Wesley Denton

Denton has nearly 20 years of Capitol Hill experience and is widely respected as one of the most skilled communications experts in the conservative movement. In 2019, he took a leave of absence from CPI to serve in President Donald J. Trump’s administration at the White House’s Office of Management & Budget (OMB). During his time at OMB, he served as acting Chief of Staff overseeing a workforce of more than 500, and as Senior Communications Advisor during the release of the President’s Fiscal Year 2020 Federal Budget. Earlier in his career, he spent more than a decade working in Congress. He served as Communications Director for U.S. Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC) from 2005 to 2013 and for U.S. Representative Joe Wilson (R-SC) from 2002-2005. He also served in the press office of the U.S. House Armed Services Committee in 2001. Beginning in 2013, Denton worked at The Heritage Foundation as a Senior Policy Advisor and launched the American Perceptions Initiative, a research project devoted to understanding how Americans view conservative policies and ways to better communicate their benefits to the individual. He went on to become Group Vice President of Communications, where he oversaw the organization’s public relations, digital, video and marketing teams, as well as The Daily Signal, a conservative news outlet. Denton, the institute’s chief operating officer and a former Trump administration official, said he also had been paid by Compass Professional in 2023, one of the vendors. Denton’s annual compensation, with benefits, from CPI was $391,735 in 2023. He declined to say how much he received from Compass Professional. He was on the board of both the vendor and the institute. Denton was born in Evansville, IN, and grew up in Beaufort, SC. He graduated from Clemson University in 1999. He and his wife, Kari, have four children and reside in Virginia.