Head of Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 steps down

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 late 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.