Hungary's Hidden Hand in Project 2025

Strategic corruption matters for foreign and domestic policies.

Credit: Don Irvine

The Hungarian government's infiltration of American conservative politics and weaponization of the Heritage Foundation arguably represents one of the most direct and potent attacks on the US using strategic corruption. And Hungarian President Viktor Orbán did it all out in the open over a span of years.

It wasn’t subtle

The Orbán government’s seemingly independent think tanks and foundations began marionetting the Heritage Foundation, a primary author of Project 2025, and other conservatives shortly after the first Trump administration ended. Within a few years, this program had become institutionalized.

The Batthyány Lajos Foundation received substantial government funding, €16.16 million in 2022 and an additional €23.98 million in January 2023. They operate the Danube Institute, which has become Hungary's primary tool for networking in the United States. The Mathias Corvinus Collegium, another Hungarian “foundation,” received even more - over $1.7 billion. For reference, that's more than Hungary spends on its entire higher education system in a year.

Yet, it’s also a colossal bargain. For less than $2 billion, the EU’s poorest nation by several crucial measures infiltrated the US, and convinced it to dismantle its most effective foreign policy tool (USAID), debase the coin of NATO and allied itself with Vladimir Putin while convincing the US president and his enablers in Congress that these were all wise actions.

The Heritage Foundation partnership

In 2022, the Heritage Foundation signed what it called a "landmark cooperation agreement" with the Danube Institute, and Heritage researchers began visiting Budapest annually for joint events.

Kevin Roberts, Heritage's president, praised Orbán's "illiberal state" as "not just a model for conservative statecraft, but the model." Roberts even received a Hungarian state award in October 2024 for his role in strengthening Hungarian-US relations.

This alignment mattered when Heritage began crafting Project 2025. Originally a populist, Orbán purged civil servants, threatened the country’s media, and centralized power. Donald Trump, too, ran as a populist but now governs as a plutocrat, all while changing government to tighten his grip on power – a playbook spelled out in Project 2025 and provided by Orbán.

Follow the money

Hungary’s influence operation involved systematically paying American conservative influencers.

The payments were substantial:

• Rod Dreher received $8,750 per month from the Danube Institute

• Christopher Rufo received $35,000 for lectures and interviews

• Michael O'Shea received $4,500 monthly for writing at least two articles per month on Hungarian family policy

• Jeremy Carl signed contracts for research on topics like "How could the Orbán government tame the Hungarian deep state while keeping Brussels away?"

• Dennis Prager received $30,000 for speeches praising Hungary's policies

None of these people registered for FARA.

Project 2025

Spencer Chretien, Roger Severino, Rick Dearborn, Ed Corrigan, Troup Hemenway all feature in leaked Project 2025 training videos. They all played senior roles with Project 2025. All benefited from Orbán’s program to woo conservatives.

It would be false to claim that Orbán carried out this plan in secret. To be sure, he never declared his intentions, but the US government didn’t pay attention. The Hungarian Public Foundation for the Research of Central and East European History and Society hired Steve Bannon and Milo Yiannopoulos for $60,000 in 2018.

Taking our eye off the ball

Hungary didn't need to hack election systems. It just paid some conservative influencers and called it creating conservative intellectuals. The US government gave Orbán ample time to systematically buy partisans.

Institutional partnerships often fall outside the requirements of FARA; therefore, the Heritage Foundation's cooperation with the Danube Institute was exempt from FARA. Orbán openly exploited this massive loophole.

Hungary's (and Russia’s) foreign policy priorities became talking points at the GOP’s most influential think tank. In December 2023, the Heritage Foundation even sponsored a conference that provided a platform for Hungarian Embassy officials to lobby US Congressmen against military aid to Ukraine.

Who needs espionage?

The Soviets could have never dreamed of an influence operation this effective, perhaps because they attempted such things in secret.

One Hungarian contract explicitly stated that research topics "can serve as an example for the American right-wing." Another described the Danube Institute as "excellent at finding people who can be 'good investments in the long run.'"

The US system failed dramatically to catch this deliberate strategy.

Heritagegate

Russia does not need to put an agent in the White House when a Russian client state can get the same results with “cultural exchanges.” President Trump’s white South African refugee program also came into existence after white South African racists spent years lobbying the Heritage Foundation.

And after El Salvador’s new president, Nayib Bukele, made his first US speech at Heritage, he has remained close to the foundation, which recently declared CECOT to be “making the world safer.”

Strategic corruption doesn't require complex technology; it just requires Americans to sell their country cheaply and a government that isn’t paying attention. Protecting American democracy requires policing the former by remedying the latter.

The influence of foreign money is a significant problem, and the government is struggling to address it. What do you think is the best way to fix this threat to our democracy?