A Comprehensive List of Project 2025 Authors’ Past and Current Relationships with Trump
Most Project 2025 Authors Are Directly Associated with Trump
This report demonstrates how closely associated Trump is with Project 2025 by listing the author of every chapter of the project’s PDF document and naming the specific association with Trump in some formal capacity, either as:
Part of his current or first campaign team
Part of his current or first transition team
Part of his current or first administration
Of the document’s forty-five or so authors and/or editors, only seven have no known direct association with Trump. I’ve named the specific association of each author with Trump in a list below.
At least 145 contributors to Project 2025 worked with the Mad Clown 1.0 regime, its transition team, or its campaign.1
As the final chapter in Project 2025 is titled, onward!
List of Project 2025 Authors and Editors and Their Association with Donald Trump
The authors and their Trump bios appear in order of appearance in the Project 2025 (PDF) document, which can be found here. The author's name is listed first. The chapter the author wrote is in parentheses with the page number. Under that is the author’s association with Trump. If there is no known association, that fact is noted instead.
You’ll notice that many authors were in roles as “acting director” within one of his administrations because Trump circumvented the normal routine of Senate confirmations for numerous positions during both Mad Clown 1.0 and Mad Clown 2.0, leaving various cabinet-level positions headed by people who didn’t receive formal confirmation from the Senate as required by the Constitution.
Editors: Paul Dans and Steven Groves
Paul Dans: Chief of staff at the U.S. Office of Personnel Management from February 2020 — December 2020, responsible for hiring or recommending up to 4,000 presidential appointees. He was exiled from MAGA during the campaign because Project 2025 publicity was hurting Trump’s election bid.
He recently beat his chest for Politico when they gave him a many-worded platform to spew his nationalistic venom in a long article titled, “Beyond My Wildest Dreams’: The Architect of Project 2025 Is Ready for His Victory Lap.”2
Steven Groves: Special assistant to Trump, with a particular focus on responding to Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election. Deputy press secretary in 2019 and 2020. In 2017, he was chief of staff for Trump’s UN Ambassador, Nikki Haley. He’s now mostly active on Apartheid Twitter spluttering inantiies like this one about Vance Boelter, the Christo-nationalist who was apprehended for shooting two Democratic lawmakers in Minnesota:3
This is absolute garbage reporting. Claims the Minnesota shooter is a "far-right zealot" based on the opinion of some dude that's never even met the shooter. What a joke.
The tweet had 16 views at the time of my writing this report, two of which are mine.
Rick Dearborn (WHITE HOUSE OFFICE, page 23)
Deputy chief of staff in 2017 and 2018. Staff director for Trump’s presidential transition team. He is currently working to undermine the United States as a lobbyist for a lobbying firm named Mindset.4
Russell Vought (EXECUTIVE OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, page 43)
Now “credited” as one of the masterminds of Project 2025 and the subsequent attempt to destroy America:
Current Director of Trump’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB).
Member of the Trump administration from 2018 to 2021. Director of Trump’s Office of Management and Budget from July 2020 until January 2021. Deputy and acting director between 2018 and 2020.
The OMB is one of the most important parts of the executive branch. Trump probably doesn’t know what its precise function is, but his chief of staff, Susie Wiles,5 most certainly does.
Donald Devine, Dennis Dean Kirk, and Paul Dans (CENTRAL PERSONNEL AGENCIES: MANAGING THE BUREAUCRACY, page 69)
Donald Devine: No known formal association. His bio6 at a conservative “think tank” proudly proclaims:
Donald Devine is senior scholar at The Fund for American Studies in Washington, D.C. He served as President Ronald Reagan’s civil service director during the president’s first term in office. During that time, The Washington Post labeled him “Reagan’s Terrible Swift Sword of the Civil Service” for cutting bureaucratic excesses and reducing billions in spending.
Dennis Dean Kirk: Chosen by Trump in 2017 to run the Merit Systems Protection Board, an ombudsman agency of sorts for federal employees with complaints against the federal government. He was never confirmed by the Senate. He no longer appears to have a direct association with Mad Clown 2.0.
Paul Dans: See “Editors” above.
Christopher Miller (DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE, page 91)
One of Mad Clown 1.0’s many bouncing babies. During his seven months with the administration, he acted as acting assistant secretary of defense, then director of the National Counterterrorism Center, then acting secretary of defense as the Trump administration came to a merciful close.
He no longer has a known association with Mad Clown 2.0.
Ken Cuccinelli (DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY, page 133)
Acting Secretary of Homeland Security from 2019 until 2021. A strong defender of Trump’s immigration policies. A report by Congress noted that he was installed as Homeland Security’s acting secretary illegally. Nobody did anything to stop it.
He is currently a propagandist for Apartheid Twitter.
Kiron K. Skinner (DEPARTMENT OF STATE, page 171)
Director of policy planning in the State Department from 2018 until 2019, worked on the Trump transition team.
She is currently a hardline Netanyahu hawk on Apartheid Twitter.
Dustin J. Carmack (INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY, page 201)
Chief of staff to the director of national intelligence from 2020 to 2021. He has since been hired by Meta to monitor your Facebook and Instagram feeds.7
This may be a worse thing than working directly for the administration. Go ahead and post this article on Facebook and see what happens. Experiment a little! Let us know what happens in the comments.
Mora Namdar (U.S. AGENCY FOR GLOBAL MEDIA, page 235)
State Department policy advisor from 2019 to December 2020. Acting assistant secretary of state until January 2021.
Currently the Senior Bureau Official for the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs, which, according to the State Department website, leads U.S foreign policy in the Middle East and North Africa at the U.S. Department of State.
Mike Gonzalez (CORPORATION FOR PUBLIC BROADCASTING, page 246)
Appointed to Trump’s Advisory 1776 Commission. The commission was a blatant Trump government propaganda unit that, in its own words:
…was created by executive order in November 2020 to push back against the rising tide of anti-Americanism and sentiments antithetical to the American founding in our nation’s schools, institutions of higher learning, and in the media.
In other words, to put a chokehold on anything considered “woke.”
He is currently with the Heritage Foundation, where he is an official spokesperson for white nationalism, making appearances on CSPAN and other traditional news outlets outside of the Fox realm of 24/7 hate.
Max Primorac (AGENCY FOR INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT, page 253)
Beginning in 2018, worked for the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). Acting chief operating officer from November 2020 until January 2021.
He is currently a Senior Research Fellow in the Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom at The Heritage Foundation, which sounds like something out of an 1980s horror movie.
Daren Bakst (DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE, page 289)
No known formal association.
Lindsey M. Burke (DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION, page 319)
No known formal association.
Bernard L. McNamee (DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY AND RELATED COMMISSIONS, page 363)
Commissioner for Trump’s Federal Energy Regulatory Commission from 2018 to 2020.
Currently a partner at McGuireWoods, a legal and public affairs firm, which makes a small fortune evaluating Mad Clown 2.0 executive orders for conglomerates trying to avoid getting into hot water with the blackmailer in chief.
Mandy M. Gunasekara (ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY, page 417)
Policy adviser for Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from 2017 to 2020. EPA chief of staff from 2020 to 2021.
She is currently a paid climate denial propagandist8 for Fox, among other nationalist outlets.
Roger Severino (DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES, page 449)
A staunch foe of women’s health rights, an anti-abortionist, and a declared enemy of the LGBTQ+ community, Severino was Director of the Civil Rights Office in Trump’s Department of Health and Human Services from 2017 to 2021.
He is currently actively litigating against the LGBTQ+ community in various capacities.
Benjamin S. Carson, Sr., MD (DEPARTMENT OF HOUSING AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT, page 503)
A standard Trumpist, Carson, before being named Trump’s Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, ran for president against Trump in the 2016 primaries and became famous for such Trumpian gems as pondering whether or not Palestine needs “to be within the confines of Israeli territory … Is that necessary, or can you sort of slip that area down into Egypt?”
He is apparently still searching for that answer, as I can’t find out much about his current activities (praise Jesus).
William Perry Pendley (DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR, page 517)
An anti-environmentalist member of the Federalist Society who was acting director of the Bureau of Land Management from 2019 to 2021.
Gene Hamilton (DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, page 545)
Counsel for the attorney general in Trump’s DOJ from 2017 to 2021.
He currently works with Stephen Miller’s America First Legal Foundation, which specializes in attempting to provide legal justification for the roundup of American citizens for rendition to foreign countries, among other things. More info on Miller and First Legal can be found here:
The TL;DR version: America First Legal Foundation is sort of a secret service of lawyers, whose sole purpose is to expand the autocratic and fascist state envisioned by Miller.
Jonathan Berry (DEPARTMENT OF LABOR AND RELATED AGENCIES, page 581)
Counsel to the assistant attorney general in Trump’s Department of Justice (DOJ) from 2017 to 2018. Member of Trump’s presidential transition team, theoretically with an emphasis on ethics and legal policy, suggesting either that Trump ignored him entirely or that he was fraudulently incompetent. He was nominated Solicitor of Labor at the Department of Labor (DOL) by the Mad Clown in April.
Per the Economic Institute:9
President Trump nominated Jonathan Berry as the Solicitor of Labor at the Department of Labor. If confirmed, Berry will be the chief legal officer at DOL and have the independent authority to initiate lawsuits to enforce more than 180 federal labor laws, including the Fair Labor Standards Act and Occupational Safety and Health Act. Berry is currently a managing partner at Boyden Gray & Associates PLLC. Previously, Berry served as the Acting Assistant Secretary for Policy at the Department of Labor during the first Trump administration. Berry also authored Project 2025’s section on the Department of Labor and other labor related agencies, which calls for weakening the federal minimum wage, limiting overtime eligibility, and undermining workers’ right to a union by forcing secret ballot elections.
Diana Furchtgott-Roth (DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION, page 619)
Acting assistant secretary for economic policy at the Department of the Treasury from 2018 to 2019. Currently a mouthpiece for the Heritage Foundation.
Brooks D. Tucker (DEPARTMENT OF VETERANS AFFAIRS, page 641)
Department of Veterans Affairs chief of staff from April 2020 to January 2021. He does not appear to be especially active during Mad Clown 2.0.
Thomas F. Gilman (DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE, page 663)
Former chief financial officer of Chrysler Financial and, under Mad Clown 1.0, multitasker who did double duty as Trump’s Department of Commerce as its chief financial officer and as an assistant secretary for administration, which is weird. Whatever he’s doing now, he’s being quiet about it.
William L. Walton, Stephen Moore, and David R. Burton (DEPARTMENT OF THE TREASURY, page 691)
Project 2025 calls for much more than the kind of gutting of longstanding social programs demonstrated in the Big Ugly Budget Bill. The Peterson Institute for International Economics sums up a few of the proposals in this set of bullet points10:
Withdraw the United States from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the World Bank, and the International Monetary Fund (IMF).*
Require a super three-fifths majority for Congress to raise future taxes.*
Extend oversight by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) to cover greenfield investments.
Name the Department of Defense as co-chair of CFIUS along with the Treasury Department.
Make top-level Internal Revenue Service officials subject to presidential appointment (only two are so named now).*
Merge into a single office the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the National Credit Union Administration, and the Federal Reserve's supervisory functions.*
Revise or repeal substantial parts of the Dodd-Frank Act with respect to the supervision of financial institutions.*
Abolish the Federal Reserve's lender of last resort function. Allow financial institutions to fail under regular bankruptcy provisions.*
Privatize the federal home loan institutions, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.*
Close the Treasury's Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility office.
Withdraw the United States from the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Paris Agreement.
Close the Treasury's "Climate Hub" office.
William L. Walton: Member of Trump’s 2016 transition team responsible for advising on economic issues.
Stephen Moore: A Fox News Channel analyst who served as a senior economic advisor to the Donald Trump for President campaign in 2016. Has called Social Security a Ponzi scheme. He was also nominated by Trump for the Federal Reserve board in 2019 but had to withdraw his nomination after being nailed for sexist remarks. He is currently mostly a propaganda mouthpiece on Elon Musk’s Apartheid Twitter.
David R. Burton: Member of Trump’s 2016 presidential transition team. He testified before Congress regarding gutting the Securities and Exchange Commission in 2024, but is now mostly a propagandist for the Heritage Foundation.
Veronique de Rugy (THE EXPORT-IMPORT BANK SHOULD BE ABOLISHED, page 717)
No known formal association. A strict libertarian, she recently complained that the Big Ugly Bill currently before Congress doesn’t go far enough in cutting the federal government to shreds.11
Jennifer Hazelton (THE CASE FOR THE EXPORT-IMPORT BANK, page 724)
Public affairs official in Trump’s State Department in 2017 and for Trump’s Agency for International Development (USAID) from 2020 to 2021. Her LinkedIn profile still identifies her as: Deputy Assistant Administrator of Public Affairs at USAID.
Paul Winfree (FEDERAL RESERVE, page 731)
Hung out in Trump’s White House in 2017 in several roles, including as deputy assistant to the president for domestic policy, deputy director of the Domestic Policy Council, and director of budget policy. The smell of the place must have gotten to him because he left that same year. No hard feelings: He was appointed by Trump to the Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board in 2019. He is currently President and CEO of the Economic Policy Innovation Center, according to Wikipedia.
Karen Kerrigan (SMALL BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION, page 745)
No known formal association. She also released a statement on behalf of the Small Business and Entrepreneurship Council opposing Trump’s “decision to pull out of negotiations on a COVID-19 package until after the November 7, 2020 elections” by saying: “To close the door and scrap negotiations on a COVID-19 relief and recovery package is to close the door on vital support for small businesses and their employees.”
Currently, as the President & CEO of the Small Business & Entrepreneurship Council (SBE Council), she has become yet another cheerleader for the administration’s gutting of federal government programs.
Peter Navarro (THE CASE FOR FAIR TRADE, page 765)
Navarro is a leader in job growth for lawyers, as he’s a hard-core election denier and long-time provocateur for Trump and the MAGA world. He’s already been convicted once for election denial-related charges. There’s a world of information about this clown if you want to Google him. I’d rather not give him any more space, other than to say he’s currently active as one of Trump’s trade and tariff henchmen.
Kent Lassman (THE CASE FOR FREE TRADE, page 796)
No known formal association.
David R. Burton (SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION AND RELATED AGENCIES, page 829)
Member of Trump’s presidential transition team. See listing above under Treasury.
Robert Bowes (CONSUMER FINANCIAL PROTECTION BUREAU, page 837)
Field Director for Donald J. Trump for President, Inc. in 2016, Senior Advisor To The Assistant Secretary for Trump’s Housing and Urban Development beginning in January 2017, and nominated by Trump to join the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission during Mad Clown 1.0. He is currently a vocal mouthpiece against the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), which has been a target of the hate machine since Elizabeth Warren first helped establish it in 2008.
Bowes claims that it is an illegitimate and unconstitutional agency, even though it was created through an act of Congress and signed into law by President Obama in 2008.12
Brendan Carr (FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION, page 845)
Appointed to the Federal Communications Commission in 2017. His term was renewed by Biden. He is now Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission. The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression says:
Once a First Amendment champion, FCC Chair Brendan Carr now targets the press like a Bizarro World censor.13
Hans A. von Spakovsky (FEDERAL ELECTION COMMISSION, page 861)
Worked for Trump’s General Services Administration for a brief spell in 2017, and then for Trump’s short-lived Voter Fraud Commission, which lasted from its formation in May 2017 until January 2018. According to The Guardian, the ass end of his career has been as an active election denier and fear monger.14
Adam Candeub (FEDERAL TRADE COMMISSION, page 869)
An election denial freak, Candeub is now part of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) legal counsel.15
Edwin J. Feulner (ONWARD!, page 883)
One of the founders of the Heritage Foundation, Feulner was an advisor on domestic policy for the Mad Clown’s transition team in 2016.
Onward!
Notes
Sources used for this story, in addition to cited footnotes (below):
https://www.opensecrets.org/trump/political-appointees
Trump Town
Track White House Staff, Cabinet Members and Political Appointees Across the Governmentprojects.propublica.org
Ex-Trump administration officials involved in Project 2025: Full list
Despite Trump trying to distance himself from the controversial policy document, 31 of its contributors served in his…www.newsweek.com
Project2025assistant.orgYear: 2017URL: https://project2025assistant.org/authors_&_contributors.html
Thanks for reading!
Footnotes
Shao, Elena, and Ashley Wu. 2024. “The Many Links between Project 2025 and Trump’s World.” Nytimes.com. The New York Times. October 22, 2024. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/10/22/us/politics/project-2025-trump-heritage-foundation.html.
Hirsh, Michael. 2025. “‘Beyond My Wildest Dreams’: The Architect of Project 2025 Is Ready for His Victory Lap.” POLITICO. Politico. March 16, 2025. https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2025/03/16/project-2025-paul-dans-qa-00228890.
“Rick A. Dearborn : Mindset.” 2016. Mindsetdc.com. 2016. https://mindsetdc.com/who-we-are/rick-a-dearborn/.
“Dr. Donald Devine - TFAS Grewcock Senior Scholar.” 2023. The Fund for American Studies. November 3, 2023. https://tfas.org/staff/devine/.
“Dustin Carmack - Meta Platforms Inc. (May 2024-), Director, Public Policy, Southern and Southeastern U.S. - Biography | LegiStorm.” 2024. Legistorm.com. 2024. https://www.legistorm.com/person/bio/148744/Dustin_J_Carmack.html.
Fisher, Michael. 2025. “Mandy Gunasekara.” DeSmog. June 4, 2025. https://www.desmog.com/mandy-gunasekara/.
Nominating Jonathan Berry as Solicitor of Labor; Economic Policy InstituteYear: 2025URL: https://www.epi.org/policywatch/nominating-jonathan-berry-as-solicitor-of-labor/
Trump’s economic agenda could disrupt US and world economies; By Gary Clyde HufbauerContainer: PIIEYear: 2024URL: https://www.piie.com/blogs/realtime-economics/2024/trumps-economic-agenda-could-disrupt-us-and-world-economies
Note: Blockquote is not available on Substack for bullet points. These bullet points are directly quoted from the website.
Veronique De Rugy: The good, bad and ugly in Trump's new budget
By VERONIQUE DE RUGYContainer: The Northern Virginia DailyYear: 2025URL: https://www.nvdaily.com/nvdaily/veronique-de-rugy-the-good-bad-and-ugly-in-trumps-new-budget/article_8752116a-2600-5244-a82c-2911dfb1f05a.html
Wile, Rob, and Daniel Arkin. 2025. “How America’s Chief Consumer-Protection Agency Came into the Trump Administration’s Crosshairs.” NBC News. February 12, 2025. https://www.nbcnews.com/business/business-news/how-cfpb-came-under-trump-administration-attack-what-to-know-rcna191483.
“Brendan Carr’s Bizarro World FCC.” 2025. The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression. May 2025. https://www.thefire.org/news/brendan-carrs-bizarro-world-fcc.
Herman, Alice. 2024. “The Man Who Cries Voter Fraud: How Hans von Spakovsky Has Built a Career Peddling Election Security Fears.” The Guardian. The Guardian. July 10, 2024. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2024/jul/10/voter-fraud-hans-von-spakovsky-project-2025.
Scheer, Theo. 2025. “MSU Professor Who Called 2020 Election ‘Crooked’ to Be Top FCC Lawyer.” The State News. TheStateNews. February 11, 2025. https://statenews.com/article/2025/02/msu-prof-who-called-2020-election-crooked-to-be-top-fcc-lawyer?ct=content_open&cv=cbox_latest.
They should all die of cancer
To not acknowledge the catastrophic consequences of Project 2025's implementation is treasonous! The Democracy Killing project is comprehensive, well-funded, committed to its agenda that will inflict death and destruction to democratic institutions and norms, Our Constitutional Democratic Republic. This fascist regime will consolidate executive power to have unilateral control over every facet of our lives... federal decision-making, disregarding laws passed by Congress, dismiss Supreme Court decisions, disappearing, exterminating their perceived enemies!