A nonprofit whistleblower website has published a leaked database containing more than 13,000 submissions to an application form for the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 initiative, which produced a controversial road map for President Donald Trump’s reshaping of the federal government. The database contained an array of personal information about applicants, including statements of their political beliefs.
DDoSecrets, the largest archive of hacked and leaked documents on the internet, released a partly redacted version of the database on Tuesday, June 17. The Heritage Foundation did not respond to a request for comment from Straight Arrow News.
Insight into the controversial initiative
The leak provides insight into those who sought to advance Project 2025’s aims, as well as the initiative’s opponents, who used the application to express their grievances.
Analysis of the data by SAN shows 13,726 submissions containing names and details on political philosophies. An unredacted version of the list, which DDoSecrets made available only to journalists and researchers, includes home addresses and social media account names.
The conservative Heritage Foundation launched Project 2025 — officially “Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise 2025” — in 2023. It ultimately published a series of policy recommendations aimed at implementing conservative values across the federal government.
Supporters of the plan believe it will restore constitutional governance and promote what they see as traditional American ideals. Critics have argued that Project 2025 represents an authoritarian shift toward centralized power, which undermines democratic institutions.
“Would you like to be considered for a position in a future presidential Administration and participate in our trainings?” the application form asks. “Complete the questionnaire below and upload your resume for inclusion in the Presidential Personnel Database and to receive access to the Presidential Administration Academy.”
The Heritage Foundation has described the academy as “a unique educational and skill-building program that equips conservatives with the skills necessary to be effective policy professionals in the next conservative administration.”
Applicants describe political beliefs
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A leaked database lists 13,726 people who submitted applications to Project 2025, an initiative by the conservative Heritage Foundation.
Applicants selected terms from a drop-down menu to describe their political beliefs. Options included traditional conservative, social conservative, fiscal conservative, paleoconservative, moderate, libertarian, liberal and progressive.
In a section that asked applicants to explain their philosophy, one self-described lifelong Republican expressed his opposition to what he saw as the party’s embrace of “neoliberal economic policy and neoconservative foreign policy.”
“I hope a second Trump administration can reverse these policies and continue to move the GOP to focus first and foremost on the interests of the American people,” the user wrote.
Other entries appeared targeted at perceived failures by the Republican Party. One moderate argued that the nation’s issues were far “too complex for simple partisan solutions.”
“I believe in the rule of the law,” the person wrote.
Some entries appeared to be in protest, such as one from a second moderate who described the Heritage Foundation as “the spawn of Satan.”
“I am not the spawn of Satan. You are,” the user wrote. “You are all going to hell. God will see to it. I am a true Christian. I pray to God every day to take you all.”
Another question asked for each applicant’s primary influence, producing such answers as Jesus, Trump and, in an apparent attempt to flood the questionnaire with satirical remarks, the Marvel villain “Thanos.”
Applicants were also asked to name an influential book and policy figure before answering a question on whether they agreed with certain political statements, such as the “U.S. should increase legal immigration.”
Source of leak unclear
It’s unclear who provided the data to DDoSecrets.
DDoSecrets cofounder Emma Best told SAN that “the mere existence of the Project 2025 application database is a betrayal of any democratic ideals that American politicians still pretend the government runs on.”
“There are few things as clearly fascistic as Project 2025’s inquiries into applicant’s beliefs, replacing their supposedly desired meritocracy with something much more dangerous — demands of ideological purity,” Best said.
This isn’t the first time data from the Heritage Foundation has been leaked. Last year, a hacking group called SiegedSec released data from The Daily Signal, the foundation’s media and commentary site.
The leak was published after Mike Howell, executive director of the Heritage Oversight Project, threatened to uncover the identities of the “degenerate perverts” in SiegedSec.
