It’s official: Jim DeMint has officially been ousted from his position as president of The Heritage Foundation.
The Heritage board asked for DeMint’s resignation on Tuesday and DeMint complied. The chairman of the board, Thomas Saunders, released a statement that read:
After a comprehensive and independent review of the entire Heritage organization, the Board determined there were significant and worsening management issues that led to a breakdown of internal communications and cooperation. While the organization has seen many successes, Jim DeMint and a handful of his closest advisers failed to resolve these problems.
DeMint released his own statement on the matter:
Here are five things you need to know about DeMint’s ouster and its aftermath.
1. DeMint reportedly clashed with Heritage Action CEO Michael Needham. Needham’s beef with DeMint stems from his feeling that Heritage lacked “alternative policy proposals.” He was irked that DeMint didn’t vocally support Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) over Donald Trump in the Republican presidential primary, according to Politico. Mollie Hemingway at The Federalist also reports that contrary to prior reports that DeMint had made Heritage too political, “DeMint actually tried to rein in Heritage Action in recent years, as the 501(c)(4) group began racking up enemy after enemy on Capitol Hill without actually putting any congressional policy points on the board.”
“Multiple sources told The Federalist that Needham bristled at DeMint’s repeated attempts to assert control over the splinter organization and began plotting to overthrow DeMint once it became clear that the former South Carolina senator had no desire to outsource control of the think tank to the 30-something political operative with no policy background,” wrote Hemingway. “At one point, a high-placed source told The Federalist, Needham personally confronted DeMint and his team and told them that DeMint was done, that Needham himself would be taking over the organization.”
Needham’s dislike for DeMint grew to the point where after DeMint announced he wanted to have his contract extended rather than retire, Needham threw “a chair across the room” in anger, per Politico.
2. There are disputed reports about Needham’s role in DeMint’s ouster. Needham reportedly spoken out of both sides of his mouth to convince Heritage board members to oust DeMint, according to The Atlantic:
To the Trump-averse elements on the board, Needham has pointed to DeMint’s growing coziness with the new administration as evidence that the think tank, a beacon of movement conservatism, needs a new steward. At the same time, Needham has been telling pro-Trump board members like Rebekah Mercer that Heritage needs a leader who will follow the president’s lead — even going so far as to float White House chief strategist Steve Bannon, a key Mercer ally, as a potential future president, according to one source.
The Atlantic quoted sources describing the situation as Needham committing a “coup” against DeMint, although The Washington Examiner quoted sources that disputed reports Needham was behind DeMint’s ouster and said that the Heritage board had simply grown tired of DeMint supposedly turning Heritage into “a personal Senate office.”
Regardless, according to Hemingway, Heritage board members actually planted Friday’s media buzz signaling DeMint’s ouster in order “to give fence-sitters on the board the impression that the momentum was all in one direction.”
3. DeMint loyalists are being purged from Heritage. The Atlantic reported that there are up to five members of the Heritage team who are being let go, with two of them being “group vice president of communications Wesley Denton and group vice president for policy promotion Ed Corrigan.” Both Hemingway and The Washington Examiner have reported that James Wallner, the leader of research at Heritage, was placed on administrative leave after he defended Heritage’s research in a tweet storm.
4. Heritage is already experiencing fallout from conservative lawmakers and donors. According to The Atlantic, the situation with DeMint has created some friction between Congress and Heritage:
One prominent conservative senator, worried about Heritage’s new direction, is cutting ties with the think tank for the foreseeable future, according to an aide. Another Senate source said Heritage staff are no longer welcome at Senate Steering Committee meetings or in several members’ offices as a result of DeMint’s ouster. Amid the upheaval, Heritage abruptly cancelled Monday’s installment of a weekly meeting between conservative Congressional aides and Heritage staffers — a sign that the internal turmoil is already producing uncertainty.
Forty-eight congressional Republicans signed a letter in support of DeMint that was released on Monday night. The letter praises DeMint as a “leading advocate for America at its best” and laments that DeMint being “confronted by overwhelming opposition, bitter criticism, and nagging skepticism — not only from those who openly oppose your philosophical worldview, but occasionally (and quite painfully) from those who purport to embrace it.” The letter treats DeMint’s ouster as a fait accompli.
Additionally, Hemingway was told that “millions of dollars in previous pledges and commitments have been rescinded” after the original reports of DeMint’s ouster broke.
5. DeMint did improve Heritage’s standing as a think-tank. Gaston Mooney, himself a former DeMint Senate aide, noted in Conservative Review that under DeMint, Heritage improved its ranking in the University of Pennsylvania’s list of the best worldwide think tanks from 18th to 12th in a span of four years; the organization is close with the Trump administration, providing conservatives with a voice in the new administration.
“Removing DeMint will weaken Heritage as an institution and will be to the detriment of the conservative movement and our nation,” wrote Mooney.
Former Heritage president Ed Feulner will be leading the search for DeMint’s replacement; it’s clear that he will have to orchestrate a home-run hire to ease the minds of conservatives who are worried about the direction of Heritage following DeMint’s ouster.