Project 2025 - List of Authors, Editors and Contributors

Emphasis on former Trump administration officials, staff members and advisors

This list is copied directly from the original document on the Project 2025 website. I’ve reduced the biographies to put emphasis on former Trump administration officials and their roles in the former president’s White House.

I also went through every name on the contributors list to find anyone who worked as a political appointee, staff member or advisor to former president Trump.

This is NOT an exhaustive breakdown of each author. I wanted to include the authors, editors and contributors in one document to demonstrate how many of them are connected to Trump.

The background on Peter Navarro alone could fill several newsletters.

Roughly abut 75% of the authors and editors of “Mandate for Leadership The Conservative Promise Project 2025” are former Trump administration officials while over half of the contributors also worked with Trump in some capacity.

I’ve removed the paywall from the portion of this document that includes information about former Trump administration officials, staffers and advisors who have worked on ‘Project 2025',’ so as many people as possible can read it.

Thank you for your support.

Trump Administration officials and advisors

The authors of Project 2025 complain about elites throughout “Mandate for Leadership The Conservative Promise Project 2025.” I’m not sure who is considered an “elitist” to these authors as many of them have multiple advanced degrees from the most exclusive colleges and universities.

Jonathan Berry

• Trump administration

  • Served as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Policy at the U.S. Department of Labor

  • He also worked in the U.S. Department of Justice where he assisted with the development of regulatory police and with the nominations of Justice Neil Gorsuch and dozens of other judges.

  • Served as Chief Counsel of the Trump transition and earlier clerked for Justice Samuel Alito

• Education

  • Yale

  • Columbia University

Adam Candeub

• Trump administration

  • Served as acting Assistant Secretary of Commerce and Deputy Associate Attorney General at the Department of Justice

• Education

  • Yale

  • University of Pennsylvania Law School

Dustin J. Carmack

• Heritage Foundation

• Trump administration

  • Chief of Staff to the Director of National Intelligence

• Rep. John Ratcliffe (R-TX)

  • Chief of Staff

• Rep. Ron DeSantis (R-FL)

  • Chief of Staff

• Education

  • Truman State Univ.

  • Tel Aviv University

Benjamin S. Carson, Sr., MD (Dr. Ben Carson)

• Trump administration

  • Served as the 17th Secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development

• Education

  • Yale

  • University of Michigan Medical School

Ken Cuccinelli

• Trump administration

  • Served as Acting Director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services

  • Acting deputy Secretary for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security

• Education

  • University of Virginia

  • George Mason University School of Law

Paul Dans

• Heritage Foundation

• Editor of Project 2025

• Director of the 2025 Presidential Transition Project at The Heritage Foundation

  • Organizing policy and personnel recommendations

  • Training for appointees in the next presidential administration

• Trump administration

  • Chief of Staff at the U.S. Office of Personnel Management

  • OPM’s (Office of Personnel Management) White House liaison

  • Senior advisor at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development

• Education

  • University of Virginia School of Law

  • Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Rick Dearborn

• Heritage Foundation

• Trump administration

  • Served as Deputy Chief of Staff for President Donald J. Trump

  • Responsible for the day-to-day operations of fiver separate departments of the Executive Office of the President

  • Served as Executive Director of the 2016 President-elect Donald Trump transition team

• Education

  • University of Oklahoma

Diana Furchtgott-Roth

• Heritage Foundation

• Trump administration

  • Deputy Assistant Secretary for Research and Technology at the U.S. Department of Transportation

  • Acting Assistant Secretary for Economic Policy at the U.S. Department of the Treasury

• Education

  • Swarthmore College

  • University of Oxford

Thomas F. Gilman

• Trump administration

  • Served as Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Administration and Chief Financial Office of the U.S. Department of Commerce

• Education

  • Villanova University

Steven Groves

• Heritage Foundation

• Editor of Project 2025

• Trump administration

  • Served as Ambassador Nikki Haley’s Chief of Staff at the U.S. Mission to the United Nations.

  • White House Assistant Special Counsel, representing the White House in the Mueller investigation.

  • White House Deputy Press Secretary

• Education

  • Florida State University

  • Georgetown University Law Center

  • Ohio Northern University's College of Law

Mandy M. Gunasekara

• Heritage Foundation

• Trump administration

  • Served as the Chief of Staff at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

  • Principal Deputy Assistant Admin. for the Office of Air and Radiation

• Education

  • Mississippi College

  • University Mississippi School of Law

Gene Hamilton

• Trump administration

  • Served as Counselor to the Attorney General at the U.S. Department of Justice

  • Senior Counselor to the Secretary of Homeland Security

  • General Counsel on the Senate Committee on the Judiciary

  • Assistant Chief Counsel at U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement

  • Attorney Advisor in the Secretary’s Honors Program for Attorneys at the Department of Homeland Security

• Education

  • University of Georgia

  • Washington and Lee University School of Law

Jennifer Hazelton

• Trump administration

  • Worked as a senior strategic consultant for the Department of Defense in Industrial Base Policy

  • Held senior positions at USAID, Export–Import Bank of the United States and the State Department

• Education

  • Emory University

  • University of Georgia

Dennis Dean Kirk

• Heritage Foundation

• Associate Director, Personnel Policy, 2025 Presidential Transition Project

• Trump administration

  • Served in senior positions at the Office of Personnel Management

  • Nominated by President Trump to be Chairman of the Merit Systems Protection Board.

• Education

  • Northern Arizona University

  • Washburn University Law School

Bernard L. McNamee

• Trump administration

  • Served as a member of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission

  • U.S. Department of Energy

• Education

  • University of Virginia

  • Emory University School of Law

Christopher Miller

• Trump administration

  • Acting U.S. Secretary of Defense

  • Director of the National Counterterrorism Center

  • Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Combating Terrorism

  • Senior Director for Counterterrorism and Transitional Threats at the National Security Council.

• Education

  • College of Naval Command Staff

  • Army War College

Stephen Moore

• Heritage Foundation

• Trump Administration

  • Trump announced that Moore would be nominated to serve as a governor of the Federal Reserve but Moore removed his name from consideration amid bipartisan resistance in the Senate.

  • Advisor to Donald J. Trump - economics

  • Frequently on Fox News

  • Senior economics for the The Wall Street Journal editorial page

• Education

  • University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

  • George Mason University

Mora Namdar

• Trump Administration

  • Appointed by Donald J. Trump to perform the duties of the Assistant Secretary of State for Consular Affairs

  • Served as senior advisor for critical issues at the U.S. State Department

• Education

  • Southern Methodist University

  • University of Oxford

  • American University

Peter Navarro

• Trump administration

  • One of only three senior White House officials to serve with Donald J. Trump from the 2016 campaign to the end of the former president’s term.

  • Self-described China hawk and trade czar

  • Director of the Office of Trade and Manufacturing Policy

  • Director of the National Trade Council

• Education

  • Tufts University

  • Harvard

William Perry Pendley

• Trump administration

  • Leader of the Bureau of Land Management

  • Former U.Sl Marine Corps captain

  • Senior official for President Ronald Reagan.

• Education

  • George Washington University.

  • Univ. of Wyoming College of Law

Max Primorac

• Heritage Foundation

• Trump administration

  • Acting Chief Operating Officer and Assistant to the Administrator, Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance at USAID (United States Agency for International Development)

  • Acting Assistant to the Administrator/SDAA, Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance at USAID

  • Chief Adviser to the Administrator for International Religious Freedom at USAID

  • Senior adviser in the Office of the Secretary

  • Envoy of the U.S. Vice-President/Special Representative for Minority Assistance

  • Senior Advisor, Middle East Bureau

• Education

  • Franklin and Marshall College

  • University of Chicago

Roger Severino

• Heritage Foundation

• Trump administration

  • Director of the Office for Civil Rights at the United States Department of Health and Human Services

    • Removed nondiscrimination protections for LGBTQ people established in the ACA (Affordable Care Act)

  • Appointed to the Administrative Conference of the United States

    • Was forced to resign by the Biden administration (according to a federal lawsuit)

• Education

  • University of Southern California

  • Carnegie Mellon University

  • Harvard Law School

Kiron K. Skinner

• Heritage Foundation

• Trump administration

  • Served as Director of Policy Planning and Senior Advisor at the U.S. Department of State

  • Member of the Defense Business Board at the U.S. Department of Defense

• Education

  • Spelman College

  • Sacramento City College

  • Harvard University

Brooks D. Tucker

• Trump administration

  • Acting Chief of Staff

  • Served in the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs as Assistant Secretary for Congressional and Legislative Affairs

  • Helped craft the policy framework for President-elect Trump’s transition team

• A retired Marine lieutenant colonel, Brooks served in Afghanistan, Iraq, North Africa, the Caucasus, and the Western Pacific.

• Education

  • University of Maryland

  • Marine Corps Infantry Officer Course

  • Marine Corps Command and Staff College

  • Georgetown University

Hans A. von Spakovsky

• Heritage Foundation

• Trump administration

  • Member of President Donald Trump’s Advisory Commission on Election Integrity.

• Commissioner on the Federal Election Commission - George W. Bush administration

• Education

  • Massachusetts Institute of Techonology

  • Vanderbilt University

Russ Vought

• Trump administration

  • Director of the Office of Management and Budget

• Education

  • Wheaton College

  • George Washington University Law School

William L. Walton

• Heritage Foundation

• Trump administration

  • Served in President-elect Donald Trump’s transition team as Agency Action Leader for all the federal economic agencies

• Education

  • Indiana University

Paul Winfree

• Heritage Foundation

• Trump administration

  • Deputy Assistant to the President

  • Deputy Director of the Domestic Policy Council

  • Director of Budget Policy

  • Led the team responsible for the Office of Management and Budget during the 2016 presidential transition

• Chair of the Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board - both Biden and Trump administrations

• Education

  • George Mason University

  • London School of Economics

  • Queen’s University Belfast

Other Authors

Daren Bakst - Center for Energy and Environment, Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) The Heritage Foundation, Federalist Society, American Agricultural Law Association and Food and Drug Law Institute.

Lindsey M. Burke - Heritage Foundation, Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin transition committee, George Mason Univ., Educational Freedom Institute, Independent Women’s Forum. Graduate of Hollins Univ., MA from Univ. of Virginia, PhD from George Mason Univ.

David R. Burton - Heritage Foundation. Graduate of Univ. of Maryland School of Law, BA in Economics from University of Chicago.

Brendan Carr - Senior Republican on the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). He started working at the FCC during the George W. Bush Administration. Graduate of Georgetown Univ. and JD from Catholic University.

Veronique de Rugy - Meractus Center at George Mason Univ. Reason magazine, National Review, Creators Syndicate. MA from Paris Dauphine Univ. and PhD from Pantheon-Sorbonne Univ.

Donald Devine - The Fund for American Studies, Office of Personnel Management Director for Reagan Administration. Professor at Univ. of Maryland and Bellevue Univ.

Karen Kerrigan - President and CEO, Small Business and Entrepreneurship Council

Kent Lassman - Competitive Enterprise Institute. Graduated from Catholic University of America and North Carolina State Univ.

Kevin D. Roberts - President of the Heritage Foundation. Education - University of Louisiana Lafayette, Virginia Tech, University of Texas at Austin

Contributors

The following list of contributors is presented on “Mandate for Leadership The Conservative Promise Project 2025” as an alphabetical list of names and affiliated organizations. This contributors list contained 277 names.

For example a contributor would simply be listed as:

Name, organization

Katherine T. Sullivan, 1792 Exchange (example)

I went through each name to find anyone associated with the Trump administration. I included anyone who worked in the White House as a political appointee or staffer along with Trump campaign workers and advisors.

I found 145 examples of former Trump administration officials on this list. I rearranged things slightly and combined people from the same organizations and then listed the organizations in alphabetical order.

If the organization is also on the advisory board for “Mandate for Leadership The Conservative Promise Project 2025” that’s also included in the third column.

Former Trump Administration Officials, Staffers and Advisors

Government Officials

I made another list of contributors who are currently working for an elected official.

The Rest of the List

I went through every single name to double check if any of these individuals worked for Trump in any capacity.

There’s a few names at the bottom of the list that the Heritage Foundation only included their name on the list of contributors. When I tried to research these individuals I found multiple people with the same name and couldn’t verify which person was working on this project.