The director of Project 2025, the conservative blueprint for how former President Donald Trump ought to govern if returned to the White House, did not resign from his post this summer as the Heritage Foundation previously announced. Paul Dans was fired, RealClearPolitics is first to report.
Dans joined the initiative with grand ambitions of gathering the vast constellation of disparate conservative groups together around “a deep consensus on issues.” He left persona non grata after a two-year tenure defined by public feuds with the Trump campaign and a concentrated effort by Democrats to make Project 2025 into an election year liability for Republicans.
But political controversy was not the cause of his departure, as was previously reported. Dans was instead fired by Heritage after an investigation found repeated incidents of professional misconduct and mistreatment of colleagues. The relationship has since soured.
The influential conservative think tank initially hoped the split could be amicable, offering Dans a generous severance package as well as a mutual non-disparagement agreement to turn the page. But in a letter to Heritage leadership dated Aug. 13 and reviewed by RCP, legal counsel for Dans requested a lump sum payment of $3.1 million by Aug. 15. The demand was rejected.
Dans often directed his ire at women in particular, according to multiple sources who described a pattern of exhibiting anger that boiled over in July at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee.