What is Project 2025? (Part 10)
A Presidential Transition Project from The Heritage Foundation
What is Project 2025?
This is Part 10 in The Savvy Citizen’s new series: What is Project 2025?
If you’re new to the series, you may want to read the previous parts first, since this is a building series: Parts 1 - 9 are available here.
I also explain My Approach to the series in Part 1, so I won’t repeat it here.
We are now exploring the Project’s Section 1: Taking the Reins of Government. Note that the Project is divided into five (5) sections, which I explain in Part 3 of this series.
Project 2025: Section 1: Taking the Reins of Government
(1) White House Office Rick Dearborn
(2) Executive Office of the President of the United States Russ Vought
(3) Central Personnel Agencies: Managing the Bureaucracy Donald Devine, Dennis Dean Kirk, Paul Dans
You can read the Introduction to Section 1 in Part 8 and the first part of Section 1.1 in Part 9. Part 10 continues with Section 1.1: White House Office.
Some preliminaries …
» SIDEBAR: Section 1.1 explains the various roles and responsibilities in the White House Office, which remain relatively constant from administration to administration. The Project text doesn’t include a summary of headers in each sub-section, so I’ve put a quick outline of what this sub-section covers here.
Chief of Staff
Deputy Chiefs of Staff
Principal Deputy Chiefs of Staff
Deputy Chief of Staff for Management and Operations
Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy
Senior Advisors
Office of White House Counsel
Staff Secretary
Office of Communications
Office of Legislative Affairs (OLA)
Office of Presidential Personnel (PPO)
Office of Political Affairs (OPA)
Office of Cabinet Affairs (OCA)
Office of Public Liaison (OPL)
Office of Intergovernmental Affairs (IGA)
White House Policy Councils
Functions of the Councils
Policy Coordination
Policy Advice
Policy Implementation
Specific Policy Councils
Policy Coordinating Committee (PCC)
Deputies Committee (DC)
Principals Committee (PC)
National Security Council
National Economic Council
Domestic Policy Council
Office of the Vice President
Office of the First Lady/First Gentleman
» SIDEBAR: None of the White House Office positions require Senate confirmation. Each employee is appointed by the President and serves at the pleasure of the President, meaning that he/she can terminate their employment at any time.
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Now for the actual text of this sub-section. In Part 9, we covered the descriptions for the following positions in this post:
Chief of Staff
Deputy Chiefs of Staff
Principal Deputy Chiefs of Staff
Deputy Chief of Staff for Management and Operations
Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy
In this Part 10, , we continue with the descriptions for the following roles:
Senior Advisors
Office of White House Counsel
Staff Secretary
Office of Communications
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SENIOR ADVISERS
Presidents have surrounded themselves with senior advisers whose experience and interests are not necessarily neatly defined. In recent Administrations, senior advisers have been appointed to offer broad guidance on political matters and communications issues; others have acted as “czars” for specific projects or policy areas.
The most powerful senior advisers frequently have had a long personal relationship with the President and often have spent a significant amount of time with him/her within and outside of the White House. They have been asked not only to provide guidance on a variety of policy issues, but also to offer instruction on communicating with the American people and the media.
In a number of Administrations, new offices—or “councils”—have been created to support senior advisers. For the most part, their functions have been duplicative or overlapping, as a result of which these offices have tended to be short-lived. Even so, senior advisers should be provided the staff and resources that their portfolios require. To ensure that senior advisers are effective, their portfolios must be clearly delineated and clearly communicated across the White House. This too is a responsibility of the Chief of Staff.
OFFICE OF WHITE HOUSE COUNSEL
The Office of White House Counsel provides legal guidance to the President and elements of the EOP [Executive Office of the President] on a host of issues, including presidential powers and privileges, ethics compliance, review of clemency applications, and judicial nominations. The selection of White House Counsel is one of the most important decisions an incoming President will make. The office is not designed to create or advance policies on its own initiative—nor should it do so. Rather, it is dedicated to guiding the President and his reports on how (within the bounds of the law) to pursue and realize the President’s agenda.
While the White House Counsel does not serve as the President’s personal attorney in nonofficial matters, it is almost impossible to delineate exactly where an issue is strictly personal and has no bearing on the President’s official function. The White House Counsel needs to be deeply committed both to the President’s agenda and to affording the President proactive counsel and zealous representation. That individual directly advises the President as he/she performs the duties of the office, and this requires a relationship that is built on trust, confidentiality, and candor.
The Office of White House Counsel is also responsible for ensuring that each component of the White House adheres to all applicable legal and ethical guidelines, which often requires ongoing training and monitoring to ensure compliance. This means ensuring that White House staff regularly consult with office attorneys on required financial disclosures, received gifts, potential conflicts of interest, and other ethical concerns. The Office of White House Counsel is the first line of defense for the EOP. Its staff must take seriously the duty to protect the powers and privileges of the President from encroachments by Congress, the judiciary, and the administrative components of departments and agencies.
In addition to the White House Counsel, the office includes deputies, assistants, associates, and legal support staff. The assistant and associate attorneys are often specialists in particular areas of the law and offer guidance to the EOP on issues related to national security, criminal law, environmental law, and a host of administrative and regulatory matters. Attorneys working in the Offoce of White House Counsel serve as legal advisers to the White House policy operation by reviewing executive orders, agency regulations, and other policy-related functions. Here again, subordinates should be deeply committed to the President’s agenda and see their role as helping to accomplish the agenda through problem solving and advocacy. They should not erect roadblocks out of an abundance of caution; rather, they should offer practical legal advice on how to promote the President’s agenda within the bounds of the law.
The White House Counsel’s office cannot serve as a finishing school to credential the next set of white-shoe law firm attorneys or federal judges in waiting who cabin their opinions for fear their elite credentials could be tarnished through a policy disagreement. Rather, it should function more as an activist yet ethical plaintiffs’ firm that advocates for its client—the Administration’s agenda—within the limits imposed by the Constitution and the duties of the legal profession.
The Office of White House Counsel also serves as the primary gateway for communication between the White House and the Department of Justice (DOJ). Traditionally, both the White House Counsel and the Attorney General have issued a memo requiring all contact between the two institutions to occur only between the Office of White House Counsel and the Attorney General or Deputy Attorney General. The next Administration should reexamine this policy and determine whether it might be more efficient or more appropriate for communication to occur through additional channels. The White House Counsel also works closely with the DOJ Office of Legal Counsel to seek opinions on, for example, matters of policy development and the constitutionality of presidential power and privileges and with OLA and the DOJ Office of Legal Policy on presidential judicial nominees.
When a new President takes office, he/she will need to decide expeditiously how to handle any major ongoing litigation or other pending legal matters that might present a challenge to his agenda. To offer guidance, the White House Counsel must get up to speed as quickly as possible on all significant ongoing legal challenges across the executive branch that might affect the new Administration’s policy agenda and must be prepared at the outset of the Administration to present recommendations to the President, including recommendations for reconsidering or reversing positions of the previous Administration in any significant litigation. This review will usually require consulting with the new political leadership at the Justice Department, including during the transition period.
No day is predictable at the White House. Therefore, to handle the pace and volatility of affairs, the Office of White House Counsel must offer measured legal guidance in a timely manner. This often means forgoing law review–style memos about esoteric legal concepts and instead quickly providing high-level yet incisive guidance. Due to evolving world events, domestic affairs, and political pressures, the office often faces legal questions for which there may not be a wealth of precedent. Attorneys in the Office of White House Counsel must therefore work collaboratively within the White House and the Department of Justice, relying on each other as a team, to ensure that proper legal guidance is delivered to the President.
The President should choose a White House Counsel who is well-versed in the Constitution, administrative and regulatory law, and the inner workings of Congress and the political process. Instead of choosing a specialist, the President should hire a counsel with extensive experience with a wide range of complex legal subjects. Moreover, while a candidate with elite credentials might seem ideal, the best one will be above all loyal to the President and the Constitution.
STAFF SECRETARY
The Office of the Staff Secretary is rarely visible to the outside world, but it performs work of tremendous importance. The office is similar to a military commander’s adjutant as it is responsible for fielding and managing a vast amount of information at the top of its organization. This includes information on its way into the Oval Office as well as information flowing out from the Oval Office. Because of its gatekeeping function, the position of Staff Secretary is one of extreme trust, and the individual who possesses it should be vetted to work as an “honest broker” in the President’s service.
The Office of the Staff Secretary has been described as the last substantive control point before papers reach the Oval Office. A great deal of information is headed toward the Oval Office at any moment. This includes presidential decision memos; bills passed by Congress (which may be accompanied by signing or veto statements); and briefing books, reading materials, samples of constituent mail, personal mail, and drafts of speeches. The Staff Secretary makes certain that these materials are complete, well-ordered, and up to date before they reach the President. This necessarily means that the Staff Secretary plays a key role in determining who weighs in on policy matters and when.
As noted above, the Staff Secretary also handles information leaving the Oval Office. The President may have questions after reviewing incoming material, may wish to seek more information, or may demand revisions. The Staff Secretary is often responsible for directing these requests to the appropriate places and following up on them to ensure that they are completed.
One of the Staff Secretary’s critical functions is managing and overseeing the clearance process for the President’s daily/nightly briefing book. This book is filled with all the reading material and leading documentation the President needs in the morning and the evening to help him make decisions. The Staff Secretary also oversees the use of the President’s signature, whether by hand or by autopen, and manages the Office of the Executive Clerk, Office of Records Management, and Office of Presidential Correspondence.
OFFICE OF COMMUNICATIONS
The Office of Communications, which operates under the Director of Communications, conveys the President’s agenda to the public through various media, including speeches and remarks, press briefings, o-the-record discussions with reporters, and social media. Depending on how a President chooses to structure his White House, the Office of Communications may include the Office of the Press Secretary (Press Office), but no matter how it is structured, the office must work closely with the Press Office as well as the President’s speechwriters and digital strategists.
Operational functions of the Office of Communications include scheduling and running press briefings, interviews, meetings, media appearances, speeches, and a range of other events. The Office of Communications must maintain robust relationships with the White House Press Corps, the White House Correspondents’ Association, regional stakeholders, and key interest groups. No legal entitlement exists for the provision of permanent space for media on the White House campus, and the next Administration should reexamine the balance between media demands and space constraints on the White House premises.
Leadership within the Office of Communications should include a Communications Director (who is a direct report to the Chief of Staff), a Deputy Communications Director, a Deputy Director for Strategic Communications, and a Press Secretary. This leadership team must work together closely to drive the national narrative about the White House.
The best resource for the Office of Communications is the President. The President conveys the White House’s overall message through one or two inaugural addresses, State of the Union addresses, speeches to Congress, and press conferences. The office must also ensure that the various White House offices disseminate a unified message to the public. The Communications Director and Press Secretary in particular should be careful to avoid contradicting the President or delivering conflicting information.
The speechwriting team is a critical component of the communications team. Speechwriting is a unique talent: The writers selected must understand policy, should have a firm grasp of history and other liberal-arts disciplines, and should be able to learn and adopt the President’s style of rhetoric and mode of delivery.
The Press Secretary is the President’s spokesperson, communicating to the American people through the media. The Press Secretary engages with the White House Press Corps formally through press briefings and informally through impromptu gaggles and meetings. Individuals who serve in this role must be quick on their feet, which means, when appropriate, deftly refuting and rebutting correspondents’ questions and comments.
The Communications Director must convey the President’s mission to the American people. Especially for conservatives, this means navigating the mainstream media to ensure that the President’s agenda is conveyed effectively and accurately. The Communications Director must be politically savvy and very aware of the ongoing activities of the other White House offices. The new Administration should examine the nature of the relationship between itself and the White House Correspondents Association and consider whether an alternative coordinating body might be more suitable.
To be continued …
Back next time with more of Section 1.1
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xo,
Kelley for The Savvy Citizen Team
December 20, 2024
P.S. Remember, you can always read the entire Project 2025 at Project2025.org.