Gene Hamilton

Gene Hamilton served in Trump’s DOJ and DHS and is Executive VP and General Counsel of Stephen Miller’s America First Legal. Hamilton is the author of Project 2025’s DOJ chapter, where he calls for moving the FBI under political control and initiating legal action against local District Attorneys who “[refuse] to prosecute criminal offenses in their jurisdictions.” Kevin Roberts, Heritage Foundation president and Project 2025 architect, describes Hamilton as “vital” to “the plan to revitalize this country.”

After serving on the Trump transition team, Hamilton joined the Trump administration as Senior Counselor to the Secretary of Homeland Security, a position he held for the first ten months of the administration. In October 2017, he moved to the DOJ to serve as Counselor to the Attorney General Jeff Sessions, a role he held for then-Senator Sessions. DOJ Inspector General investigations reveal that from the very beginning of the administration, Hamilton played a central role in bringing Donald Trump and Stephen Miller’s immigration agenda to fruition. Documents obtained by American Oversight, and comments by Hamilton himself, reveal a close working relationship between Hamilton and White House Senior Advisor Stephen Miller. Stephen Miller frequently relied on Hamilton to flesh out new anti-immigrant policies.

During his time at DHS, Hamilton was the architect behind President Trump’s policy to end DACA. Before President Trump’s inauguration, Hamilton and Miller discussed canceling the program. Within a few months, Hamilton was in close touch with Texas State AG Ken Paxton regarding state attorneys general threat to sue the federal government if DACA was not canceled. Shortly before the rollout, the Trump Administration promised that DACA recipients’ information wouldn’t be shared with ICE. ProPublica FOIA requests revealed that Hamilton knew ICE already had access to this information, a fact that DHS staff omitted from Congressional testimony remarks. Hamilton ultimately personally drafted the final Rescission released by Acting DHS Secretary Elaine Duke in September 2017.

The DOJ Inspector General (OIG) found that Hamilton was a linchpin in the 2018 “Zero Tolerance” policy. The OIG’s investigation revealed that Session, Hamilton, and select officials from DOJ were a driving force behind the extreme-nature of the policy, aware that the policy would forcibly split up families. Days before the policy’s release, Hamilton reportedly joined an intimate Oval Office meeting with the President, AG Sessions, and Secretary Nielsen to discuss moving forward with as many prosecutions as possible. The following day, Hamilton circulated the draft policy and, two days later, on April 6, 2018, AG Sessions ordered the ‘zero tolerance’ policy for border crossers. That same day, Hamilton worked closely with Miller and the White House on proposals to gut The Flores settlement, the regulation protecting the rights of children in immigration detention. Following the rollout, Hamilton aided Miller in amplifying news stories of criminal allegations against immigrants that sought to paint a false picture for the public of immigrants as dangerous. Hamilton and Miller worked closely on a May 27 White House statement defending the policy and blaming Democrats for the family separations. Hamilton stayed actively involved in the legal challenge to the policy and the shape of future border separation policies.

Hamilton played a pivotal role in various other Trump administration immigration initiatives, including various travel bans, changes to refugee policies, immigration enforcement, and revoking temporary protected status of immigrants, including those from Sudan and South Sudan.

Today, Hamilton serves as the Executive Director, Executive Vice President, and General Counsel of America First Legal (AFL), a legal action group founded by former Trump Administration official Stephen Miller. Hamilton also serves as the Treasurer for Citizens for Sanity, a conservative dark-money PAC mocking progressive policies with advertisements that have been described as racist and transphobic. Hamilton is a vocal Trump ally and the author of the DOJ chapter of the Project 2025 Mandate for Leadership. In the introduction of his chapter, Hamilton states: “At a practical level, not reforming the Department of Justice will also guarantee the failure of that conservative Administration’s agenda in countless other ways.”

Specific proposals that Hamilton wrote include:

“A top-to-bottom overhaul” of the DOJ and FBI: A) “Conduct an immediate, comprehensive review of all major active FBI investigations and activities and terminate any that are unlawful or contrary to the national interest” B) “Align the FBI’s placement within the department and the federal government with its law enforcement and national security purposes.”—moving the FBI under political control, stating, “the fact remains that [t]he Federal Bureau of Investigation is located in the Department of Justice. It is not independent from the department…and does not deserve to be treated as if it were.” C) “Prohibit the FBI from engaging, in general, in activities related to combating the spread of so-called misinformation and disinformation by Americans who are not tied to any plausible criminal activity.”

“…Initiate legal action against local officials—including District Attorneys—who deny American citizens the “equal protection of the laws” by refusing to prosecute criminal offenses in their jurisdictions.”

“Secure the border…In addition to finalizing the southwestern land border wall, the next Administration should take a creative and aggressive approach to tackling these dangerous criminal organizations at the border. This could include use of active-duty military personnel and National Guardsmen to assist in arrest operations along the border.”

“Issue guidance to ensure that litigation decisions are consistent with the President’s agenda and the rule of law.”

“Enforce the criminal prohibitions in 18 U.S. Code §§ 1461 and 1462 against providers and distributors of abortion pills that use the mail.”

Hamilton has also floated that Article 4, Section 4 of the Constitution- an article that says the federal government will protect states against invasion-could refer to immigrants, stating: “Other issues which is what does it mean in article 4 section 4 of the constitution, for the federal government to guarantee against states, to that you’ll protect them from invasion. What does that mean? Does that mean an armed invasion? Does that mean an invasion of people who are unlawfully coming into the country? And if that’s the federal government’s job and the constitution gives it that job and the federal government doesn’t want to do that job then what remedy does a state have? And that, that brings up all kinds of really complicated issues. But it’s really something that I think that we will see play out here, probably over the next couple of years.”

Hamilton has attacked the DOJ, the Biden Administration, and criminal proceedings of Donald Trump, referring to court motions as “deep state”, stating that the 1978 Presidential Records Act is unconstitutional, and staunchly defending a January 6th defendant indicted for assaulting police officers.