Jim DeMint founded the Conservative Partnership Institute after leaving Heritage. CPI now publicly describes four core functions: staffing, training, incubation and coalition building.
Deep history · 2015–present · reviewed Nov. 2, 2026
From movement infrastructure to a governing pipeline.
The modern phase is different because several organizations describe the mechanism in unusually explicit terms: write policy, recruit people, train them, place them, build specialized organizations, and prepare implementation before a new administration begins.
Evidence boundary
This page does not claim that every organization answers to one command center, that Project 2025 and the Trump administration are identical, or that shared personnel proves wrongdoing. It tracks specific public programs, institutional relationships, personnel roles and current government positions.
The sequence
The infrastructure becomes more explicit.
After the first Trump administration, several former officials and movement figures launched or expanded specialized organizations. Russ Vought founded the Center for Renewing America; Stephen Miller co-founded America First Legal; Cleta Mitchell founded Election Integrity Network; American Moment launched a dedicated personnel-development model.
Heritage launched the 2025 Presidential Transition Project to prepare policy and personnel for the next conservative administration.
Project 2025 launched a Presidential Personnel Database, added former White House personnel director John McEntee as a senior adviser, and hired former Trump personnel official Troup Hemenway as a senior adviser and associate director of personnel placement.
Russ Vought returned as OMB director. Stephen Miller returned as deputy chief of staff for policy and homeland security adviser. Their current government roles are documented by the White House.
Reuters reported on Nov. 1, 2026 that Miller, Vought and White House lawyers were reviewing unilateral actions and legal strategies in anticipation of a possible Democratic Congress. That is current reporting about governing strategy—not proof that any outside organization directs the White House.
Mechanism 1
Project 2025 joined policy and personnel in one transition system.
Four published pillars
The Project 2025 Mandate for Leadership describes four pillars: an agency-by-agency policy volume, a personnel database, a Presidential Administration Academy, and an implementation playbook built around agency teams and transition plans.
Heritage FoundationProject 2025Paul DansJohn McEnteeTroup HemenwayPresidential Personnel Database
Documented: this is not an inference about what Project 2025 intended to do. It is how the project described itself.
Mechanism 2
CPI describes an incubation-and-staffing hub.
Staffing, training, incubation, coalition building
CPI says it identifies and recommends staffers, trains congressional and movement personnel, builds coalitions, and has supplied administrative, staffing and legal support to launch more than a dozen organizations.
CPI specifically names America First Legal, Center for Renewing America, Election Integrity Network, American Moment and Personnel Policy Operations among groups it helped launch.
Conservative Partnership InstituteAmerica First LegalCenter for Renewing AmericaElection Integrity NetworkAmerican MomentPersonnel Policy Operations
Mechanism 3
Personnel becomes an institution of its own.
Says it exists to identify, educate and credential young Americans and to find, train and place talent in public-policy organizations, congressional offices, presidential administrations and allied businesses.
CPI’s annual report described PPO as a support system for conservative civil servants and said it was involved in staffing and vetting programs for future conservative presidential administrations.
Heritage described the database as a coalition effort to collect résumés and vet thousands of potential applicants before inauguration.
John McEntee and Troup Hemenway both carried White House Presidential Personnel Office experience into Project 2025’s personnel work.
Supported interpretation
By the early 2020s, “personnel is policy” was no longer merely a slogan. Multiple organizations were building permanent systems for recruitment, vetting, training, placement and support outside government so that personnel capacity could survive between administrations.
Who’s who · modern pipeline
People and organizations with documented roles.
Russ Vought
Founded the Center for Renewing America after serving as OMB director in the first Trump administration and returned as OMB director in the second. The White House currently lists him in that role.
White House biography ↗Stephen Miller
Co-founded America First Legal after the first Trump administration and returned to the White House as deputy chief of staff for policy and homeland security adviser.
America First Legal leadership ↗John McEntee
Former director of the White House Presidential Personnel Office who joined Project 2025 as a senior adviser when its personnel database launched.
Heritage announcement ↗Troup Hemenway
Former Trump Presidential Personnel Office official who joined Project 2025 as a senior adviser and associate director of personnel placement; Heritage also identified him as president of Personnel Policy Operations.
Heritage announcement ↗Conservative Partnership Institute
Describes staffing, training, incubation and coalition building as core functions and names multiple specialized organizations it helped launch.
CPI About ↗American Moment
Explicitly describes finding, training and placing young talent in government, congressional offices, policy organizations and allied institutions.
American Moment About ↗Return to government
The outside infrastructure and the executive branch now overlap through personnel.
What is documented
Russ Vought moved from OMB in the first Trump administration to the Center for Renewing America and then back to OMB. Stephen Miller moved from the first Trump White House to America First Legal and then back to senior White House policy leadership.
On Nov. 1, 2026, Reuters reported that Miller, Vought and White House lawyers had spent months preparing possible unilateral actions and legal strategies if Democrats won Congress.
Russ VoughtCenter for Renewing AmericaStephen MillerAmerica First LegalDonald Trump
What this chapter establishes
The historical change is organizational.
Documented pattern
Across these institutions, the functions are openly described: policy development, personnel recruitment, vetting, training, placement, legal advocacy, organizational incubation and implementation planning. The strongest claim the evidence supports is therefore not “one hidden group controls government.” It is that a mature ecosystem has deliberately built the capacity to prepare for government while outside government and to supply people, plans and specialized organizations when political opportunity returns.