Washington has spent decades watching power operate behind closed doors. This month, that power has displayed signs of cracking in public.
More than 60 senior figures have resigned from the Heritage Foundation, the influential think tank blocks from the Capitol that helped shape Project 2025, signaling rare internal rupture as its agenda now drives the Trump administration from the White House.
The departures come as Project 2025 has moved from theory to governing reality, reshaping federal enforcement, immigration policy, and civil rights oversight in ways critics say place Black communities and immigrants at heightened risk.
“When an institution hesitates to confront harmful ideas and allows lapses in judgment to stand, it forfeits the moral authority on which its influence depends,” former Heritage trustee Abby Spencer Moffat said in a statement explaining her resignation.
For District residents, Project 2025 is not an abstract policy document. It has already shaped executive orders, agency purges, and enforcement priorities that affect daily life.
The plan called for shrinking civil rights enforcement, restructuring federal agencies, and concentrating authority within the White House. Legal experts say many of those ideas have come to fruition, including federal policing in the District and other parts of the country.
Trump once said he had nothing to do with Project 2025. That claim unraveled when he appointed Russell Vought, one of its chief authors, to oversee the Office of Management and Budget. From that office flows budget authority, staffing power, and pressure over nearly every federal agency
Inside the District, residents have watched as immigration policy tightened, federal enforcement expanded, and protests grew louder nationwide. Civil rights organizations warn that Black Washingtonians face heightened risks as voting protections weaken and federal oversight narrows. The same blueprint driving national policy also threatens local safeguards that have taken decades to build.
Abroad, the administration’s actions have sent shockwaves back to Washington. The military operation in Venezuela, the seizure of oil assets, and the escalating dispute over Greenland have drawn international condemnation and raised concerns about long-term consequences for U.S. credibility. Diplomats based in the city say alliances are being tested in ways not seen in generations.
The departures at Heritage matter in the District because Washington is where ideas become law. When the authors of a governing agenda begin to walk away from it, residents are left to ask who remains and why.
Analysts claim the concern voiced by former trustees is not about disagreement, but moral failure and the refusal to draw lines when lines mattered.
“No institution that hesitates to condemn antisemitism and hatred can credibly claim to uphold the vision that once made the Heritage Foundation influential,” former trustee Shane McCullar said in a statement explaining his resignation.