Paul Dans — Political Accountability Profile
Role: Founding Director of Project 2025 (2022 – July 2024); former Chief of Staff at the Office of Personnel Management (OPM, 2020-2021) under Trump 1.0; the principal organizational architect and operational leader of Project 2025; central figure in the personnel-database and Schedule F infrastructure; departed Project 2025 in late July 2024 amid Trump’s public distancing from Project 2025 during the 2024 campaign.
Status: As of May 2026, Dans holds no formal Trump 2.0 administration role. Continues movement-coordination work; reportedly considered various administration positions but did not take formal role. Heritage Foundation continues to maintain Project 2025 framework infrastructure that Dans built. Substantial post-Project-2025 advisory engagements.
Background
Origins and Education
Paul Christian Dans (born 1967) attended University of Pennsylvania (BA), Yale Law School (JD).
Early Career (1990s-2010s)
- Various legal and consulting roles
- Wall Street experience
- Conservative-movement engagement
Trump 1.0 OPM (2020-2021)
- Chief of Staff at OPM (2020-2021)
- Worked on the original Schedule F executive order (October 2020)
- Coordinated personnel-policy with WH PPO
Heritage Foundation / Project 2025 (2022-2024)
- Joined Heritage Foundation as Project 2025 Director in 2022
- Built Project 2025 from concept to operational infrastructure
- Coordinated with ~75 movement-organization partners
- Personnel-database development
- 922-page Mandate for Leadership (released April 2023)
July 2024 Departure
- Trump campaign publicly distanced from Project 2025 in summer 2024
- Trump publicly stated he had “no idea who’s behind it” and “didn’t know” Dans
- Dans departed Project 2025 in late July 2024
- Reportedly amicable departure within Heritage; no public conflict
Post-Project-2025 (August 2024-)
- Continued movement-engagement
- Various advisory roles
- Reduced public profile
- No formal Trump 2.0 administration role
Role in Democratic Erosion / Movement Building
Schedule F Architecture
- Co-architected original Schedule F EO (October 2020, Trump 1.0)
- Subsequent Project 2025 framework for Schedule F implementation in Trump 2.0
- Personnel-pipeline / loyalty-screening infrastructure
Project 2025 Operational Leadership
- Built Project 2025 from staff-of-1 to ~75-organization coordinated framework
- Personnel database (~20,000 names)
- Policy-development infrastructure
- “Presidential Administration Academy” training
Trump 2.0 Operational Connection
While not in formal administration:
- Multiple Project 2025 alumni in administration personnel
- Schedule F implementation reflects Project 2025 framework
- Direct movement-coordination continues
Legal Status and Investigations
- No criminal charges
- No publicly disclosed federal/state investigations
Personal-Public Interest Conflicts
Financial Holdings
- Heritage Foundation compensation (during 2022-2024 period)
- Various consulting income
- Speaking fees
- Personal real estate
Foreign Exposure
- No FARA registrations
Specific Decisions Intersecting Personal Interests
- Movement-network engagement: Continued operational role depends on continued movement-network engagement
- Trump-distancing impact: 2024 distancing reduced personal political-position; future positioning depends on movement-network repair
Key Connections
- Donald Trump — Indirect (Trump publicly distanced)
- Kevin Roberts — Heritage colleague
- Russ Vought — Direct
- Trump 1.0 OPM personnel — Various
- Various Project 2025 partner-organization principals
Investigative trail pointers (public records)
Education only — verify independently. Absence of hits is not proof.
| Channel | Starting points |
|---|---|
| Federal courts | CourtListener / PACER party and attorney searches (spelling variants) |
| Campaign finance | FEC + OpenSecrets for committees and donors tied to documented roles |
| Corporate / LLC | State secretary of state; OpenCorporates for cross-border shells from reporting |
| Sanctions / PEP | OpenSanctions when international business context is already sourced |
| Contracts / grants | USAspending.gov for named entities from investigations |
Use public-records-research-specialist, corporate-intelligence-investigator, and public-corruption-ombudsman evidence tiers.
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For Trump Supporters: Questions Worth Considering
Dans was the Founding Director of Project 2025, the 922-page Mandate for Leadership that became the blueprint for the Trump second term’s personnel and policy architecture. He co-architected Schedule F — the executive order that reclassifies tens of thousands of career civil servants as at-will employees who can be fired for political reasons. Project 2025 was coordinated with 75 movement-organization partners and built a personnel database for vetting loyalty. During the 2024 campaign, Trump publicly stated he had “no idea who’s behind it” and “didn’t know” Dans — a claim widely described as strategic distancing. Many Project 2025 recommendations have been implemented in the first year of the second term.
Here’s a question worth sitting with: Project 2025 was a 922-page operational plan for a second Trump term, developed over two years by 75 conservative organizations, with a personnel database to staff it. Trump said during the campaign he didn’t know who was behind it. Many of its specific recommendations have been implemented in his second term. Dans built the plan, helped build the infrastructure that would execute it, and then stepped back publicly while the plan moved forward. The question isn’t whether you agree with the policy goals in Project 2025 — there are reasonable debates about the role of the administrative state. The question is transparency: if a president tells voters he has nothing to do with a plan, and then that plan is substantially implemented, is that honest? Does it matter whether a president is transparent about what he intends to do before an election?
Sources
- Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise (Project 2025, April 2023)
- Heritage Foundation Form 990 filings
- NYT, multiple investigative pieces 2023-2024
- Atlantic, Politico multiple pieces
- Trump 2024 campaign public statements regarding Project 2025