More than a dozen employees of the Heritage Foundation walked away from their jobs over the weekend as the right-wing think tank struggles with allegations of antisemitism and as the conservative movement grapples with its post-Trump future.
“This weekend, most of our staff, from our legal and economic centers, are departing immediately,” Heritage President Kevin Roberts wrote in a Sunday night email to staff obtained by The Washington Post. “We wish them well, though the manner of their departures speaks volumes.”
Heritage has been wrapped in controversy for more than a month after Roberts defended former Fox News host Tucker Carlson’s interview with Nick Fuentes, a white supremacist who routinely espouses antisemitic views.
Roberts has explained that he was trying to appeal to Fuentes’s followers, who might be open to adopting Heritage’s worldview. After several apologies last month, he said the foundation would cut ties with Carlson, though he said the podcaster remains a personal friend.
The Wall Street Journal first reported the departures.
In a statement, Heritage Foundation chief advancement officer Andy Olivastro said the departing staff members were disloyal. He said two of the departing employees had been terminated for “conduct inconsistent with Heritage’s mission and standards.”
“Their departures clear the way for a stronger, more focused team,” Olivastro said.
Three board members, including two last week, have also resigned in protest over what they saw as an insufficient response to combating antisemitism concerns at Heritage.
It’s unclear how many staffers left the organization over the weekend. Thirteen former employees, including three in leadership posts, were hired at Advancing American Freedom, a competing policy and advocacy group founded by former vice president Mike Pence. The group said it raised more than $10 million to fund the hires.
Pence’s group defines its ideological tenets as free markets, limited government and the rule of law — staking out a claim to ground that the Heritage Foundation once occupied.
Historically, institutions such as Heritage and the American Conservative Union served to guard the party’s flank against extremists and fringe figures who could undermine electoral appeals to middle-of-the-road Americans.
But in the Trump era, those groups have transformed to more closely match the nationalism, isolationism and economic populism of the MAGA movement, sparking new controversies over which views that banner should or should not tolerate.
John Malcolm was Heritage’s vice president at its Institute for Constitutional Government and led the think tank’s Meese Center for Legal and Judicial Studies. Former attorney general Edwin Meese III said in a news release that his eponymous center would relocate to Pence’s Advancing American Freedom.
Charles “Cully” Stimson and Hans von Spakovsky, the two staffers Roberts had tapped to run the Meese Center on an interim basis, also quit Monday afternoon.
“We regret leaving what has long been the premier conservative institution where we have spent so much of our legal careers, but feel we can no longer carry out that mission,” the pair wrote in a joint resignation letter.
Richard Stern ran Heritage’s economic policy group, and Kevin Dayaratna was Heritage’s chief statistician; both also departed for Pence’s group.
Advancing American Freedom announced that 10 additional policy associates had joined the organization from Heritage.
Pence, in a statement, called the newcomers “principled” and said they bring “a love of country, and a deep commitment to the Constitution and Conservative Movement.” But Roberts, in his all-staff email, emphasized obedience.
“Heritage has always been home to voices within the conservative movement, but alignment on mission and loyalty to senior leadership are nonnegotiable,” he wrote.
Josh Blackman, who edited the Heritage Guide to the Constitution, also resigned Sunday. In his resignation letter published by the libertarian magazine Reason, Blackman said Roberts made the think tank’s brand “toxic” and caused judges to say they would no longer speak at Heritage events or recommend their clerks to its programs.
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