Besides all the people who worked directly for Trump, others who participated in Project 2025 were also appointed by the former president to independent positions. For example, Federal Communications Commissioner Brendan Carr authored a full series of proposed changes to his agency, and Lisa Correnti, an anti-abortion advocate Trump appointed as a delegate to the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women is among those contributors.
Plenty of people involved in Project 2025 didn’t even serve in the Trump administration but were quite influential in shaping his first term. A great example is former US Attorney Brett Tolman, quite a leading force behind the former president’s criminal justice reform law, who ultimately helped arrange a pardon for Charles Kushner, the father of Trump’s son-in-law.
Tolman is also listed as a contributor to “Mandate for Leadership.” The increasingly obvious overlap between Project 2025 and Trump’s group of allies makes it very difficult to distance himself from the work.
Trump’s main campaign has definitely sought for months to make clear that Project 2025 doesn’t really speak for them amid an increasing push by President Joe Biden and Democrats to tie the Republican standard bearer to the playbook’s controversial policies.
