Paul Dans, who directed The Heritage Foundation’s controversial 2025 Presidential Transition Project, or Project 2025, is stepping down from his role in August, according to an internal email to staff and one person familiar with the matter.
Dans’ departure does not mean the project, which has been repeatedly criticized by Democrats as well as Donald Trump, is shutting down. The work of Project 2025 — which includes policy and personnel prescriptions for a Republican administration — will continue, according to a person familiar with the project who was granted anonymity to discuss the matter.
However, the person said that the goal of Project 2025 was always to have their work done by the time of the Republican National Convention which ended in mid July.
“Friends and patriots, to everything there is a season. We completed what we set out to do, which was to create a unified conservative vision, bringing together over 110 leading organizations united behind the cause of deconstructing the administrative state,” Dans wrote in an email that was shared with POLITICO.
“This tool was built for any administration dedicated to conservative ideals to utilize. The work of the project was due to wrap with the nominating conventions of the political parties. Our work is presently winding down, and I planned later in August to leave Heritage. Electoral season is upon us, and I want to direct all my efforts to winning bigly,” Dans wrote.
The Daily Beast first reported his departure.
Dans and spokespeople for Heritage and the Trump campaign did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Kevin Roberts, the president of The Heritage Foundation, said in a tweet, “When we began Project 2025 in April 2022, we set a timeline for the project to conclude its policy drafting after the two party conventions this year, and we are sticking to that timeline. Paul, who built the project from scratch and bravely led this endeavor over the past two years, will be departing the team and moving up to the front where the fight remains.”
“We are extremely grateful for his and everyone’s work on Project 2025 and dedication to saving America,” Roberts wrote. “Our collective efforts to build a personnel apparatus for policymakers of all levels—federal, state, and local—will continue.”
Before leading Project 2025, Dans served as the chief of staff for the U.S. Office of Personnel Management and served as the OPM’s White House liaison, where he worked with the White House Office of Presidential Personnel, which staffs presidential appointees across the federal government.
Democrats have criticized and scrutinized Project 2025, including a 900-page policy road map and a database of potential candidates for jobs within a potential Trump administration. Democrats have tried to tie vulnerable Republicans and Trump to the initiative, which they argue is a proposal for how Trump will reshape the government if he’s returned to office and have called it “extreme” and “dystopian.”
Trump has publicly disavowed Project 2025 and has claimed he does not know anything about its work or who is involved, even though many of the people working for Project 2025 are former top Trump administration officials.
“I have not seen it, have no idea who is in charge of it, and, unlike our very well received Republican Platform, had nothing to do with it,” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post in July.
Trump and advisers within the Trump campaign viewed the Project 2025 as a distraction, and they did not like that it was portrayed as the game plan for the Trump White House.
“This just seems like a normal thing as the project kind of winds down and the actual transition begins,” said a former Trump administration official familiar with Project 2025.
