Leonard A. Leo

Leonard A. Leo CAPTION
Name	Leonard Leo
Born	1965
Birthplace	Northport, New York, USA
Nationality	American
Education	Cornell University (BA, JD)
Founder	CRC Advisors
Title	Chairman
Political party	Republican Party
Description
Known for
Notable associations	National Co-Chairman, Catholic Outreach, Republican National Committee Catholic Strategist, George W. Bush Presidential campaign, 2004 Close associate of Clarence Thomas Creative Response Concepts | CRC Advisors Executive Vice President, Federalist Society, until 2020-01 (retained role as co-Chairman, Board of Directors, Federalist Society)
Spouse	Sally Leo
Children	7

Background

Leonard A. Leo (born 1965) is an American lawyer and conservative activist.

Leonard Leo has led campaigns to support the Supreme Court nominations of John Roberts,  Samuel Alito,  Neil Gorsuch, and Brett Kavanaugh. In 2017 (before Justice Kavanaugh's appointment and confirmation), legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin wrote that Leonard Leo was "responsible, to a considerable extent, for one third of the justices on the Supreme Court." Leonard Leo described himself in 2019 as "a leader of the conservative legal movement."

Early life and education

Leonard Leo was born on Long Island, New York in 1965, and raised in suburban New Jersey to a family of practicing Catholics. Leonard Leo's grandfather, an Italian immigrant, was a Vice-President of Brooks Brothers. Leonard Leo attended Cornell University, graduating with a bachelor's degree in 1986, and working as an intern in the office of Senator Orrin Hatch. Leonard Leo completed a J.D. [Juris Doctor] degree at Cornell Law School in 1989, then clerked for federal judge A. Raymond Randolph of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

While studying law at Cornell, Leonard Leo founded a student chapter of the Federalist Society in 1989, and subsequently went to work for the Federalist Society in 1991 in Washington, D.C. In 2019, The Washington Post reported that the Federalist Society had paid Leo an annual wage of more than $400,000 for a number of years.

Career

Leonard Leo served as National Co-Chairman of Catholic Outreach for the Republican National Committee, and as the 2004 George W. Bush presidential campaign's Catholic Strategist. Leonard Leo was appointed by President George W. Bush and the United States Senate to three terms on the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom. Leonard Leo has been a U.S. Delegate to the UN Council and UN Commission on Human Rights as well as the Organization of Security and Cooperation and World Health Assembly. Leonard Leo has served as an observer at the World Intellectual Property Organization and as a member of the U.S. National Commission to UNESCO.

Leonard Leo organized efforts in support of the confirmations of John Roberts and Samuel Alito to the U.S. Supreme Court. Leonard Leo received the 2009 Bradley Prize from the extremely conservative Bradley Foundation.

Leonard Leo has been published in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Huffington Post. Leonard Leo is a board member of the National Catholic Prayer Breakfast and a member of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta.

Leonard Leo met Clarence Thomas while clerking in the Appeals Court and the two became close friends. Leonard Leo delayed his start at the Federalist Society to assist Thomas in his Supreme Court confirmation hearings.

In 2003, when George W. Bush intended to criticize the practice of affirmative action in a speech but praise racial diversity, Leonard Leo called White House officials to complain. Leonard Leo said that the praise for racial diversity would "disgust any conservative who thinks that this is a matter of principle." Leonard Leo told the Washington Post, he "was conveying the widely shared belief among conservatives that discriminating on the basis of race is always wrong and inconsistent with the dignity and worth of every person." Leonard Leo helped to push the Bush administration's nomination of Miguel Estrada to the judiciary.

In 2012, Leonard Leo was on the boards of the Catholic Association and its affiliate Catholic Association Foundation. These two organizations ran campaigns opposing the legalization of same-sex marriage.

In 2016, after the death of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, Leonard Leo helped arrange funding to rename George Mason University's Law School the Antonin Scalia Law School. Leonard Leo was also identified by 2017 Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch as the person who first contacted Gorsuch about the possibility of President Donald Trump appointing Gorsuch to the seat vacated by Scalia's death.

In 2019, The Washington Post wrote of Leonard Leo, "few people outside government have more influence over judicial appointments now than Leo." Between 2014 and 2017, Leonard Leo raised more than $250 million in "dark money" donations (donations where donors do not have to disclose their identity), which was in part used to support conservative policies and judges. Leonard Leo has said of Mitch McConnell, who has broken records in seating Republican judicial nominees, that he was "the most consequential majority leader, certainly, in modern history."

In January 2020, Leonard Leo announced that he would be leaving his position as Executive Vice President at the Federalist Society to start a new group, CRC Advisors [Creative Response Concepts (CRC)].

• CRC Advisors is a conservative public affairs consulting firm modeled off of the liberal advisory group Arabella Advisors. CRC Advisors has lobbied against climate change mitigation policies. Leonard Leo remained in his role as co-Chairman of the Federalist Society's Board of Directors.

• In 2018, Creative Response Concepts' (CRC) clients included the Federalist Society, and the Judicial Crisis Network.

In 2019, CRC helped promote conservative pundit Stephen Moore's nomination to serve on the U.S. Federal Reserve Board. CRC said it had not been paid to advocate on Moore's behalf.

Creative Response Concepts is closely associated with the conservative activist Leonard A. Leo.

Personal life

Leonard Leo is Roman Catholic. Leonard Leo has seven children with his wife, Sally. Their daughter Margaret died in 2007 at the age of 14 from spina bifida. Leonard Leo has spoken about the profound impact her life had on him.

In 2019, The Washington Post reported that the Federalist Society had paid Leonard Leo an annual wage of more than $400,000 for a number of years. In 2016, Leonard Leo received $120,000 for his work for the Catholic Association.

Works

Additional Reading

Honest Elections Project

Elections and the judiciary: DonorsTrust funded more than 99% of the Judicial Education Project, a legal alias for Honest Elections Project and The 85 Fund. /p>

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... The Judicial Education Project is also closely linked to Leonard A. Leo, one of the most powerful people in Washington who has shaped Trump's unprecedented effort to remake the federal judiciary with conservative judges.

The organization has deftly hidden the changes to its name from public view. In December 2019, the Judicial Education Project formally changed its legal name to The 85 Fund, a group Leonard Leo backed to funnel "tens of millions" of dollars into conservative causes, according to Axios. The Honest Elections Project is merely a fictitious name -- an alias -- the fund legally adopted in February 2020. The change was nearly indiscernible because The 85 Fund registered two other legal aliases on the same day, including the Judicial Education Project, its old name. The legal maneuver allows it to operate under four different names with little public disclosure that it is the same group.

The Judicial Education Project is closely aligned with the Judicial Crisis Network, a group with unmatched influence in recent years in shaping the federal judiciary. The Judicial Crisis Network spearheaded the campaigns to get Gorsuch and Kavanaugh confirmed to the Supreme Court, spending millions of dollars in each instance. It has also spent significantly on critical state supreme court races across the country.

There is a lot of overlap between the Honest Elections Project and the Judicial Crisis Network. Both groups share personnel, including Carrie Severino, the influential president of the Judicial Crisis Network. Both groups have been funded by The Wellspring Committee, a group Leonard Leo raised money for until it shut down in 2018. Both have also paid money to BH Group, an LLC Leonard Leo once disclosed as his employer, that made a $1 million mystery donation to Trump's inauguration.

• Carrie Severino is married to The Heritage Foundation member Roger Severino, who as a member of the Trump administration spearheaded a Draconian, Presidency of Donald Trump">Christian-right-influenced evisceration of transgender rights.

The Judicial Crisis Network also rebranded in recent months, changing its name in December 2019 to The Concord Fund. The Concord Fund then registered Judicial Crisis Network, its old name, as an alias.

"This is a small community that is really trying to push forward these more suppressive tactics that will be challenged in court and having those judges on the bench, they're really hoping it's going to continue to rig the system in their favor," said Lena Zwarensteyn, who closely follows judicial nominations at the Leadership conference. "By changing the rules of the game and who the referees are, they're trying to change the landscape." ...

In a 2018 address to the Federalist Society,   Supreme Court of the United States Justice Clarence Thomas "joked" that Leonard Leo - a right-wing operative - was the "number three most powerful person in the world." Clarence Thomas may need to revise his ranking. For decades, Leonard Leo has worked to reshape the American judiciary. Leonard Leo first met Clarence Thomas in 1990 in Washington, D.C., when Leonard Leo was a law clerk and Clarence Thomas was an appellate judge. Leonard Leo then helped "Thomas through his contentious confirmation process for the Supreme Court" before decamping to work at the Federalist Society. As the Federalist Society's longtime executive vice president, Leonard Leo cultivated an entire generation of lawyers and judges that shared Clarence Thomas' far-right judicial philosophy.

While maintaining his day job at the Federalist Society, Leonard Leo began developing a network of conservative donors to help confirm these ideological foot soldiers to the federal bench. During the George W. Bush administration, Leonard Leo helped raise millions of dollars - much of which was funneled into a new non-profit, the Judicial Crisis Network - to support the confirmations of U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Samuel Alito and U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts. The money was spent "on ads, telemarketing and the mobilization of 'grassroots' groups."

During the Trump administration, Leonard Leo's influence expanded. Leonard Leo raised more money through an opaque network of interlocking non-profit groups. At times, Leonard Leo took a leave of absence from the Federalist Society to formally join the White House - advising then-President Donald Trump on Supreme Court of the United States nominees, and working to secure their confirmation to the U.S. Supreme Court. Leonard Leo played a central role in the selection and confirmation of U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justices Neil Gorsuch,   Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett. The right-wing supermajority on the U.S. Supreme Court reflects Leonard Leo's vision, and it has already resulted in radical changes to the U.S. Supreme Court. In 2022, these U.S. Supreme Court justices overturned Roe v. Wade, and kneecapped the federal government's ability to combat climate change  [anthropogenic climate change  |  climate change denial].

But Leonard Leo is not satisfied. Leonard Leo has stepped down from his day-to-day responsibilities at the Federalist Society to pursue an even more audacious agenda. According to reports by ProPublica and The New York Times, Leonard Leo recently raised $1.6 billion for a new political advocacy group, Marble Freedom Trust. That money came from a single donor, ultra secret Republican businessman Barre Seid. These funds will be available for Leonard Leo to pursue Leo's latest initiative: an effort to give state legislatures unfettered authority over federal elections. It is a fringe legal argument advanced by Donald Trump's lawyers in their effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election  []. If adopted by the federal courts, it could throw 2024 United States presidential election and future elections into chaos. But it is being taken very seriously by Leonard Leo and several of his allies on the Supreme Court of the United States.

Taking an unserious theory very seriously

In a series of opinions authored by U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts, the U.S. Supreme Court has already gutted many federal voting rights protections. In 2019, for example, John Roberts ruled that federal courts cannot do anything about partisan gerrymandering. The ruling means that if the party in control of a state legislature manipulates political maps to enhance its power, federal courts can do nothing.

North Carolina is a closely divided state. In 2020, Donald Trump - with 49.93% of the vote - narrowly defeated Joe Biden, with 48.59% of the vote. But, after the 2020 United States census, Republicans in the North Carolina legislature  [North Carolina General Assembly] created gerrymandered Congressional districts that were so extreme that an evenly divided popular vote would result in "10 of the 14 seats to the Republicans, and only four to the Democrats." The Congressional map created by the Republican legislature [North Carolina General Assembly] "was a radical statistical outlier more favorable to Republicans than 99.9999% of all possible maps."

Federal courts - after U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Robert's ruling - were not going to get involved. But North Carolina voters sued in state court, arguing the gerrymandered maps "violated the [North Carolina] constitution's 'free elections clause,' among other provisions." The North Carolina Supreme Court agreed with this argument, calling the gerrymandered maps "an egregious and intentional partisan gerrymander ... designed to enhance Republican performance, and thereby give a greater voice to those voters than to any others." The North Carolina legislature effectively ignored that state court decision, and produced another gerrymandered map. Ultimately, the state courts ordered "a special master to create a fair map for the 2022 congressional elections  [2022 United States elections]."

Two Republican members of the North Carolina legislature filed an emergency appeal with the North Carolina Supreme Court seeking to restore the gerrymandered maps. The basis of the appeal is a radical legal doctrine called the independent state legislature theory. The independent state legislature theory is based on a hyper-literal interpretation of the Elections Clause of the Constitution of the United States:

The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations.

Advocates of the independent state legislature theory argue that this means that - apart from United States Congress - the state legislature has absolute power over the administration of elections. This power - according to the independent state legislature theory - cannot be constrained by state constitutions or state courts. The most important thing to know about the independent state legislature theory is that it makes no sense. State legislatures do not exist independently - they are created and constrained by state constitutions, and state courts interpret state constitutions.

The idea that the intention of the Election Clause of the U.S. Constitution is to allow state legislatures to violate the state constitution is absurd. Indeed, "many framers - including James Madison - voted to adopt state constitutions that regulated federal elections, as North Carolina's does today." And, of course, most laws passed by state legislatures must be signed by a governor to take effect. The independent state legislature theory has been rejected by the Supreme Court of the United States for more than 100 years - as recently as 2019.

The independent state legislature theory was promoted by Donald Trump's lawyers after the 2020 U.S. presidential election to argue that state legislatures could simply ignore the election results and appoint electors pledged to Donald Trump. Such actions - according to the independent state legislature theory - would be unreviewable by state courts even if they directly violated state constitutions.

In 2022-03, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected the North Carolina Republican legislators' emergency petition. But U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justices Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas, and Neil Gorsuch dissented from the ruling. In their dissent, the three justices cite the independent state legislature theory:

The Elections Clause provides that rules governing the "Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives" must be "prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof." Art. I, §4, cl. 1 (emphasis added). This Clause could have said that these rules are to be prescribed "by each State," which would have left it up to each State to decide which branch, component, or officer of the state government should exercise that power, as States are generally free to allocate state power as they choose. But that is not what the Elections Clause says. Its language specifies a particular organ of a state government, and we must take that language seriously.

U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Brett Kavanaugh did not join the dissent, but in a separate concurrence, says he agrees with the dissent that the emergency petition by the North Carolina Republican legislators "advanced serious arguments on the merits." Brett Kavanaugh just thought it was too late to change the Congressional maps for 2022. All four justices essentially invited the legislators to seek U.S. Supreme Court review on a non-emergency basis. While it takes five justices to win a case in the Supreme Court of the United States, accepting a case for review only takes four justices. On 2022-06-30, the U.S. Supreme Court accepted the case for review in its upcoming term. Last week (2022-09), Leonard Leo showed his cards. Leonard Leo will use his considerable financial resources and influence to make the independent state legislature theory the law of the land. If Leonard Leo is successful, it could throw the 2024 United States presidential election into chaos.

The path to chaos in 2024

Leonard Leo is advocating for the independent state legislature theory through a group called the Honest Elections Project. The Honest Elections Project is a rebranding of the Judicial Education Project  [The 85 Fund], which has longstanding ties to Leonard Leo. Before the 2020 election  [2020 United States presidential election], the Honest Election Project spent hundreds of thousands on dollars "warning against voting by mail and accusing Democrats of cheating." It filed "briefs in favor of voting restrictions in Nevada, Virginia, Texas, Wisconsin and Minnesota."

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Elaborate, obfuscating shell game

The Judicial Education Project [aligned with the Judicial Crisis Network, aka Concord Fund], aka Honest Elections Project [overlaps Judicial Crisis Network], aka The 85 Fund [formerly: Judicial Education Project]

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Last week (2022-09), the Honest Elections Project filed a brief in support of the North Carolina Republican legislators seeking to restore gerrymandered maps. The brief aggressively argues in favor of the independent state legislature theory - claiming that the independent state legislature theory represents "the plain meaning of the Elections and Electors Clauses" [of the U.S. Constitution]. The Honest Elections Projects assures the U.S. Supreme Court that adopting the theory would not "wreak havoc upon elections nationwide;" rather, it would merely prevent "state courts and executives from ignoring or invalidating clear laws passed by the legislature." A similar brief submitted by the Republican National Committee and National Republican Congressional Committee accuses critics of the independent state legislature theory of "political histrionics."

John Eastman - the lawyer who was behind then-President Donald Trump's attempts to have states' valid electors tossed out - filed a brief supporting the Republican North Carolina legislators on behalf of the right-wing Claremont Institute. John Eastman takes the independent state legislature theory to its logical conclusion - arguing that when state legislatures take action regarding the "time, place, and manner" of elections or the selection of presidential electors, they "cannot be constrained by anything in state law or even a state constitution to the contrary."

The legal brief echoes many of the arguments John Eastman laid out in a memo he produced arguing that Michael Pence could deliver the presidency to Donald Trump on 2021-01-06. The memo, which has been described as "frightening" and "unconstitutional," begins with this sentence:

Article II, § 1, cl. 2 of the U.S. Constitution assigns to the legislatures of the states the plenary power to determine the manner for choosing presidential electors.

And this is at the top of page 3 of the Supreme Court of the United States brief John Eastman filed last week (2022-09):

The power assigned to the state legislatures under the Article II Electors Clause to direct the "manner" of choosing presidential electors - a provision parallel in text and purpose to the Elections Clause at issue here - was "plenary."

In the memo, John Eastman argued that actions taken by state courts in at least 7 states prior to the 2020 election  [2020 United States presidential election], were illegal under the independent state legislature theory. Therefore, Mike Pence should ignore the electors submitted by those states and declare Donald Trump the winner. Now Leonard Leo and the Republican Party are now attempting to take the pretext John Eastman relied on to justify overthrowing American democracy and make it the law of the land.

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Additional Reading: Independent State Legislature Theory

• [CommonDreams.org, 2022-09-12] Experts Warn Supreme Court Supporting 'Dangerous' GOP Legal Theory Could Destroy U.S. Democracy.  Independent state legislative theory - a formerly fringe right-wing notion that state lawmakers alone can regulate federal elections - will be tested in the U.S. Supreme Court in the coming months (2022).

A controversial legal theory that could radically reshape presidential and congressional elections has had a vocal supporter in filings to the Supreme Court of the United States. Since 2020, a conservative group advocating for more restrictive voting laws has filed multiple friend-of-the-court briefs to try to influence the justices, including with the claim that the U.S. Constitution gives state legislatures the power to determine how federal elections are run without limits from state constitutions or state courts.

The group calls itself the Honest Elections Project  [see also: DonorsTrust], which since 2020 - according to corporate records filed in Virginia - has been a registered business alias for The 85 Fund. That organization has federal tax-exempt status, millions of dollars in donations and spending that are hard to trace, and ties to   Leonard Leo - the Federalist Society's co-chairman and former executive vice president who helped build the Supreme Court's majority of conservative justices.

Three of those justices have signaled they are likely to side with Republican state lawmakers in an upcoming North Carolina redistricting case that could result in a Supreme Court endorsement of what's known as the independent state legislature theory. The lawmakers would need the support of at least two other justices on the court, where conservatives enjoy a 6-3 supermajority.

Over the past two years [present date: 2022-08-12], what many in the legal world considered a fringe theory [the independent state legislature theory] has become an increasingly hot topic. The Honest Elections Project's court filings underscore how conservative groups have been urging the justices to weigh in on exactly how much power state legislatures have over rules for federal elections.

[ ... snip ... ]

On 2022-06-29, shortly after the Supreme Court of the United States overturned Roe v. Wade, a small group of protesters swarmed the entry to an event held by the New York City Lawyers Chapter of the Federalist Society. The point of the exercise, said protest organizers, was to give the Federalist Society "a taste of what it's like to be a patient entering an abortion clinic in the U.S." Whether the protesters succeeded in this mission is hard to say. But they deserve credit for understanding where power in America now resides.

Most Americans likely have only a passing familiarity with the Federalist Society, Yet all six of the "conservative" justices on the Supreme Court are current or former members. And the agenda that they advanced in what was perhaps the most shocking week in Supreme Court history - depriving women of their rights to bodily autonomy, ensuring that handguns may proliferate without the encumbrance of state safety regulations, crippling the ability of federal regulators to address climate change, and licensing the promotion of sectarian religion at public expense - reflects the Federalist Society's agenda.

Many Americans are apt to lay the blame for the radical turn in the American legal and political system on former President Donald Trump. But in some ways Donald Trump was just a front man - a useful tool for a new and radicalized conservative movement. This conservative movement has no single leader, but it does have power brokers who bring the relevant parties together. Among the most prominent is Leonard Leo, the longtime executive vice president of the Federalist Society. Leonard Leo has shuffled his titles in the past year, but he's still in the game, and the Supreme Court's week of horrors is best understood as the starting point rather than the culmination of what he has in mind for the future of the United States.

The Federalist Society's leading role in the conservative movement started not long after the election of former president Bill Clinton. Leonard Leo, a Catholic ultraconservative, came to the conclusion that righteous religion would never win at the ballot box. Leonard Leo was certain that the public, in his view seduced by the shallow values of a liberalizing culture, would not voluntarily submit to the necessary dose of moral medicine needed to save the nation. The last best chance to rescue civilization, Leonard Leo concluded, was to take over the courts. If activists could funnel just enough true believers onto the bench, especially onto the Supreme Court, they just might be able to reverse the moral tide.

"Leonard Leo figured out 20 years ago that conservatives had lost the culture war," said Leonard Leo's former media relations director, Tom Carter. "Abortion, gay rights, contraception - conservatives didn't have a chance if public opinion prevailed. So they needed to stack the courts."

Leonard Leo's other critical insight was that, despite the popular perception that the American judicial system operated at a level above the base concerns of partisan politics, it was in fact money that made the courts go round. Early in his legal career - even as a young legal scholar - Leonard Leo understood that a marriage between big money and hard religion could be brokered and an alliance could be built to transform the courts. This has been Leonard Leo's life's work.

[ ... snip ... ]

The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a pay-to-play network of conservative state lawmakers and business lobbyists that writes model legislation, claims that it no longer works on social policy. But videos of ALEC-led events, obtained by the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD), tell a very different story.

At the 40th anniversary meeting of the Council for National Policy (CNP) in May 2021, ALEC leaders boasted about their extensive efforts to advance state legislation to severely restrict access to abortion and limit the rights of trans students, as well as voter suppression bills.

CNP is a secretive network of far-right   Christian political figures and donors that works behind the scenes to influence Washington. "We've had a history of working on other issues like gun rights and social issues and things like that, which has not ended well for ALEC," said CEO Lisa Nelson at a "Saving American Through the States" action session at the group's meeting. "Because of our intersection of business and legislators we kind of stick to the fiscal issues."

However, right after saying that, Nelson explained how her organization is creating model "election reform" policies "through" the Honest Elections Project  [see also], a dark money voter suppression group tied to the influential Leonard Leo, CMD reported. Nelson states specifically that ALEC has "acted as a resource for legislators" and planned to develop a "model policy" with the Honest Elections Project at its July 2021 meeting.

[ ... snip ... ]

The Republican Attorneys General Association (RAGA) reported $6.7 million in revenue in the first half of 2021, according to a mid-year IRS filing examined by the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD), $2.5 million of which came from came from a dark money group run by Trump's go-to man for packing the federal courts with right-wing judges. The total is down from the $8.5 million RAGA brought in the first six months of the last off-year, 2019.

RAGA accepts unlimited contributions from corporations and special interest groups such as Koch Industries, the National Rifle Association, and Pfizer, much of which is used to get Republican attorneys general elected. Together with its 501(c)(4) affiliate, Rule of Law Defense Fund (RLDF), RAGA runs a cash-for-influence operation that coordinates the official actions of Republican state attorneys general and sells access to those AGs and their staff to its corporate funders.

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... A central player in orchestrating Wellspring's dark money network has been Leonard A. Leo, Trump's judicial adviser and a longtime executive at the Federalist Society. ...

As the owlish Executive Vice-President of the Federalist Society, Leonard Leo has quietly become one of the Washington's most influential people. Carrie Severino, a former clerk to Justice Clarence Thomas, said Leo knows the conservative legal movement "perhaps better than anyone in the country." Leonard Leo is on leave from the Federalist Society to advise Trump.

Kennedy's retirement has imperiled Roe v Wade, the court's landmark 1973 ruling that legalised abortion nationwide, which Leo and his conservative allies have long been committed to overturning. A ruling by the new court could allow states to outlaw abortion within their borders. Amid liberal outcry and polls indicating that Americans support Roe v Wade by more than two to one, Leo has appeared keen to contain his excitement. "I don't think people should be worried about Roe v Wade or any other particular case," he told CBS last week.

But such protestations do not persuade his critics. "It's nonsense," said Michael Avery, professor emeritus at Boston's Suffolk Law School and the author of a book on the Federalist Society's rise. "These people have been pursuing a strategy for decades of chipping away at women's rights."

Leonard Leo, a 53-year-old father of six, appears in the media as the mild-mannered public face of a strident campaign to reshape the American judiciary. It is a mission that has spanned several administrations, driven by Leo and fellow devout Catholics, and bankrolled with tens of millions of dollars from unidentified conservative donors. More than a decade ago, it helped secure George W. Bush's confirmation of Supreme Court of the United States Associate Justice Samuel Alito, and Chief Justice John Roberts. ...

... Working more behind the scenes is Ann Corkery, a Washington lawyer and fundraiser, who in the 1990s said she was a member of Opus Dei, the hardline Catholic order. Ann Corkery defended the group's practice of self-flagellation. "People don't understand sacrifice, the whole idea of why anyone would inflict pain, because the modern notion is to avoid suffering," she said. Corkery did not respond to emailed questions. ...

... Ann Corkery and her husband, Neil Corkery, have taken turns as president of the Wellspring Committee, a Virginia-based non-profit that channels funds to the Judicial Crisis Network (JCN), which provides the campaign's sharp edge. JCN spent $17 million on television advertising and other advocacy in support of Gorsuch and, earlier, against Barack Obama's proposed centrist replacement of Scalia, Merrick Garland.

Gary Marx, JCN's secretary and treasurer, wrote in 2012: "Should abortion be illegal? Absolutely." Ann Corkery helped form JCN and Neil formerly served as its treasurer. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, they got started with funding from Robin Arkley, a conservative property developer from Eureka, California, who was friendly with Scalia.

Robin Arkley these days makes appearances as a pundit on a local radio talkshow, where he has complained of African Americans having children out of wedlock and called for homeless people to be expelled from Eureka [California]. Robin Arkley referred to the 2005 hurricane in Louisiana as "Saint Katrina" because it provided an "unbelievable stimulus" to the construction industry. Robin Arkley also said that, given the strength of support for Obama among minorities, the notion that white people should vote for white candidates is "something we really need to explore." Arkley did not respond to emailed questions.

Wellspring, the Corkery-led non-profit that funds JCN, is not required to name its donors. It disclosed late last year that it received $28.5 million from a single contributor. The Center for Responsive Politics has said Leonard Leo plays a leading role in raising money for Wellspring. The Center also found Wellspring sent $750,000 to an obscure company that gave $1 million to Trump's inauguration fund. Leo named that company as his employer on a public filing.

Dan Goldberg, the legal director of the liberal-leaning Alliance for Justice, said this "dark money" was allowing a wealthy elite to "turn back the clock" in American society without accountability. "They are spending an enormous amount of money to erode the progress we've made in ensuring rights for women, healthcare for millions of Americans and rights for workers, LGBTQ people and people of colour," said Goldberg.

...

The likely confirmation of Trump's second nominee will mark the pinnacle of Leo's endeavours for the Federalist Society, which he [Leonard Leo] joined soon after graduating from Cornell law school in 1989. But Michael Avery, the professor and author, does not expect Leo or his allies to admit it. "They will continue complaining that they are outsiders even after achieving the most complete takeover of the courts that we have ever seen," said Avery. "They will never be satisfied."

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