A 22-year-old college grad with no security experience is now leading a government terror prevention team: ‘Putting the intern in charge’

A 22-year-old college graduate with no previous government leadership or security experience is now heading up a Department of Homeland Security terror prevention team.

Thomas Fulgate, a former Heritage Foundation intern and self-described “Trumplican,” has been appointed to a leadership role in the Center for Prevention Programs and Partnerships, known as CP3, which works to combat terrorism, school shootings and other hate-driven violence. This includes an $18 million grant program intended to help communities battle violent extremism.

The appointment of the recent University of San Antonio grad has counterterrorism experts and insiders on edge, ProPublica first reported. “It sounds like putting the intern in charge,” a counterterrorism researcher who has experience working with CP3 told the outlet.

“We’re entering very dangerous territory,” another longtime counterterrorism official said.

Officials spoke out about the appointment as spring saw a number of high-profile, violent incidents, including the recent attack in Boulder, Colorado, the fatal shooting of two Israeli embassy staffers in Washington, D.C., and a car bombing outside a California fertility center.

open image in gallery

Fulgate took over from Army veteran Bill Braniff, who resigned in March after the Trump administration cut 20 percent of his staff.

Braniff has more than 20 years’ experience in national security. “If I cannot advance the prevention mission from inside of the government for now, I will do what I can outside of government,” he wrote in a LinkedIn post announcing his resignation. “CP3 is the inheritor of the primary and founding mission of DHS - to prevent terrorism,” he added.

Braniff’s achievements in the post included funneling nearly $90 million since 2020 toward helping communities tackle extremist violence.

Replacing Braniff with Fulgate is “an insult,” a source told ProPublica. Braniff helped with the move “toward evidence-based approaches to terrorism prevention” in a field still dealing with post-9/11 work that was predisposed to stigmatizing Muslims, the source added.

“They really started to shift the conversation and shift the public thinking. It was starting to get to the root of the problem,” they said. “Now that’s all gone.”

Before taking up the new leadership responsibilities, Fulgate was hired as a “special assistant” in an immigration office at the Department of Homeland Security.

The department told The Independent that Fulgate was “temporarily given additional leadership responsibilities” in CP3 “due to his success.” Staffers he works with, however, have likened meeting with him to “career counseling” while expressing shock at how little he appears to know about the role, the outlet reported.

open image in gallery

According to Fulgate’s LinkedIn profile, he worked as a gardener briefly in 2020 before embarking on fellowships and internships, including at the conservative Heritage Foundation. He worked on the Trump campaign last year where he attended the Republican National Convention. He also served as secretary general of a Model United Nations club.

He also shared photos in recent months at the White House. In one post, he gushed about taking “the first major leap” of his career.

The criticism of the 22-year-old follows similar outrage over Elon Musk’s hiring of teenagers in the Department of Government Efficiency.

Edward Coristine, a 19-year-old Northeastern University drop-out, was part of a group of young DOGE engineers who were given access to critical computer systems as part of the Trump administration’s efforts to gut the federal government.

President Donald Trump stood by the group after widespread criticism earlier this year. “I’m very proud of the job that this group of young people, generally young people, but very smart people, they’re doing,” Trump said.