A senior Heritage Foundation staffer has been hired by Advancing American Freedom, joining more than 20 other former Heritage employees who have departed the conservative think tank for AAF over criticism of President Kevin Roberts’ refusal to disavow Tucker Carlson for platforming neo-Nazi influencer Nick Fuentes and Roberts’ handling of the broader fallout.

Andrew Hale, who joined Heritage in 2023, served as the Jay Van Andel senior policy analyst in trade policy at the Thomas A. Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies. He began at AAF, former Vice President Mike Pence’s policy shop, on Tuesday as a fellow specializing in economics, trade policy and international relations. Prior to his time at Heritage, Hale, a dual U.S. and U.K. citizen, worked for both nations’ governments. 

“I can roll with policy changes, but what I can’t roll with is a tolerance or an overlooking of antisemitism or any form of bigotry,” Hale told Jewish Insider in an interview. “I’ve worked for Democrats, Republicans, Labour and Conservative in the U.K., on both sides of the Atlantic. I can roll with policy changes. This is not about that. For me, I feel obligated because I have the freedom to do so and the means to do so. I’m calling out a problem that exists at Heritage and exists in the conservative movement, and we need to exorcize it in a way that the Left has not done well.”

“As someone who used to work for the late holocaust [sic] survivor and human rights advocate Congressman Tom Lantos, I have zero tolerance for any form of bigotry, and I believe most of my fellow Americans feel the same,” he added in a subsequent written statement. “As a student of history, I believe antisemitism has recently been normalized in some quarters on the right and we are right back in the 1930s – and everyone should be aware of where that led.”

Hale cited Roberts’ unwillingness to take down a video posted to Heritage’s social media accounts in late October lashing out at Carlson’s critics, as well as what Hale described as retaliation against those who spoke out against antisemitism at an all-staff meeting in November amid controversy over the video, as reasons for his departure from the think tank.

At the staff meeting, Hale said, “I bit my tongue and I watched others stand up and challenge, and I witnessed those people suffer dearly for that.”

“It was just like they were persona non grata after that,” he added, “And then we had people go around the building saying afterwards that any sort of dissent of any kind will not be tolerated. Those people suffered retaliation. Then we were all threatened and warned never to do that.”

“Afterwards, we were warned not to do that. And if we had a problem and there was a disagreement, we should leave,” he continued. “That offending video that caused all this a couple months ago is still up, and the offending individual hasn’t taken it down. … I just don’t know how that video remains up when it has caused so much damage.”

Hale says he believes the organization “went absolutely off the rails very quickly” following the death of Heritage founder Edwin Feulner last July. He cited the elevation of Ryan Neuhaus to the role of chief of staff, a role Neuhaus has since stepped aside from as a result of the controversy surrounding Roberts’ original video defending Carlson, for which Neuhaus wrote the script. Hale also pointed to Mario Enzler’s appointment as a senior adviser to the president and chief advancement officer despite the fact that Enzler resigned as dean of the business school at the University of St. Thomas, in Houston, Texas, in 2022, amid allegations he had faked several degrees; and Scott Yenor’s appointment as director of the B. Kenneth Simon Center for American Studies despite his well-documented antifeminist record.

Hale noted that he put forward numerous candidates for roles throughout the organization who were rejected because “they didn’t pass vetting, but Mario Enzler passed freaking vetting. As did Scott Yenor. How is that defensible?”

“How did they [Neuhaus, Enzler and Yenor] pass vetting?” he asked. “Who’s allowing this to get through the system? Is it being pushed through? Is there patronage? Is there unfair influence? These are questions that need to be asked.”

He also said that, as a Christian himself, he took issue with the way young Heritage staffers quoted scripture in policy meetings without backing up their proposed arguments otherwise. 

“I’m deeply concerned when we have someone very young, I’m talking about people sometimes in their early 20s, pushing policy and being just like the woke left or woke right, where basically, if you don’t agree with them, you’re evil and they’ll try to cancel you,” Hale told JI. “Someone walking into meetings, be it policy meetings or staff meetings, and quoting scripture at people in a very hostile way, like almost weaponizing scripture.”

“To come into a room in a very mean spirited fashion, yelling Bible verses, I think that’s weaponizing faith and holy scriptures in a sacred text in a very unhealthy way and an offensive way,” he added. “It’s not conducive to interfaith dialog and harmony.” 

Hale argued that there was a difference between how Feulner and Roberts allowed their respective faiths to influence their roles leading Heritage.

“I never knew what Ed Feulner’s religion was. I discovered what it was when he had his funeral at a Roman Catholic Church. I’m also a practicing Christian. I’m Anglican, and my faith is very important to me, but I don’t wear it on my sleeve,” Hale said. “When Ed Feulner was there, he really was about conservatism and he was very philosophical. I know his faith did inform his policies and how he conducted himself, but I find that when there are problems at Heritage and some other organizations, they’re glossed over by simply people quoting a Bible verse or talking about how God told them to do this.”

Hale said he wasn’t concerned about facing career or political repercussions for leaving Heritage for an organization led by Pence, instead asserting that his former employer had lost its influence in D.C. policy circles. 

Asked why he chose to join AAF specifically, Hale said, “They seem to have a much more secure footing. I was very clear when I talked to them that I had no tolerance for this sort of bigotry and they assured me that they didn’t either. I just feel that the atmosphere was just not toxic at all, it was actually all goodness and light, so I’m happy to land there. It’s a great team of people. The fact of the matter is that so many good people whom I knew and worked well with at the Heritage Foundation had left.”

Richard Stern, a vice president at AAF who left Heritage late last month, said in a statement that he was “overjoyed that we were able to persuade Andrew Hale to join our team. He is literally a physical embodiment of the transatlantic relationship with vast economic and foreign policy service in government and business sectors. What is the Heritage Foundation’s loss will now be AAF and the Conservative movement’s gain.”

AAF, founded by Pence in 2021 to advocate for classical conservative principles as President Donald Trump’s MAGA movement cemented its hold on parts of the Republican Party, has hired more than 20 people from Heritage since the controversy began with Roberts’ Oct. 30 video. AAF President Tim Chapman told JI in late December that he expects to continue poaching unhappy Heritage staffers, and revealed at the time that the think tank had nearly completed a $15 million fundraising campaign that they began the month before.

Reached for comment, a Heritage spokesperson told JI,““Heritage is proud to be a leader in the fight against antisemitism and has been for years. Under Dr. Roberts’ leadership, our organization has led more campaigns not just to fight, but to defeat antisemitism than at any other time in Heritage’s history. We have built a world-class team dedicated to our unchanged mission and our leadership is strong and decisive. We are committed to delivering, not for yesterday’s fights, but for tomorrow’s victories. We are united, disciplined, and ready. Onward and upward.”

Tim Chapman, the president of former Vice President Mike Pence’s think tank, said on Monday that he expects his Advancing American Freedom organization to poach more staffers from the Heritage Foundation after announcing the hiring of 15 individuals from the embattled conservative organization.

Advancing American Freedom, founded by Pence in 2021 to advocate for classical conservative principles as President Donald Trump’s MAGA movement cemented its hold on parts of the Republican Party, announced on Monday that 15 Heritage staffers, including three senior officials from the think tank’s legal, economic and data teams, would be moving to AAF at the start of the new year. Chapman, who has been leading the recruitment effort, predicted more Heritage staffers would resign amid continuing frustration over Heritage President Kevin Roberts’ refusal to disavow Tucker Carlson for his platforming of neo-Nazi influencer Nick Fuentes.

“Why I’m so excited about this big move today is because it really supercharges our efforts to be able to be a policy leader on the Capitol Hill and helps us create an institution that will be valuable to policy entrepreneurs,” Chapman told Jewish Insider in an interview on Monday. “These 15 hires that came today will not be the last 15. We expect to see other people leave Heritage and go to AAF and other places as well. We are happy to welcome them.”

Richard Stern, who led Heritage’s economic policy group, and Kevin Dayaratna, who served as Heritage’s chief statistician, were two of the senior officials from the embattled think tank joining AAF along with some members of their team. They are being joined by John Malcolm, Heritage’s vice president of its Institute for Constitutional Government and director of the organization’s Meese Center for Legal and Judicial Studies, who will relocate the center, named for former Attorney General Edwin Meese III, to AAF. 

Chapman helped launch and lead Heritage Action, the think tank’s grassroots advocacy arm, and served as chief of staff to the late Heritage cofounder Edwin J. Feulner during part of his 36-year tenure as the organization’s president. He told JI that AAF began a $15 million fundraising campaign last month to cover the expenses of hiring the outgoing Heritage staffers and raised $13 million within two weeks. 

“We viewed this as a big opportunity to accelerate our growth plans, to become that institution that we’re building. It all happened very fast,” Chapman said.

Chapman said AAF’s quick success with fundraising suggested to him that “there is a market out there amongst conservative philanthropists for reorganization on the right. There were a lot of new donors who came in because they saw the value in the project and the importance of having an institution like the one I’m describing, and a lot of our current donors who stepped up and gave more.”

“It also says to me that there is a very heightened awareness of the downfall of institutions like Heritage, who have shifted their focus,” he explained.

“I look at it as the conservative movement reorganizing itself. The Heritage team that we are bringing over today, these are principled conservatives more in the traditional conservative camp. They wouldn’t think of themselves as nationalist conservatives, or not even necessarily MAGA conservatives,” Chapman said of the Heritage recruits. “There are a lot of things that MAGA fights for that we might be aligned on, but they would view themselves that way [from a more traditional standpoint], and they very much had been feeling stifled over the last two years at the Heritage Foundation.”

“Heritage had been creating an environment internally where the organization’s role as a traditional think tank that stood outside of the Republican Party was not the business plan for the future of the Heritage Foundation,” he added. “They started to think of themselves more as an outside enforcer for the MAGA nationalist perspective, and really began to orient themselves around personalities, whether it’s President Trump or [Vice President] JD Vance or other personalities that hold significant cachet on the right.”

Pence accused the Heritage Foundation of “abandoning its principles” in an interview with The Wall Street Journal on AAF’s recruitment effort. “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,” Pence told the outlet. 

A Heritage spokesperson did not respond to JI’s request for comment on Chapman’s comments or on AAF recruiting more than a dozen of their staffers, though Andy Olivastro, Heritage’s chief advancement officer, was critical of the former employees in a statement to the Journal. 

“Our mission is unchanged, and our leadership is strong and decisive,” Olivastro said. “Heritage has always welcomed debate, but alignment on mission and loyalty to the institution are non-negotiable. A handful of staff chose a different path — some through disruption, others through disloyalty.”