Paul Dans | |
|---|---|
| Chief of Staff of the Office of Personnel Management | |
| In office February 2020 –December 1, 2020 | |
| President | Donald Trump |
| Preceded by | Jonathan Blyth |
| Succeeded by | Basil Parker |
| Personal details | |
| Political party | Republican |
| Education | Massachusetts Institute of Technology (BS,MS) University of Virginia (JD) |
Paul Dans is an American lawyer and conservative political operative best known for leading Project 2025,the Heritage Foundation's 2025 presidential transition project intended to reshape the United States federal government to reflect right-wing policies. [1] [2] Dans was later fired by the Heritage Foundation on July 25,2024. [3]
Dans' father was a professor at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine,and his mother had worked for National Institutes of Health and then became a schoolteacher. Dans has three siblings. [4] [5] [6] His ancestors' roots are in the Catholic faith. [7]
Dans received a Bachelor of Science with a major in economics and a Master of Science in city planning from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. [8]
Dans worked at architecture and planning firms before attending law school at the University of Virginia,where he was president of the law school's Federalist Society chapter. He later practiced law in New York City. [8] [9]
Following law school,Dans worked at multiple law firms,including LeBoeuf,Lamb,Greene &MacRae and Debevoise &Plimpton,before running a solo law practice for a number of years. [10] In 2009,Dans was hired to help defend Chevron in a class action lawsuit for oil pollution in Ecuador. [10]
Dans worked as a senior advisor in the Office of Community Planning and Development at the US Department of Housing and Urban Development. [11]
Dans then served in the first Trump administration as chief of staff at the U.S. Office of Personnel Management where he managed the federal agency in charge of human resources policy for the more than two million federal workers. He also served as the Office of Personnel Management's White House liaison and worked with the White House Office of Presidential Personnel to staff the approximately 4,000 presidential appointees across the federal government. Dans was seen as a Trump loyalist and worked closely with John McEntee to remove longtime public servants from government who did not demonstrate sufficient loyalty to Trump. Dans was hired without the knowledge of Dale Cabaniss,the director of the Office of Personnel Management,who resigned abruptly in 2020. [11] [12] [13]
Dans helped to launch Project 2025 in April of 2022 and led it until August of 2024. [14] Dans described the project as "systematically preparing to march into office and bring a new army [of] aligned,trained,and essentially weaponized conservatives ready to do battle against the deep state". [15]
In 2023,Dans stated that Project 2025 had a "great" relationship with former President Donald Trump. [16] However,RealClearPolitics reported that Dans had,in fact,repeatedly clashed with the 2024 Trump campaign. [3]
On July 30,2024,Dans announced he was stepping down from his position as project director,the following month following public criticism by Trump. [17] However,RealClearPolitics reported that Dans was terminated from his position after Heritage had concluded an investigation into his alleged abusive and demeaning behavior,especially towards women. [3] His request for a $3.1 million lump sum,following the termination of his tenure,was rejected. [3]
Paul Dans was raised, in the 1970s and '80s, in a family that embodied liberal idealism. Peter Dans was a professor of medicine who had enlisted in the Public Health Service; started an STD clinic and a migrant health clinic while on faculty at the University of Colorado; and served in the office of Sen. Gaylord Nelson, the Wisconsin Democrat who founded Earth Day. Paul's mom, Colette Lizotte, was a French teacher who had previously worked as a chemist at the National Institutes of Health.
systematically preparing to march into office and bring a new army, [of] aligned, trained, and essentially weaponized conservatives ready to do battle against the deep state.