A prominent operative for the ultra-conservative Heritage Foundation and a co-author of the Republican Project 2025 agenda that the organization’s president, Kevin D. Roberts, has said aims to “institutionalize Trumpism” across the government, is being called a hypocrite after The Advocate discovered a photo of him with a friend dressed in drag.
The photo, posted on Yelp on December 12, 2012, and captioned “The good doctor with his lost wife,” shows a younger Mike Howell, Heritage’s executive director of the Oversight Project, smiling alongside a friend in full drag attire. According to Esquire, the Oversight Project is Heritage’s oversight initiative that targets the Biden administration. The initiative, led by Howell, focuses on developing data to support controversial claims and investigations. The project has come under scrutiny for its dubious methods and significant financial investments in efforts to undermine political opponents. Esquire reports that the Oversight Project has even insinuated that the FBI and the Biden administration were involved in the assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump.
Howell’s enjoyment of men in women’s clothes starkly contrasts with his public condemnations of drag culture and the LGBTQ+ community. Howell has been a vocal critic of drag queens and an outspoken opponent of transgender rights and LGBTQ+ rights broadly. His public statements and aggressive actions, including targeting drag queen story hours and asserting that drag culture is harmful to children, make this revelation particularly striking.
For instance, Howell has harshly criticized events like Drag Queen Story Hours, where drag performers read to children in libraries and other community spaces. He has repeatedly voiced concerns about exposing children to drag culture, arguing it is inappropriate and damaging. On social media, Howell has not held back his disdain. On April 25, he posted on X (formerly Twitter): “As the disputed winner of the 2005 election for student president of West Potomac, and with the power that vests in me, I officially condemn on behalf of all Wolverines. It was much easier when it was just MS-13 gang fights. Don’t need the trans sex stuff.”
In another tweet on March 21, Howell remarked: “These are not man bites dogs stories. These are the norm. Frankly, I wish we cleared a drag queen in one of our investigations.” Such statements underline his consistent position against drag culture and the LGBTQ+ community.
In 2023, Howell wrote critically about a “Drag Story Hour” event hosted by Washington, D.C.’s Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library, asserting that drag queens harm children. Howell’s harsh rhetoric targeted organizations like the HRC, which he labeled a “radical LGBTQ group” that is “a major proponent of giving cross-sex hormones to minors, despite science clearly indicating the horrific dangers of this practice.”
Gender-affirming care and access to puberty blockers and hormones for teenagers are, under the care of physicians, safe treatments for transgender youth suffering from gender dysphoria and endorsed by every major American medical association.
The Advocate confirmed the connection between the Yelp account and Howell through open-source intelligence means, which checked if email accounts and phone numbers were connected to various online accounts. A private email address for Howell was linked to the Yelp account named “Fern M.” Further scrutiny of the Yelp account revealed that it often referred to “The Good Doctor” in its reviews, including a photo of Doctor Who actor William Hartnell.
When The Advocate asked him for a comment, Howell confirmed the photo’s authenticity and the Yelp account. “Congratulations on your discovery of Halloween and a satirical Yelp account. I am guilty of enjoying the spirit of mischief that makes Halloween so special,” he wrote, adding, “I will be recommending you for a Pulitzer for your above and beyond journalisming (sic) at your fancy website.” Bans on men dressed in drag in public, like one that is in effect in Tennessee, do not differentiate between Halloween and other days.
GLAAD president and CEO Sarah Kate Ellis pointed to the hypocrisy of Howell’s actions in a statement to The Advocate. “Project 2025 is a dangerous, unhinged playbook showcasing the insidious plans of anti-LGBTQ extremists hell-bent on destroying democracy,” she wrote. “Writing a 1,000-page screed railing against LGBTQ peoples’ mere existence, while in your personal life cavorting with a friend dressed in drag, is the definition of hypocrisy.”
She added, “For anyone who didn’t get it the first time they saw Project 2025, here it is clear as day: its authors believe that cisgender heterosexual white men are free to do whatever they’d like, but the rest of us do not deserve equal rights, jobs, families, or protection from discrimination.”
Sam Lau, spokesperson for the Human Rights Campaign, told The Advocate, “MAGA loyalists don’t care about hypocrisy or consistency—they just care about accumulating power for themselves at the expense of everyone else so they can enact their white nationalist agenda. That’s what the Trump-Vance Project 2025 is all about: a government takeover that threatens our freedoms and rolls LGBTQ+ rights, civil rights, reproductive rights, and more back decades.”
According to his LinkedIn page, Howell has been with the Heritage Foundation for nearly six years and has served in his current role since March.
Howell’s Yelp account comprises five “reviews,” including one of Smith Point, a lounge in D.C.’s Georgetown neighborhood popular with Republicans, which closed in 2017. According to the Washington Post, Smith Point was a magnet for preppy young professionals during the George W. Bush administration. In his comments, Howell wrote: “What a find by the Good Doctor. Entrance to this establishment is rare, but with the right guest one can find themself in quite dignified air. The Good Doctor met a range of the young elite- from those who answer the phones for Congressmen to those who read the letters. Caution is urged because lovers of past can emerge from the corners and darkness without any notice.”
Howell also left a “review” for Clermont Lounge, a well-known strip club in Atlanta. His LinkedIn profile details his various roles in Georgia, including legal intern positions with Republican U.S. Rep. Rob Woodall, who served in Congress from 2011 until 2021, and the Department of Justice, as well as a legal externship with the Department of Homeland Security, all between 2012 and 2013. In his review of the Clermont Lounge, Howell wrote: “Finally a place in this charming American city where the Good Doctor can enjoy the company of those near his age during the dwindling twilight hours. The dancers move with an exotic and instinctive precision that reminds me of my many travels to the remote villages of the Pacific Islands.”
The revelations about Howell come on the heels of his aggressive behavior toward SiegedSec, a group of self-described “gay furry hackers” that targeted the Heritage Foundation in early July to protest Project 2025. In chat logs released by SiegedSec, Howell called them “degenerate perverts” and threatened to expose the group, the Intercept reports. “You cannot hide. Your means are minuscule compared to mine,” he wrote. Howell, who confirmed the authenticity of the chat logs to the Daily Dot, told one of SiegedSec’s leaders, “Are you aware that you won’t be able to wear a furry tiger costume when you’re getting pounded in the ass in the federal prison I put you in next year?”
Related: Gay furry hackers target Heritage Foundation
Heritage’s influence in Republican politics is significant. As a co-author of the more than 900-page Project 2025, the manifesto proposes radical changes, including the elimination of non-discrimination protections, the eradication of federal funding for diversity, equity, and inclusion programs, and the dismantling of LGBTQ+ rights. Project 2025 also advocates for banning transgender people from military service, stating explicitly, “Transgender individuals are not eligible for military service in any capacity.” The plan’s broader implications include closing the Department of Education, implementing ROTC requirements for all students in public schools, and enabling employers to eliminate overtime pay.
The Heritage Foundation’s sway extends to former President Donald Trump’s vice-presidential pick, Ohio U.S. Sen. JD Vance. Vance, who has a history of shifting stances, has been a vocal opponent of LGBTQ+ rights despite his memoir detailing a childhood experience when he struggled with his sexuality that might have fostered empathy toward the community. He has reinvented himself multiple times, changing his name twice and going from staunch anti-Trumper who once called him “America’s Hitler” to showing fealty to the twice-impeached former president, a multiply convicted felon. His changing tunes have led to accusations of hypocrisy similar to Howell’s.
According to NBC News, Trump has attempted to distance himself from Project 2025, describing its authors as part of the “severe right” and calling some of its provisions “seriously extreme.” However, the close involvement of numerous Trump allies in crafting the plan undermines these denials, exposing the deep connections between the former president and the controversial agenda. Media Matters reports that Vance wrote the foreword for Roberts’ forthcoming book, Dawn’s Early Light: Taking Back Washington to Save America, with proceeds benefiting Heritage. This further cements the deep ties between Trump’s campaign and Project 2025.
“The deranged Project 2025 and the extremists behind it at the Heritage Foundation have never been credible with fair-minded Americans, and the more Americans learn, the more they are going to continue to distance themselves from and denounce it all,” Ellis said. “This election year is a fight for our lives, and we are doing all we can to educate Americans about the candidates’ track records with Project 2025, LGBTQ people, and issues important to all marginalized communities.”
