Interior adds Project 2025 author to inspector general’s office

A top Democrat disclosed the hire, saying Dennis Kirk doesn’t belong in the independent oversight office at the Interior Department.

August 06, 2026

An architect of Project 2025 who held senior personnel roles in the first Trump administration has joined the Interior Department’s inspector general’s office, according to a top House Democrat.

House Natural Resources ranking member Jared Huffman of California blasted the appointment of Dennis Kirk to the Interior office tasked with independent oversight of the department.

A spokesperson for the inspector general’s office, John Bell, declined to confirm Kirk’s hiring. Kirk did not respond to a request for comment.

A spokesperson for the inspector general’s office, John Bell, declined to confirm Kirk’s hiring. Kirk did not respond to a request for comment.

“Dennis Kirk is a fake and fraudulent watchdog,” Huffman said in a statement. “Everyone should have their eyes wide open. Each and every thing this political puppet does will be in service of Donald Trump.”

Kirk previously worked in the office of former Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, who left the Trump administration earlier this summer.

Caryl Brzymialkiewicz has been serving as Interior’s deputy and acting inspector general since President Donald Trump fired 17 inspector generals across the government en masse days after taking office last year, violating a federal law that requires Congress be notified in advance.

Mark Greenblatt, Interior’s former inspector general who was fired, said in a statement Tuesday that the placement of a “political operative” in the inspector general’s office created a “structural conflict that undermines public confidence in the office’s independence.”

“Placing someone with [Kirk’s] background inside an Inspector General's office raises serious questions about the independence of one of the federal government's most important accountability institutions,” Greenblatt said.

During Trump’s first term, Kirk was associate director of employee services at the Office of Personnel Management. He worked in the Army’s general counsel office during former President George W. Bush’s administration, including as associate general counsel for strategic integration and business transformation.

Kirk was a co-author of the federal workforce chapter in Project 2025, the blueprint led by the Heritage Foundation to overhaul the federal government during Trump’s second term.

Among other recommendations, Kirk’s chapter advocated for firing federal workers, reducing employee pay scales and retirement benefits, toughening performance reviews, and making hiring more similar to a “market model.”

The chapter also encouraged the president to clamp down on government unions and for Congress to prohibit them.

“The specific deficiencies of the federal bureaucracy … are rooted in the progressive ideology that unelected experts can and should be trusted to promote the general welfare in just about every area of social life,” the authors wrote. "The only real solution is for the national government to do less: to decentralize and privatize as much as possible and then ensure that the remaining bureaucracy is managed effectively.”


By:  Ian M. Stevenson
Source: Green Wire