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Paul Dans
Republican political operative From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Paul Edouard Dans[1] (born 1968/1969)[2] 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.[3][4]
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Early life and education
Dans spent his childhood just north of Baltimore, Maryland. He attended Dulaney High School, where he played sports and was on the debate team.[5] Dans received a Bachelor of Science with a major in economics and a Master of City Planning from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).[6] At MIT, he played on the lacrosse team and was selected as a CoSIDA Academic All-America athlete.[7] Dans’s thesis focused on the redevelopment of industrial parks, such as the Brooklyn Navy Yard.[1]
Dans worked at architecture and planning firms before graduating law school from the University of Virginia, where he was president of the law school's Federalist Society chapter. He also received a certificate in French law from Paris-Panthéon-Assas University in 1996.[8] He later practiced law in New York City.[6][8]
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Career
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Law
Following law school, Dans worked at multiple law firms, including LeBoeuf, Lamb, Greene & MacRae for three years, Debevoise & Plimpton for two years, and a third firm where, among other cases, he handled litigation between Yves Saint Laurent’s beauty line and Costco. He then went on to run a solo law practice.[5]
Dans was among the attorneys hired by Chevron to defend the company against a multibillion-dollar lawsuit pertaining to oil pollution in Ecuador.[5][9] Dans has been credited with proposing that the outtakes of the film Crude, an exposé of Chevron, be subpoenaed to potentially uncover evidence of legal malfeasance by the plaintiff’s lead lawyer, Steven Donziger. The outtakes enabled Chevron to file suit against Donzinger, leading to a court decision that voided a $9.5 billion judgment against the company.[5]
Trump administration
In 2011, Dans advocated for Donald Trump to run for president, several years before joining the Trump administration in an official capacity.[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 from February 2020 to December 1, 2020, 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 worked closely with John McEntee to remove longtime public servants from government. 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]
Project 2025
Dans helped to launch Project 2025 in April 2022 and led it until August 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 President Trump,[16][better source needed] despite clashing with the 2024 Trump campaign team.[17]
On July 30, 2024, Dans announced he was stepping down from his position as Director of Project 2025 at the Heritage Foundation in the wake of public criticism from President Trump.[18] In a statement, Heritage stated that the decision to part ways was mutual and due to strategic differences, clarifying reports that Dans had been terminated over issues of alleged misconduct.[19]
Senate campaign
On July 28, 2025, it was reported that Dans would challenge Lindsey Graham for the South Carolina U.S. Senate seat, which has been held by Graham since 2003.[2]
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Personal life
Dans resides in Charleston, South Carolina.[20] He is a fluent French speaker.[8] In 2007, Dans married Mary Helen Bowers,[10] a former New York City Ballet dancer who was appointed to the Kennedy Center's board at the end of Trump's first term. Together, they have four children.[2]
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.[5][21][22] His ancestors' roots are in the Catholic faith.[5]
Dans's twin brother, Tom Dans, is a venture capitalist and was an official in Donald Trump's first administration. In 2025, Tom's organization American Daybreak coordinated controversial trips to Greenland by Donald Trump Jr. and Usha Vance, which were criticized for their promotion of the second Trump administration's Greenland policy.[23][24]
References
Further reading
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