AP Photo/Patrick Semansky
Former Vice President Mike Pence did not mince words about the mass exodus from the influential Heritage Foundation to his own group, Advancing American Freedom, in an interview with The Wall Street Journal on Monday.
The Journal reported that AAF was “slated to hire about 15 of Heritage’s employees including several of its prominent leaders” on Monday, and Pence told the outlet that he believes Heritage has “fallen” and “abandoned its principles” in recent years.
“Why these people are coming our way is that Heritage and some other voices and commentators have embraced big-government populism and have been willing to tolerate antisemitism,” submitted Pence.
From the story:
Among those joining AAF are John Malcolm, the head of the foundation’s legal and judicial studies center, Kevin Dayaratna, the head of the foundation’s data analysis center and Richard Stern, the director of the foundation’s economic policy studies institute. AAF said it is bringing on about a dozen other staff members. Malcolm is taking seven members of his center’s team.
Edwin Meese, the conservative legal elder who served as Ronald Reagan’s attorney general, also announced that AAF will house the Edwin Meese III Institute for the Rule of Law. Heritage’s own legal studies center is presently named after Meese.
The high-profile departures from Heritage are part of the continued fallout from Heritage President Kevin Roberts’s fiery defense of Tucker Carlson’s chummy interview with Nick Fuentes, during which he condemned Carlson’s “venomous” critics. Roberts later walked back his comments, but the weeks since have nevertheless seen three members of Heritage’s board of trustees resign.
One of those former board members, Abby Spencer Moffat, argued that “Heritage’s handling of recent challenges reveals a drift from the principles that once defined its leadership” in her resignation letter.
“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,” continued Moffat, who said she could not “remain on a board unwilling or unable to meet this moment with the clarity and courage it requires.”
