ideologically friendlier climes. Ryan P. Williams, the think tank’s president, moved to a suburb in the Dallas-Fort Worth area in early April.

His friend and Claremont colleague Michael Anton — a California native who played a major role in 2016 to convince conservative intellectuals to vote for Mr. Trump — moved to the Dallas area two years ago. The institute’s vice president for operations and administration has moved there, too. Others are following. Mr. Williams opened a small office in another Dallas-Fort Worth suburb in May, and said he expects to shrink Claremont’s California headquarters.

 

Here is more about the Claremont Institute from the Washington Post.

Heritage Foundation May Try to Use Litigation to Keep Biden as Democatic Nominee

President Joe Biden's biggest ally as he tries to remain the Democratic presidential nominee after an abysmal debate performance may surprisingly be the Heritage Foundation.

Here is more from NOTUS:

President Joe Biden’s Democratic allies could get a boost to keep him on the ticket from some unlikely partners: Republicans.

Led by conservative think tank The Heritage Foundation, Republicans are currently looking to guarantee that Biden will be the Democratic nominee — and to make it so that, if Biden withdraws, it won’t be easy to replace him on ballots.

About four months ago, after special counsel Robert Hur’s report raised more concerns about Biden’s health, staffers at Heritage’s Oversight Project started researching laws in states across the country for replacing a nominee. They laid out just how difficult it would be for Democrats to replace Biden in key swing states in a memo that was compiled in early April and released last week ahead of the debate.

“If the Biden family decides that President Biden will not run for re-election, the mechanisms for replacing him on ballots vary by state,” reads the memo. “There is the potential for pre-election litigation in some states that would make the process difficult and perhaps unsuccessful.”

The upshot was that replacing Biden on the ticket would be “extraordinarily difficult” and that “we would make it extraordinarily difficult,” Oversight Project Executive Director Mike Howell, who authored the memo, told NOTUS this week.

With Biden’s odds of winning looking longer by the minute, organizations like Heritage are pledging litigation to make replacing Biden close to impossible. They suggested they — or their allies — would challenge efforts to replace Biden on the ballot, which would already be difficult given the timing.

 

Mr. Howell previously served as the Heritage Foundation's liaison to the Trump Administration.

In other Heritage Foundation news, former President Donald Trump has been distancing himself from the think tank's Project 2025 plan.

And Heritage President Kevin Roberts has been making waves with his comment about an ongoing second American revolution that will "remain bloodless if the left allows it to be."