Papa Johns, Propaganda and Putin: How a MAGA Influencer With Ties to Russia Became Trump’s Arctic Adviser

For more than 40 years, the U.S. Arctic Research Commission has advised Congress and the president on what to study in the frigid and dynamic far north, from the environment to military security. It’s typically done so without making waves, led by people well-versed in science and public policy.

That was until December, when President Donald Trump appointed a Texas venture capitalist and MAGA influencer with no formal background in science as the commission’s chair. Since then, Thomas Dans has traveled the globe generating headlines. Serving as the administration’s main voice on the Arctic, he’s advanced some of the president’s wildest ambitions, like a takeover of Greenland, and rankled NATO allies in the process.

Yet as Dans holds forth in the U.S. and abroad, it’s not always clear where the administration’s agenda ends and his own begins.

He has repeatedly said, for example, that the U.S. needs more icebreakers, ships that Trump has long viewed as critical to dominating the Arctic. In doing so, Dans has championed one shipbuilder in particular — Damen Shipyards, a Dutch company with which he had a business relationship.

“They’re the largest builder of icebreakers and ice-class vessels in the world,” Dans said at an event in Anchorage, Alaska, in April. At the time, his consultancy was working to help Damen land an icebreaker contract with the federal government.

As he’s spoken to audiences of government officials, diplomats, academics and journalists, Dans — who wears his Arctic commission lapel pin and exudes a professorial air — has also waded into foreign policy.

In the media and at public events, he’s backed Trump’s push to take over Greenland. And he’s advocated enthusiastically for closer U.S. relations with Russia — even as a bipartisan group of lawmakers calls for tougher sanctions on the country and more aid to Ukraine. Dans and Damen have long done business in Russia, and Dans has regularly shared social media posts that reflect a pro-Kremlin viewpoint.

“We want a peaceful Arctic, we want a peaceful world,” he said at an event a few days after he announced plans to travel to Moscow. “Russia and the United States gotta get along for that to happen.”

Opining so broadly on foreign policy is “far beyond” the Arctic Research Commission’s scientific mandate, said Fran Ulmer, who served as commission chair for more than nine years before being replaced by Trump in 2020. “And certainly outside the bounds of what the U.S. Arctic Research Commission has done in the past.”

Dans, whose consultancy Almiranta Strategies “advises investors and businesses working in the Arctic,” according to his profile on the Arctic commission’s website, is far from the first in the Trump administration to mingle public and personal interests. The finances of many senior officials and the industries they regulate have drawn scrutiny as Trump has disarmed government safeguards against conflicts.

“It’s become standard for people to pursue their personal financial interest,” said Robert Weissman, co-president of the nonprofit watchdog Public Citizen.

Under the law, Dans’ position gives him access to government information from other federal agencies — an arrangement that could benefit his private interests. Such potential conflicts are typically governed by federal ethics rules. But the nature of Dans’ role affords him more leeway than other appointees. Commission members are not considered government employees and thus not required to file an ethics form disclosing conflicts.

Indeed, a White House official told ProPublica that Dans’ consulting work did not constitute a conflict of interest for that very reason.

“Tom Dans is doing a great job leading the Arctic Research Commission, and his shipbuilding expertise has helped him succeed in this role,” said White House spokesperson Anna Kelly. “The President appreciates all he is doing to advance American interests in the Arctic.”

The White House official said Dans is one of two commission members the law designates as representatives of “the interests of industry.”

Even so, Dans’ lack of research experience stands out. The other industry rep is a Ph.D. and former director of the United States Geological Survey.

Dans declined multiple requests to be interviewed for this story and did not respond to written questions from ProPublica, but he told The New York Times this year that his post did not preclude him from working in private business.

The Arctic commission has arguably never been more important. The region is warming at unprecedented rates, accelerating sea-level rise and causing severe weather in the U.S. and elsewhere. The melting ice also has geopolitical consequences. Russia and China are conducting joint military exercises in the far north. New shipping lanes have opened there. And mineral deposits are becoming potentially more accessible.

At a public appearance in July, Dans cited the commission’s four priorities: military and national security, energy security, economic development in the Arctic and “what we’ll call ‘community security.’” He did not define the term.

From Russia, With Love

Dans has long been taken with Russia, the country that has by far the most Arctic coastline.

His fondness dates back at least to seventh grade, when he says he was recruited to learn Russian in his Maryland public school. He later visited Moscow as an exchange student, then returned to work in finance in the mid-1990s.

He worked at a private equity fund financed by the U.S. Agency for International Development, which aimed to grow the private sector after the Soviet Union’s breakup. In a LinkedIn post last year, he reminisced about how he and Kirill Dmitriev, a Harvard-educated banker who now serves as Russian President Vladimir Putin’s intermediary with Trump officials, traveled in the same circles early in their finance careers.

Decades later, in Trump’s first term as president, Dans landed a job in the Treasury Department as a senior policy adviser for international affairs. There, he served on a secret National Security Council task force on U.S. control of Greenland, a role first reported by The New Yorker. A former Trump administration official told ProPublica the group’s purpose was to strengthen the United States’ strategic position in Greenland and devise policies to bring the two closer.

Perhaps because of that work, Trump named Dans to the Arctic Research Commission for the first time in late 2020. His tenure was short-lived. When President Joe Biden took office in 2021, the new administration fired Dans and three other Trump appointees.

Dans was angry.

“We were fired without notice and anonymously slandered by the White House for ‘lacking relevant expertise,’” he wrote in The Hill. “At the time, I was the first commissioner in the agency’s 37-year history to speak fluent Russian, the language of the world’s largest Arctic nation.”

Dans launched an investment firm with two other former Trump Treasury officials, but it was short-lived, closing in late 2023. That year, Dans said on Substack that he was the “first American” to launch an effort to buy the Helsinki Shipyard in Finland, where about half the global icebreaker fleet was built. One of its Russian owners at the time was a business partner of a former Putin deputy minister. The effort failed.

He traveled the world, talking with officials in places like Uzbekistan, Ukraine and Romania. He lobbied on behalf of the Kazakhstan Embassy and that country’s state-owned national oil and gas company, records show. He devised policy recommendations “for Ukraine’s postwar reconstruction” as a visiting fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation, his LinkedIn profile says. He also contributed to Heritage’s federal workforce-slashing Project 2025, of which his twin brother Paul was director.

Then in May 2024, he launched a nonprofit called American Daybreak. Its goal was to foster ties between the U.S. and Greenland.

After Trump’s victory, Dans promised in comments on Substack that “the next Trump Admin is going to Make America a Great Arctic (MAGA) nation!” In early January 2025, Dans and American Daybreak helped arrange a visit by Donald Trump Jr. and late conservative activist Charlie Kirk to the Arctic island. He then sought to bring Vice President JD Vance’s wife, Usha, to watch a popular dog sled race (the trip was scaled back after protests). Dans also enlisted Greenland’s most outspoken MAGA enthusiast, a bricklayer named Jørgen Boassen, whom Dans has called a “good friend,” to generate support for U.S. control of Greenland.

“The Best Icebreakers in the World”

Dans was not named to a new full-time post in the second Trump administration. But he remained in the Trump orbit.

He was a frequent guest on conservative activist and former Trump adviser Steve Bannon’s “War Room” podcast. He spoke for one episode from Romania, plugging far-right Romanian presidential candidate George Simion (who was later seen with Republicans at the Kennedy Center cutting up a cake shaped like Greenland with American flag frosting). “There’s a phenomenon here that’s the silent George Simion voter, kind of like your silent Trump voter,” Dans told Bannon. “And that’s significant.” (Simion lost and afterward unsuccessfully sought to have the election annulled.)

By August of last year, Dans found another opportunity in the private sector. He posted on LinkedIn that he was “very excited to announce that I am working with Damen Shipyards Group, one of the world’s leading shipbuilders.”

At the time, Dutch prosecutors were investigating the company for supplying Russia with equipment that they said could be used for military purposes, in violation of European sanctions. In his post, Dans shared a photo of himself arm-in-arm with three high-ranking company executives, including Rutger Dolk, who was later detained by Dutch authorities as part of the probe. The case is ongoing. (Dolk did not respond to a request for comment. In response to questions, Damen shared a press release that said it “has always acted in accordance with the applicable sanctions packages and that full transparency has been exercised about its activities.”)

Dans said he was working with the shipbuilder “to bring some of the best icebreakers in the world to the United States” and noted that the U.S. Navy had recently chosen Damen “to help it fast-track a new fleet” of a different type of vessel: up to 35 medium-sized ships to move troops and supplies to shorelines. According to records, the Navy bought the designs for the ship from Damen for $3.3 million without going through the typical bidding process, saying it would save time and money to go with a “proven” design. (The Navy did not respond to requests for comment.)

In December, Trump appointed Dans to head the Arctic Research Commission. The announcement said Dans’ primary focus as a businessman was “shipbuilding and transportation where, among other projects, he is leading an effort to develop icebreakers and ice-class vessels for the United States while helping restore America’s Maritime Base.”

Since then, Dans has championed Damen in conversations and at a public appearance. In April, he said that “outside of the commission, I wear a hat working for one of the world’s largest shipbuilders, which is a group called Damen.”

While ProPublica was reporting this story, Damen terminated its agreement with Dans, which would have paid him if the company got a contract to build an icebreaker.

If Dans was seeking to advance Damen’s interests, he may have been required under the law to register either as a lobbyist or a foreign agent, said Josh Rosenstein, an attorney who is an expert on the Foreign Agents Registration Act. Documents show he’d done neither.

“It certainly would raise questions, you know, in my mind about what sort of interactions he, on behalf of Damen, had with the U.S. government,” Rosenstein said. “And with whom.”

The White House pushed back. “These so-called ‘experts’ have no idea what they are talking about,” said Kelly, the spokesperson.

Whether Dans has other business ties that could impact his government job is unclear. When at the Treasury, he reported holding a stake in Global Restaurant Management LLC, the parent company of a firm that operated multiple Papa Johns restaurants in Russia at the time. The status of that investment — which Dans reported had a value of between $250,000 and $500,000 — isn’t publicly known today because he’s no longer required to disclose his financial interests.

Christopher Wynne, who headed Global Restaurant Management, said he could not discuss another person’s investments.

Unlike most high-level presidential appointees, the Arctic commission chair — who is eligible only for a stipend of up to about $55,000 a year — is not a federal employee under the law. And while the commission has a policy seeking to prevent conflicts of interest, there are no penalties for violating it.

Dans’ outside commitments could be problematic if he used his access to the federal government to improperly benefit another employer or country, said Virginia Canter, who served as an ethics lawyer at the White House and other agencies during Republican and Democratic presidencies.

“The fact that he has foreign entanglements and access to government-wide information,” she said, “it should raise national security concerns.”

ProPublica asked the White House about Canter’s comments but it did not respond.

A Chilly Reception in Greenland

Tensions over Greenland, which is a semiautonomous territory of Denmark, have flared since Dans returned to the Arctic commission.

A month into Dans’ tenure as commission chair, Trump said he would take Greenland “one way or the other.” He initially refused to rule out military force. Dans echoed Trump, telling the BBC that month that “everything’s on the table.”

While Dans is a minor player in the federal government, “when he speaks, international audiences and officials see him as representing U.S. policy,” said Heather Conley, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. In his first five months as chair, Dans spoke often to the foreign press and traveled to locales that included Denmark, Norway, Italy and Canada — as well as Mar-a-Lago in Florida and the Explorer’s Club in New York City, records show. The commission spent about $87,000 on his travel expenses.

He did not return to Greenland. But the administration’s rhetoric put Denmark on a war footing. The country sent soldiers to Greenland armed with explosives and plans to blow up airfields in the event of an American invasion. At one point, a Greenlandic politician told ProPublica, some schoolchildren were instructed to practice hiding under their desks in case of such an event.

Greenlanders have repeated a refrain: Open for business, not for sale. Dans’ remarks only seem to have further deepened divisions. In February, while at a conference in Norway, he was caught on a hot mic telling a Greenlandic politician that “the check’s in the mail.” A former chairman of the Arctic Research Commission, Michael Sfraga, was at the same conference and publicly told the politician to “rip the check up.”

Trump has continued to press the cause. In mid-July, he posted a picture on Truth Social of a map that included Greenland with the American flag superimposed on it.

The rhetoric has had consequences for Arctic research. Several Danish researchers said they will no longer participate in research with the U.S. One noted that her colleagues avoided Dans at a recent conference.

Dans’ current role in Greenland is unclear. He said at a recent conference he is not involved in talks among negotiators for the U.S., Greenland and Denmark that began earlier this year. In May, Trump’s special envoy to Greenland, Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry, and the U.S. ambassador to Denmark, Ken Howery, attended a business conference in the capital of Nuuk without Dans. Landry and Howery appeared for photo ops and opened a new, bigger consulate building, as protesters shouted outside.

A White House official told ProPublica that Greenland is “critical from the standpoint of U.S. national security” and “we are very optimistic that we’re on a good trajectory” in the diplomatic talks. The official did not address Dans’ role.

Reposting Russian Propaganda

Official visits to Russia have been exceedingly rare since the U.S. and its European allies froze ties with the country after it invaded Ukraine in 2022, yet at his appearance in Anchorage in April Dans announced that he was planning to go to Moscow “probably in the next month” to discuss research cooperation. The trip never happened; the State Department’s official guidance on Russia is “Do Not Travel for Any Reason.”

Asked about Dans’ push for reestablishing ties and travel plans, a State Department spokesperson referred questions to Dans.

His social media feed on X is filled with foreign news accounts, sometimes from outlets sympathetic to the Kremlin.

He reposted a story last October from Kazakh media on Putin’s warning that the U.S. would fracture relations with Russia if it supplied Ukraine with Tomahawk missiles.

In May, he wrote of his grandfather’s participation in the perilous Murmansk Run to supply the Soviet Union during World War II. “Happy Victory Day,” Dans wrote in Russian and English, reposting a video of Putin from Russian state media laying flowers at a soldiers’ memorial. The original poster of the video has been called a source of Russian propaganda by the Ukrainian government.

“Everyone obviously needs to be incredibly cautious when you’re reposting Russian information,” Conley said, because such posts could promote a narrative that is “against U.S. national interests.”

Posting “Happy Victory Day” in Russian may sound innocuous, but it is “a super-loaded thing to do right now,” she added. Putin has conjured Russia’s World War II victory when talking about Ukraine, even equating Ukrainians to Nazis in Germany.

The White House did not respond to questions about Dans’ Russia-related posts.

Under Putin, Russia has tied its future to the Arctic and the region’s natural resources, including liquefied natural gas. U.S. sanctions, which targeted the country’s energy sector, have set those efforts back — something that Russia has sought to reverse in ongoing talks with the Trump administration.

Dans has remarked on the developments on social meda, calling Dmitriev, the Russian who now serves as a key Putin negotiator with the Trump administration, “the Kremlin’s ace in the hole.”

“We’re older now and have some grey hair, but it’s neat to see who the Trump Administration is negotiating with,” Dans wrote of Dmitriev, who rose to head one of Russia’s sovereign wealth funds before being sanctioned by the Biden Treasury Department in 2022 for his ties to Putin and work raising funds from the U.S.

Asked about Dans’ calls for cooperation, Kelly, the White House spokesperson, said: “President Trump and his entire administration are willing to work with anyone in order to advance American interests, including peace in the Russia-Ukraine War. This approach has helped the United States bring both sides of the conflict together for historic peace talks.”

Dans seemed to downplay any differences with the Trump administration over Russia in one recent appearance, where he told an audience that included State Department officials, Russian Embassy personnel and Greenlandic diplomats that “getting Russia-Ukraine war ended, I think, is a priority. Stopping the killing.”

But the following month, in July, Dans opened and closed his remarks at a conference in Aspen by calling Russia a “neighbor.” He again urged that the U.S. repair its relationship.

“We need to be able to communicate with the Russians,” he said. “We’ve got some very important things to clear up with them with Ukraine, absolutely, but we have to work towards peace in the Arctic.”

Kelly said there was “nothing controversial about Mr. Dans’ remarks calling for an end to years of bloodshed and expanded dialogue.”