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Heritage Foundation – Project 2025 Influence Network

Core Node: Heritage Foundation

  • Longstanding conservative think tank

  • Generates position papers, legislative blueprints, and transition guides

  • Provides ideological cohesion across the broader conservative movement

Supplies institutional legitimacy and donor network coordination

Visual of connections mentioned on the page.

Primary Operational Program: Project 2025

  • 180-day transition plan for the next conservative presidency

  • Guides the removal and replacement of federal civil servants

  • Prepares executive orders and administrative rule rewrites

  • Aims to restore “unitary executive” power by staffing loyalists

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Execution Arms:

America First Policy Institute (AFPI)

  • Conservative think tank aligned with Trump-era priorities

  • Trains and vets future executive branch appointees

  • Acts as a repository of ready-to-deploy legal and economic policies

The Federalist Society

  • Elite legal network providing judicial candidates

  • Operates as a gatekeeper for conservative judges and legal theorists

  • Supports the ideological backbone of the administrative state rollback

Judicial Crisis Network

  • Political advocacy group linked to Leonard Leo

  • Mobilizes dark money campaigns for judicial confirmations

  • Amplifies court-based influence of Heritage-aligned ideologies

Center for Renewing America

  • Cultural messaging and ideological media front

  • Targets populist audiences with simplified frames

  • Coordinates with online influencers and platform-based narratives

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Connected Appointees / Influencers:

Russ Vought

  • Former Director of OMB under Trump

  • President of Center for Renewing America

  • Architect of many executive staffing blueprints for Project 2025

Kevin Roberts

  • Current Heritage Foundation President

  • Primary public voice defending Heritage's administrative takeover plan

Stephen Miller

  • Senior Trump advisor and architect of immigration policy

  • Key partner in merging narrative with executive governance doctrine

Jeff Clark

  • DOJ official during 2020 election legal maneuvering

  • Advocates for aggressive use of DOJ powers by aligned executives

Blake Masters

  • Thiel protégé and Senate candidate

  • Supports AI governance acceleration and administrative reduction

  • Represents ideological overlap between Heritage and Thiel networks

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Key Funding Networks:

DonorsTrust / Donors Capital Fund

  • Primary “dark money” channels for conservative causes

  • Funds Heritage, Judicial Crisis Network, and policy infrastructure

Bradley Foundation

  • Funds think tanks and state-level legislative efforts

  • Helps export Heritage-aligned policies to local governance

Leonard Leo Network (via CRC Advisors)

  • Ties together legal influence, media pressure, and political finance

  • Behind the transformation of the federal judiciary through FedSoc

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Functional Influence Targets:

  • Install ideologically aligned heads at federal agencies (e.g., DOJ, DHS, HHS)

  • Replace civil service experts with political loyalists

  • Shift legal doctrine on executive power and agency independence

  • Rewrite or repeal regulatory frameworks using executive orders

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Strategic Objective:

Replace institutional bureaucracy with ideological loyalists to permanently reshape the federal administrative state in line with Heritage policy goals.

Fusion with Private-State Doctrine:

  • Heritage provides the human capital (personnel)

  • The private-state (Palantir, Anduril, Clearview) provides the tools

  • Together, they create a system where policy, enforcement, and ideology converge

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This map reveals a dense, well-funded, pre-positioned political machine prepared to rewire executive governance from the inside using both public authority and private coordination.

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