Project 2025’s Pro-Corruption & Anti-Democracy Agenda
By Jon Golinger, Democracy Advocate
INTRODUCTION
The Heritage Foundation led the creation of Project 2025, a policy agenda and implementation playbook for a right-wing presidential administration. Project 2025’s plans are outlined in the 920 page “Mandate For Leadership” briefing book and a series of 23 policy seminars and training videos created by the Heritage Foundation and Project 2025 leaders as a “Masterclass” for a “Presidential Administration Academy.”
A careful review of Project 2025’s plans reveals, among other things, a series of pro-corruption, anti-democracy schemes to fire independent Inspectors General, rollback voting rights, gut anti-corruption law enforcement, replace qualified experts with political cronies, and weaponize the Department of Justice to target local officials and election administrators for partisan political reasons.
I. Project 2025 Would Eliminate Independent Government Oversight and Accountability
a. Fire Independent Inspectors General
- There are 74 independent Inspectors General (IGs) working to oversee federal operations and detect and prevent fraud, waste, abuse, and misconduct throughout federal programs.[1] Project 2025 says the President should summarily fire these independent investigators and install loyalists instead.
- “Should the next administration exercise their authority to select and appoint their own IGs?” – Mike Howell, Heritage Foundation [2]
- “Yeah, most certainly. I’m a firm believer in the unitary executive and that they should have control of the people that work within the government.” – Tom Jones, American Accountability Foundation [3]
- “In a new administration, would you rather have some fresh eyes on programs or Miss IG, Debbie DC, who’s been around for half a decade and is up to the same old stuff?” – Mike Howell, Heritage Foundation [4]
b. Terminate public corruption investigations
- Project 2025 says the President should direct a political appointee to review all major active FBI investigations and terminate any they deem “contrary to the national interest.” This could mean that any public corruption investigations into a friend, donor, or ally of the president could be closed, while investigations of enemies would likely continue.
- “Conduct an immediate, comprehensive review of all major active FBI investigations and activities and terminate any that are unlawful or contrary to the national interest.” [5]
c. Replace Qualified Experts with Political Cronies
- Project 2025 would enact a new “Schedule F” to allow the president to summarily fire 50,000 qualified civil service staff and replace them with partisan political operatives trained by Project 2025.
- “the Trump Administration issued Executive Order 1395724 to make career professionals in positions that are not normally subject to change as a result of a presidential transition but who discharge significant duties and exercise significant discretion in formulating and implementing executive branch policy and programs an exception to the competitive hiring rules and examinations for career positions under a new Schedule F . . . The order was subsequently reversed by President Biden at the demand of the civil service associations and unions. It should be reinstated . . .” [6]
II. Project 2025 Would Weaponize the Department of Justice to Target Political Enemies
a. Put the FBI under political control
- Project 2025 proposes to move the FBI out from under the direct supervision of the Deputy Attorney General and under the political control of a Department of Justice presidential appointee who is more “politically accountable” to the President. This could lead to the FBI being misused to support a partisan political agenda.
- “place the FBI under a politically accountable leader” [7]
b. Take Legal Action Against District Attorneys
- Project 2025 says the president should direct the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) to take “legal action” against local elected officials, such as District Attorneys, for ideological reasons.
- “Where warranted and proper under federal law, initiate legal action against local officials—including District Attorneys—who deny American citizens the ‘equal protection of the laws’ by refusing to prosecute criminal offenses in their jurisdictions. This holds true particularly for jurisdictions that refuse to enforce the law against criminals based on the Left’s favored defining characteristics of the would-be offender (race, so-called gender identity, sexual orientation, etc.) or other political considerations (e.g., immigration status).” [8]
c. Prosecute Election Officials
- Project 2025 wants the President to instruct the Department of Justice to criminally prosecute state election administration officials such as the Pennsylvania Secretary of State for allowing eligible voters to cure defective ballots or vote by provisional ballot.
- “The law in Pennsylvania clearly states that no county may affirmatively provide provisional ballots: The mail-in voter must vote in person and sign a new affidavit. In the 2020 election, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court recognized that ‘the Election Code contains no requirement that voters whose ballots are deemed inadequately verified be apprised of this fact. Thus, unlike in-person voters, mail-in or absentee voters are not provided any opportunity to cure perceived defects in a timely manner.’ Given the Pennsylvania Secretary of State’s use of guidance to circumvent state law, the Pennsylvania Secretary of State should have been (and still should be) investigated and prosecuted for potential violations of 18 U.S. Code § 241.” [9]
III. Project 2025 Would Undermine Voting Rights and Anti-Corruption Laws
a. Criminalize the Voting Process
- Project 2025 would open the door to intimidating state and local election workers, conducting sham investigations, and aggressively prosecuting voters and election officials by shifting responsibility for prosecuting election-related offenses from the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights to Division to the Criminal Division.
- “The Attorney General in the next conservative Administration should reassign responsibility for prosecuting violations of 18 U.S. Code § 241 from the Civil Rights Division to the Criminal Division where it belongs. Otherwise, voter registration fraud and unlawful ballot correction will remain federal election offenses that are never appropriately investigated and prosecuted.”[10]
b. Direct the Department of Justice and Federal Election Commission to limit the prosecution and enforcement of violations of campaign finance law
- Project 2025 says the President should direct the Department of Justice to defer any decision to criminally prosecute campaign finance laws to the members of the Federal Election Commission (FEC), unless the FEC affirmatively votes in favor of enforcement.
- This would empower anti-enforcement FEC commissioners to block enforcement and lead to more corruption with no consequences.
- “The President should direct the DOJ and the attorney general not to prosecute individuals under an interpretation of the law with which the FEC—the expert agency designated by Congress to enforce the law civilly and issue regulations establishing the standards under which the law is applied—does not agree.” [11]
c. Allow More Big Money in Politics While Reducing Donor Transparency
- Project 2025 says campaign contribution limits should be lifted to allow more big money to flow directly into candidates’ campaigns while campaign contribution disclosure requirements should be weakened to make it harder for voters to find out who is donating to candidates running for federal office.
- “Contribution limits should generally be much higher”[12]
- “index [donation] reporting requirements to inflation.”[13]
Footnotes
[1] Congressional Research Service, “Statutory Inspectors General in the Federal Government,” November 13, 2023, https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/R/R45450
[2] Project 2025 Private Training Video: Oversight and Investigations (Project 2025 Video), minute 16:41; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xxe55mU4DA8
[3] Project 2025 Video, minute 16:47
[4] Project 2025 Video, minute 17:20
[5] Project 2025 “Mandate for Leadership” (Project 2025 Mandate), p. 549; https://archive.org/details/2025_MandateForLeadership_FULL/page/549/mode/1up?view=theater
[6] Project 2025 Mandate, pp. 80-81
[7] Project 2025 Mandate, p. 550
[8] Project 2025 Mandate, p. 553
[9] Project 2025 Mandate, p. 564
[10] Project 2025 Mandate, p. 562
[11] Project 2025 Mandate, p. 863
[12] Project 2025 Mandate, p. 866
[13] Project 2025 Mandate, p. 866