Despite his anti-elite stance, Vance’s connections reveal a more complex relationship with establishment figures. At the same time, as the former president distances himself from Project 2025—a right-wing policy roadmap aiming to purge the federal government and reshape the executive branch and turn the US into what critics characterize as a Christian nationalist autocratic state—Vance’s Venmo network reveals his ties not just to Halikias but to others associated with a maximalist interpretation of MAGA. Gladden Pappin, for instance—president of the Hungarian Institute of International Affairs and a figure with close ties to the intellectual wing of the far right—shows up as one of Vance’s friends.
Senator Vance’s office declined to comment on the record for this story. In an interview with Newsmax earlier this month, he said that the Project 2025 document has good ideas in it, as well as things he disagrees with. Vance did not elaborate on what exactly those good or bad ideas are. At the time of publication, Vance’s Venmo account remains fully public.
Vance’s friends have an average of 277 friends each. This wider network of associates shows an extended web of accounts who share names with high-profile political figures like Cohen, Nick Ayers, Todd Ricketts, and Michael Flynn Jr., as well as far-right activists like Project Veritas founder James O’Keefe, Laura Loomer, and Ali Alexander.
“What you guys need to realize is that Vance is influenceable,” wrote Andrew Torba on X. Torba is the founder of Gab, a social network popular with conspiracy theorists and Christian nationalists. He has long promoted antisemitic content on his social media accounts. “We have plenty of people in his orbit. Plenty of our guys can be put into positions of power because he’s there.”
“This appears to be his actual personal contacts,” says Jordan Libowitz, the vice president of communications for Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, or CREW. He notes that the data found on Venmo is much more personal than what campaigns typically share through official channels, warning that “the more personal data that is public about someone the more points of pressure or influence there are on that person.”
Few of Vance’s transactions are public, and those that are seem mundane, like a payment to a staff member for doughnuts in January. WIRED also uncovered the Venmo account of his former Senate campaign manager, Jordan Wiggins, which shows a more extensive and occasionally eyebrow-raising transaction history, including more than 50 payments from as early as 2015, some labeled for things like “Back waxing & Happy Ending,” and “adult ????”. While these descriptions are likely jokes between friends, Wiggins didn’t respond to a request for comment.
After WIRED reached out to Vance’s Senate office on Wednesday, Wiggins made his account transactions private.
Experts say that the visibility of Vance’s account could create problems for the high-profile individuals connected to it. “Access to anyone’s social connections can reveal sensitive private information and expose them to security risks,” Jennifer Lynch, general counsel at civil liberties nonprofit the Electronic Frontier Foundation, tells WIRED. High-profile politicians like Vance, Lynch argues, may be especially prone to social engineering attacks and impersonation. “If someone who is a candidate for vice president hasn’t changed his privacy settings, I don’t know how a company can expect the rest of us to stay on top of this.”