Trump-aligned group quietly tries to distance itself from Project 2025 as outrage builds

12 July 2024

The more Americans learn about the Heritage Foundation's authoritarian Project 2025 initiative, the more they dislike it. That may be why both former President Donald Trump and groups allied with him are now trying to keep it at arm's length.

According to ABC News, America First Legal — which is led by Trump's top immigration adviser, Stephen Miller — has reached out to Project 2025 and asked to be removed from its list of advisory board members. The network reported that the group was listed among the other groups collaborating with Heritage on Project 2025 as recently as Thursday.

"I have zero involvement with Project 2025. Zero. None. I made an advice video a long while back for students. I have no involvement with the project whatsoever," Miller told ABC.

Miller's gesture may prove fruitless, given that his fingerprints have long been on Project 2025 well before it got its official name. Axios reported in 2022 that several Trump administration veterans like Miller were closely involved with efforts to craft a blueprint for a second Trump administration to radically transform the federal civil service into an army of political loyalists — a key plank of Project 2025.

In addition to Miller, former Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought, former Presidential Personnel Office Director John McEntee, former acting Director of National Intelligence Richard Grenell and former National Security Council official Kash Patel, among others, were named as accomplices in the report describing the plan. CNN reported this week that these Trump White House veterans, along with roughly 140 other ex-Trump advisors and staffers, are involved with Project 2025.

That plan to pack federal agencies with Trump loyalists relies on an executive order known as "Schedule F," which Trump issued just before he left office and which President Joe Biden promptly rescinded not long after taking office. That executive order removes long-standing employment protections for career federal employees, thus allowing a president's direct appointees to drastically go up from roughly 5,000 to more than 54,000.

These appointees, thousands of whom have already been pre-vetted by Heritage, would then be placed in key positions of influence throughout federal agencies, effectively allowing a president to implement draconian policies largely free from congressional interference. Project 2025's criteria for screening potential Trump administration employees aren't based on applicants' knowledge of federal policy, but whether they're dutifully loyal to the MAGA movement.

Miller's move to distance himself from Project 2025 comes after Trump's second post claiming he had no knowledge of the initiative or of who was behind it. On Thursday, Trump posted to his Truth Social account that any effort trying to tie him to the controversial plan was "pure disinformation."

However, Trump claiming ignorance of Heritage's blueprint and its architects falls apart upon closer scrutiny, given that he was recorded speaking to Heritage in 2022 and shaking hands with Heritage president and Project 2025 leader Kevin Roberts.

"This is a great group, and they’re going to lay the groundwork and detail plans for exactly what our movement will do," Trump said two years ago.

Click here to read ABC News' full report.

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