Tuesday · June 17, 2025

DDoSecrets releases 13,726 Project 2025 applicant questionnaire submissions — unredacted version enables first recommendation-to-placement spot-checks

confirmed Importance 8/10 ~2 min read 3 sources 4 actors

What Happened

On June 17, 2025, Distributed Denial of Secrets (DDoSecrets) released a partly-redacted dataset containing 13,726 submissions to the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 application questionnaire, obtained by the hacktivist group SiegedSec. DDoSecrets made an unredacted version — including home addresses and social media account names — available to journalists and researchers only.

The data was analyzed by The Intercept (published July 23, 2025) and other outlets. Analysis confirmed the structure of the ideological-screening questionnaire and enabled the first documented spot-check of application records against confirmed Trump administration nominations.

Key Facts

Scale: 13,726 submissions — substantially exceeding Heritage’s previously public admission of “more than 10,000” vetted candidates.

Questionnaire structure confirmed by leaked data: multiple-choice questions and open-ended queries assessing applicants’ policy stances, political beliefs, admired public figures, and influential readings.

Named case confirmed: Paul Ingrassia’s application was identified in the leaked data. Ingrassia had been nominated to head the Office of Special Counsel (which oversees federal workforce issues and whistleblower protection). His application responses advocated for “restructuring the administrative state” and included support for “ending birthright citizenship, deporting all illegals” and “revising the tests for citizenship, voting.” His Senate confirmation hearing was postponed July 24, 2025.

Structural significance: DDoSecrets co-founder Emma Best stated the collection of applicants’ political beliefs constitutes “demands of ideological purity” incompatible with democratic meritocracy.

What the leak did NOT reveal: The “recommending organizations” field (which Heritage’s database design showed would display candidate-nominating organizations) is not documented as present in the leaked questionnaire submissions. No religious-affiliation data and no stream-by-stream curation metadata appear in the analyzed portions of the leak.

Why This Event Matters

The DDoSecrets leak provides the closest available public-record access to the Heritage Personnel Database’s vetting infrastructure. Its most significant structural contribution is confirming the ideological-screening-over-qualification model at scale (13,726 applicants). Its most significant analytical limitation is that it enables only spot-check confirmation of individual placements, not systematic recommendation-to-placement auditing. The “recommending organizations” metadata — which would enable stream-by-stream curation analysis — is not documented in the leaked data or in any reporting from the leak.

Research Gaps

  • Whether the “recommending organizations” field data exists in the unredacted dataset and has simply not been reported
  • Systematic audit of all 13,726 applicants against confirmed Trump-2 administration appointments
  • Whether the leaked dataset represents a complete or partial copy of the Heritage database

Sources & Citations

[1] Project 2025 Data Leak Shows a Paul Ingrassia Calling for Test for Voting and Halting Immigration — The Intercept · Jul 23, 2025 Tier 2
[2] Leak exposes data on applicants to Heritage Foundation's Project 2025 — SAN · Jun 17, 2025 Tier 2
[3] Heritage Foundation (2024) — Distributed Denial of Secrets · Jun 17, 2025 Tier 2
Tiers Tier 1 court records & gov docs · Tier 2 established outlets · Tier 3 regional & specialty press · Tier 4 opinion or single-source. Methodology →
Cite this entry
The Cascade Ledger. “DDoSecrets releases 13,726 Project 2025 applicant questionnaire submissions — unredacted version enables first recommendation-to-placement spot-checks.” The Capture Cascade Timeline, June 17, 2025. https://capturecascade.org/event/2025-06-17--ddosecrets-releases-project-2025-applicant-database-13726-submissions/