Leonard A. Leo

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Background

Leonard Anthony Leo (born November 1965) is an American lawyer and conservative legal activist. He was the longtime vice president of the Federalist Society and is currently, along with Steven Calabresi, the co-chairman of the organization's board of directors.

Leo has been instrumental in building a network of influential conservative legal groups funded mostly by anonymous donors, including The 85 Fund and Concord Fund, which serve as funding hubs for affiliated political nonprofits.^[1] He assisted Clarence Thomas in his Supreme Court confirmation hearings and led campaigns to support the nominations of John Roberts, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett.

Early life and education

Leonard Anthony Leo^[2] was born on Long Island, New York, in November 1965, and raised in suburban New Jersey. His grandfather, an Italian immigrant, was a vice president of Brooks Brothers.^[3][4][5] He grew up in a family of practicing Catholics.^[3]

His father died when Leo was in preschool. His mother remarried an engineer when he was five years old, and the family moved to Monroe Township, Middlesex County, New Jersey, where he spent most of his childhood.^[3][6] He graduated in 1983 from Monroe Township High School.^[7]

Leo attended Cornell University,^[4] graduating with a bachelor's degree in 1986, and working as an intern in the office of Senator Orrin Hatch.^[3] Leo completed a J.D. 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.^[3][4][8]

Career

Judicial nomination work

While studying law at Cornell, Leo founded a student chapter of the Federalist Society in 1989, and subsequently went to work for the Society in 1991 in Washington, D.C.^[3] He met Clarence Thomas while clerking in the Appeals Court, and the two became close friends. Leo delayed his start at the Federalist Society to assist Thomas in his Supreme Court confirmation hearings.^[4] Leo served at the Federalist Society in various capacities for more than 25 years. In 2019, The Washington Post reported that the Federalist Society had paid Leo an annual salary of more than $400,000 for a number of years.^[4]

Bush administration

Leo took leaves of absence from the Federalist Society to assist the Bush administration's judicial nomination and confirmation efforts; this included the confirmations of Miguel Estrada to the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, as well as the confirmations of John Roberts and Samuel Alito to the U.S. Supreme Court.^[4][9][10]

Trump administration

In 2017, legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin wrote that Leo was "responsible, to a considerable extent, for one third of the justices on the Supreme Court".^[11] The Washington Post would later write that "few people outside government have more influence over judicial appointments now than Leo."^[4]

Nomination of Neil Gorsuch

In 2016, Leo worked with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to block President Barack Obama's replacement appointee, Merrick Garland; Leo's nonprofit, the Judicial Crisis Network reported that it spent more than $7 million to prevent Garland's confirmation.^[12] After Donald Trump's election, The New York Times described Leo as playing a "critical role" in reshaping the judiciary through Trump's Supreme Court nominees, first contacting then appellate-judge Neil Gorsuch about potentially nominating him to the vacancy created by Scalia's death.^[13][14] Leo's CRC Advisors coordinated "a months-long media campaign" in support of Gorsuch's nomination, including "opinion essays, contributing 5,000 quotes to news stories, scheduling pundit appearances on television," and television and radio advertisements.^[12][4][15] Between 2014 and 2017, Leo-affiliated entities raised over $250 million from donors including Charles Koch and Rebekah Mercer.^[16][4][17]

Nomination of Brett Kavanaugh

In 2018, Politico reported that Leo had personally lobbied for Brett Kavanaugh's nomination for the Supreme Court seat vacated by Anthony Kennedy, raising upward of $15 million in support of his confirmation.^[18] The Judicial Crisis Network ran television and radio advertisements supporting Kavanaugh's nomination, and CRC advisors "hype a theory that Christine Blasey Ford's accusation - that when they were both in high school, Kavanaugh pushed her on a bed and tried to remove her clothing - was actually a case of mistaken identity".^[18]

Nomination of Amy Coney Barrett

In a 2018 interview, when asked about a possible vacancy on the Supreme Court during an election year, Leo stated that "If a vacancy occurs in 2020, the vacancy needs to remain open until a president is elected and inaugurated and can pick. That's my position, period." Leo said he would advise Trump not to act on an election year Supreme Court vacancy, saying he had never asked Trump about the possible scenario, but that it was Leo's opinion that he should not act on a 2020 Supreme Court vacancy, should it arise.^[19]

After the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in September 2020, The Wall Street Journal reported that Leo was involved in the selection process for Ginsburg's replacement, ultimately resulting in the appointment of Amy Coney Barrett.^[20][21]

Conservative network building

President Donald Trump meets with Leonard Leo (3rd from back on right side) and others in 2017  [Source]

Media outlets have described Leo as the "behind-the-scenes leader of a network of interlocking nonprofits that has raised and spent hundreds of millions of dollars to support conservative judges and causes".^[22] Groups affiliated with Leo include the Judicial Education Project;^[23] the Concord Fund (formerly the Judicial Crisis Network);^[23] the Marble Freedom Trust;^[24] and the Rule of Law Trust, among others.^[25] The Marble Freedom Trust received a $1.6 billion donation from Illinois businessman Barre Seid, described as "the largest known donation to a political advocacy group in U.S. history".^[24][26]

An October 2022 article by Kenneth P. Vogel in The New York Times detailed how Leo, who had been best known for his role in conservative judicial appointments, developed a larger coalition on the right. In January 2020, Leo announced that he would be leaving his position as vice president at the Federalist Society to start a new group, CRC Advisors, a conservative political consulting firm.^[27][28] Leo remained in his role as co-chairman of the Federalist Society's board of directors.^[28]

Vogel wrote that Leo had built "one of the best-funded and most sophisticated operations in American politics, giving him extraordinary influence as he pushes a broad array of hot-button conservative causes and seeks to counter what he sees as an increasing leftward tilt in society."^[29] In 2023, ProPublica described Leo's activism, namely through the Teneo Network, as focusing on "'woke-ism' in corporations and education, 'one-sided journalism' and 'entertainment that's really corrupting our youth."^[30] The Teneo Network consists of various loosely affiliated non-profit and for-profit entities which spent nearly $504 million between mid-2015 and 2021; two for-profit firms Leo at least partly controls, BH Group and CRC Advisors, are compensated by funding hubs in his network, The 85 Fund and the Concord Fund.^[29][1]

In 2011 and 2012, Leo arranged for Liberty Consulting, owned by Ginni Thomas, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, to be paid $80,000 by The Polling Company, owned by Kellyanne Conway and billed through the Judicial Education Project.^[31] Leo directed Conway not to mention Ginni Thomas in paperwork, telling The Washington Post, "The Polling Company, along with Ginni Thomas' help, has been an invaluable resource for gauging public attitudes," and that "Knowing how disrespectful, malicious and gossipy people can be, I have always tried to protect the privacy of Justice Thomas and Ginni."^[22]

In June 2023, ProPublica reported that Leo helped organize and attended a fishing trip with Justice Samuel Alito and businessman Paul Singer, whose firms later were parties to litigation before the Supreme Court.^[32]

Politico reported in August 2023 that the Attorney General for the District of Columbia, Brian Schwalb, was investigating Leo and his network of nonprofit groups.^[33]

Religious work

Leo was national co-chairman of Catholic outreach for the Republican National Committee, and as the 2004 Bush presidential campaign's Catholic strategist. He was appointed by President George W. Bush and the United States Senate to three terms on the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom.^[34]

He is a board member of the National Catholic Prayer Breakfast.^[35][36]

In 2012, Leo served on the boards of the Catholic Association and its affiliate Catholic Association Foundation, which ran campaigns opposing the legalization of same-sex marriage.^[4] In 2016, Leo received $120,000 for his work for the Catholic Association.^[4]

While Leo was the chairman of the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, a Muslim policy analyst filed a complaint against the group with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission alleging that she had been the victim of anti-Muslim discrimination.^[37] Leo denied the claims of discrimination against the organization, and no specific claims were made regarding Leo.^[38] The EEOC complaint was dismissed.^[38]

Other appointments and work

He has been a US delegate to the United Nations Council and the UN Commission on Human Rights, as well as the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe and World Health Assembly. Leo has been an observer at the World Intellectual Property Organization and as a member of the US National Commission to UNESCO.^[39][40]

Leo has been published in The New York Times,   The Wall Street Journal, and The Huffington Post.^[41][42][43] He received the 2009 Bradley Prize.^[44]

Leo has been on the board of directors of various organizations such as Reclaim New York, a charity with ties to conservative activists Rebekah Mercer and Steve Bannon; Liberty Central, a charity founded by Virginia Thomas, wife of Clarence Thomas; the Catholic Association and an affiliated charity, the Catholic Association Foundation; The National Catholic Prayer Breakfast; the Becket Law Fund; Students for Life; the Napa Legal Institute; the Youth Leadership Foundation; and the Board of Visitors at The Busch School of Business at Catholic University.^{[4][39][45][46][47][40][48][49]}

Leo is a member of the Council for National Policy, whose other members include Virginia Thomas, the wife of Clarence Thomas; Brent Bozell, founder of the Media Research Center; and Ralph Reed, chairman of the nonprofit Faith and Freedom Coalition.^[50]

In filings with the Federal Election Commission, Leo listed the BH Group as his employer.^[4] In 2018, the Judicial Crisis Network reported paying BH Group $1.2 million in fees.^[51][4] In its first two years of existence, the BH Group received more than $4 million from the Judicial Crisis Network, its sister entity the Judicial Education Project and a third nonprofit, the Wellspring Committee.^[4] Leo is also the president of the Freedom and Opportunity Fund.^[4]

In 2016, after the death of US Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, Leo helped finance the renaming of George Mason University's Law School to the Antonin Scalia Law School.^[52]

Personal life

Leo is Roman Catholic.^[4] He has seven children with his wife, Sally.^[4] Their daughter Margaret died in 2007 at the age of 14 from spina bifida.^[3] Leo has spoken about the profound impact her life had on him.^[3][53][54] Leo is a knight of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, a Catholic lay religious order.^[55][56]

Leo has a summer home in Northeast Harbor, Maine, where he has been the target of periodic protests due to his legal advocacy opposing abortion.^[57] In the weeks following the reversal of Roe v. Wade, protests were held there on an almost daily basis.^[58]

Works

Presidential Leadership: Rating the Best and the Worst in the White House (Simon & Schuster, 2004), co-editor, ISBN 978-0743274081. Leo co-edited this volume with James Taranto.

References

1. ^ ^{a b} Vogel, Kenneth P. (October 12, 2022). "Leonard Leo's Network Is Increasingly Powerful. But It Is Not Easy to Define". The New York Times.
2. ^ "The Central New Jersey Home News 15 Oct 1989, page 36". Newspapers.com. Retrieved 2023-06-21.
3. ^ ^{a b c d e f g h} Toobin, Jeffrey (April 17, 2017). "The Conservative Pipeline to the Supreme Court". The New Yorker. Retrieved September 29, 2017.
4. ^ ^{a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r} O'Harrow, Robert Jr.; Boburg, Shawn (May 21, 2019). "A conservative activist's behind-the-scenes campaign to remake the nation's courts". The Washington Post.
5. ^ Bella, Timothy (2023-05-05). "Who is conservative activist Leonard Leo? A friend of Clarence Thomas". Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286. Retrieved 2023-09-22.
6. ^ Olear, Greg. "Leonard Leo's Unheavenly Rewards", Prevail, March 7, 2023. Accessed October 2, 2023. "I don't begrudge a fellow middle-class Jersey guy - Leo hails from Monroe Township, which is not to be confused with Alpine or Short Hills - from striking it rich."
7. ^ Levine, Audrey. "MTHS graduates ready for future", CentralJersey.com, June 30, 2006. Accessed October 2, 2023. "Despite the sweltering heat and humidity, hundreds of parents, friends, relatives, teachers and administrators gathered on the football field at Monroe Township High School, craning their necks to see the more than 300 graduates as they paraded down the track at the graduation ceremony for the Class of 2006 on June 22..... Leonard Leo, Class of 1983, now the executive vice president of the Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies, traveled from his home in Washington, D.C., to share some thoughts with the graduates."
8. ^ Lipton, Eric; Peters, Jeremy (March 18, 2017). "In Gorsuch, Conservative Activist Sees Test Case for Reshaping the Judiciary". The New York Times. Retrieved September 29, 2017.
9. ^ Kirkpatrick, David (July 22, 2005). "A Year of Work to Sell Roberts to Conservatives". The New York Times. Retrieved 21 May 2014.
10. ^ Cook, Robin (Fall 2006). "Confirmation of High Court Justices Akin to Political Campaign, Leo Says". UVA Lawyer. Retrieved 21 May 2014.
11. ^ "How One Man Brought Justices Roberts, Alito And Gorsuch To The Supreme Court". NPR. April 12, 2017. Retrieved June 10, 2019.
12. ^ ^{a b} "It's true: millions in dark money has been spent to tilt courts right". PolitiFact. Retrieved 2020-10-20.
13. ^ Lipton, Eric; Peters, Jeremy (2017-03-18). "In Gorsuch, Conservative Activist Sees Test Case for Reshaping the Judiciary". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2023-06-23.
14. ^ Flegenheimer, Matt; Hulse, Carl; Savage, Charlie; Liptak, Adam (March 20, 2017). "Six Highlights From the Gorsuch Confirmation Hearing". The New York Times. Retrieved March 20, 2017.
15. ^ "Case Studies". CRC Advisors. Archived from the original on June 10, 2019. Retrieved June 22, 2023.
16. ^ Massoglia, Anna; Perez, Andrew (February 27, 2019). "New 'dark money' group led by Trump judicial adviser tied to network promoting his court picks". OpenSecrets.
17. ^ Boburg, Shawn; O'Harrow, Robert Jr. (May 21, 2019). "Five takeaways from The Post's report on Leonard Leo". The Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286. Retrieved October 15, 2020.
18. ^ ^{a b} Johnson, Eliana (2018-09-25). "Kavanaugh's friends promoted him. Now they have to rescue him". Politico. Retrieved 2023-06-23.
19. ^ "Leonard Leo". Firing Line with Margaret Hoover. Retrieved 2020-10-22.
20. ^ Restuccia, Andrew; Bender, Michael C. (September 19, 2020). "Trump's Supreme Court Nomination Strategy Steered by White House Counsel, Others". The Wall Street Journal. ISSN 0099-9660. Retrieved October 20, 2020.
21. ^ "How Dark Money Bought A Supreme Court Seat". The Lever. 2021-12-20. Retrieved 2023-06-23.
22. ^ ^{a b} Brown, Emma; Boburg, Shawn; O'Connell, Jonathan (May 4, 2023). "Judicial activist directed fees to Clarence Thomas' wife, urged 'no mention of Ginni'". Washington Post. Retrieved 5 May 2023.
23. ^ ^{a b} O'Brien, Rebecca Davis (2023-05-12). "Group Tied to Influential Conservative Activist Spent $183 Million in a Year". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2023-06-23.
24. ^ ^{a b} Elliott, Andrew Perez, Andy Kroll, Justin (2022-08-22). "How a Secretive Billionaire Handed His Fortune to the Architect of the Right-Wing Takeover of the Courts". ProPublica. Retrieved 2023-06-23.{{ cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list ( link)
25. ^ McGreal, Chris (September 4, 2022). "Leonard Leo: the secretive rightwinger using billions to reshape America". The Guardian. Archived from the original on September 10, 2022. Retrieved 10 September 2022.
26. ^ Tsai, Robert L.; Ziegler, Mary (25 June 2023). "Why the Supreme Court Really Killed Roe v. Wade". Politico. Retrieved 25 June 2023.
27. ^ "Leonard Leo to Keep Judicial Advocacy Focus in New Venture". Bloomberg Law. Retrieved 2020-01-09.
28. ^ ^{a b} Cassens Weiss, Debra (January 8, 2020). "Federalist Society official Leonard Leo embarks on a new conservative venture". ABA Journal. Retrieved January 9, 2020.
29. ^ ^{a b} Vogel, Kenneth P. (October 12, 2022). "Leonard Leo Pushed the Courts Right. Now He's Aiming at American Society". The New York Times.
30. ^ Surgey, Andy Kroll, Andrea Bernstein, Nick (2023-03-09). "Inside the "Private and Confidential" Conservative Group That Promises to "Crush Liberal Dominance"". ProPublica. Retrieved 2023-06-23.{{ cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list ( link)
31. ^ Brown, Emma; Boburg, Shawn; O'Connell, Jonathan (2023-05-08). "Judicial activist directed fees to Clarence Thomas' wife, urged 'no mention of Ginni'". Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286. Retrieved 2023-06-23.
32. ^ Mierjeski, Justin Elliott, Joshua Kaplan, Alex (2023-06-20). "Justice Samuel Alito Took Luxury Fishing Vacation With GOP Billionaire Who Later Had Cases Before the Court". ProPublica. Retrieved 2023-06-23.{{ cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list ( link)
33. ^ Przybyla, Heidi (August 22, 2023). "D.C. Attorney General is probing Leonard Leo's network". Politico.
34. ^ Leo, Leonard; Prodromou, Elizabeth (July 1, 2011). "Protecting Religious Freedom Abroad". Harvard International Review. Archived from the original on 2014-03-04. Retrieved 2023-06-27.
35. ^ Leo, Leonard (May 11, 2017). "A Judicial Renaissance? The Trump Administration & the Future of the Federal Judiciary". Acton Institute. Retrieved August 20, 2018.
36. ^ "Leonard Leo receives religious liberty's highest honor". Becket Fund for Religious Liberty. May 5, 2017. Retrieved August 20, 2018.
37. ^ Boorstein, Michelle (February 17, 2010). "Agency that monitors religious freedom abroad accused of bias". The Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286. Retrieved October 20, 2020.
38. ^ ^{a b} "U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom earns dismissal of EEOC's religious discrimination claims | Experience". www.jonesday.com. December 2010. Retrieved 2020-10-21.
39. ^ ^{a b} "Board". Becket. Retrieved 2020-10-26.
40. ^ ^{a b} "NLI Website". www.napalegalinstitute.org. Retrieved 2020-10-27.
41. ^ Leo, Leonard (January 9, 2006). "Thirty Questions for Alito: Finality and Fallibility". The New York Times. Retrieved 21 May 2014.
42. ^ Leo, Leonard; Argue, Donald (April 12, 2010). "Nigeria's Descent Into Religious Strife". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 21 May 2014.
43. ^ Leo, Leonard (January 19, 2011). "Confronting China's Failure on Religious Freedom". The Huffington Post. Retrieved 21 May 2014.
44. ^ "Bradley Prize recipient Leonard Leo begins chairmanship of religious-freedom commission". Bradley Foundation. July 2009. Archived from the original on 21 May 2014. Retrieved 21 May 2014.
45. ^ "Our Board". Students for Life. March 1, 2019. Retrieved October 26, 2020.
46. ^ "About". National Catholic Prayer Breakfast. Retrieved 2020-10-26.
47. ^ "Our Board". Students for Life. March 1, 2019. Retrieved 2020-10-27.
48. ^ "Bush names well known Christians to International Religious Freedom Commission". Catholic News Agency. Retrieved October 27, 2020.
49. ^ "Leonard Leo". The Catholic University of America. Retrieved October 27, 2020.
50. ^ O'Harrow, Robert Jr. (October 14, 2020). "Videos show closed-door sessions of leading conservative activists: 'Be not afraid of the accusations that you're a voter suppressor'". The Washington Post. Retrieved 31 October 2020.
51. ^ Biesecker, Michael; Slodysko, Brian. < target="ext_link"a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/courts_law/barrett-ads-tied-to-interest-groups-funded-by-unnamed-donors/2020/10/26/145b2f7a-17f6-11eb-8bda-814ca56e138b_story.html">"Barrett ads tied to interest groups funded by unnamed donors". The Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286. Retrieved 2020-10-29.
52. ^ Sloan, Karen (March 31, 2016). "George Mason Law School To Become Antonin Scalia School of Law". The National Law Journal. Retrieved 6 June 2016.
53. ^ Quinn, Melissa (January 28, 2018). "Inside the mind of Leonard Leo, Trump's Supreme Court right-hand man". The Washington Examiner. Retrieved June 10, 2019.
54. ^ Savage, David G. (July 6, 2018). "Leonard Leo of the Federalist Society is the man to see if you aspire to the Supreme Court". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved June 10, 2019.
55. ^ Michaelson, Jay (July 9, 2018). "The Secrets of Leonard Leo, the Man Behind Trump's Supreme Court Pick". The Daily Beast. Retrieved October 20, 2020.
56. ^ "Bilateral relations". Order of Malta. Retrieved March 9, 2022.
57. ^ "Man arrested during abortion-rights protest outside conservative judicial activist's MDI home". August 2022.
58. ^ Broom, Dick (September 8, 2022). "What do the Leonard Leo protesters want?". Mount Desert Islander. Archived from the original on September 14, 2022. Retrieved 14 September 2022.

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Additional Reading

[📌 pinned article] How Leonard Leo Weaponized the Courts Against Democracy.  The Federalist Society uses billionaire funds and right-wing ideology to remake the law.

• Builds on We Don't Talk About Leonard: The Man Behind the Right's Supreme Court Supermajority [ProPublica.org, 2023-10-11 - below].

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The Supreme Court, dominated for decades by Republican nominees, is systematically undermining democracy, most notably in cases like Shelby County v. Holder>, a 2013 decision that hamstrung key parts of the Voting Rights Act. A new case now under review, Alexander v. South Carolina State Conference of the NAACP, suggests that the Supreme Court's war on democracy is about to escalate. As Vox reports, the court's majority "spent Wednesday morning seemingly hunting for a reason to uphold a South Carolina congressional map that everyone agrees was gerrymandered to benefit the Republican Party."

Under law, the courts have a mandate to overturn racial gerrymandering - but not partisan gerrymandering. The case in South Carolina involves a clear case of racial gerrymandering done for partisan reasons. Based on the questions asked by the conservative judges for the majority, it seems likely that once again laws protecting the voting rights of Black citizens will be restricted.

Beyond voting rights, the courts have been a bastion of reactionary policymaking, much more effective in advancing the domestic agenda of the right than the often gridlocked Congress or even the presidency (under the erratic leadership of figures like George W. Bush and Donald Trump).

On crucial issues like abortion, LGBTQ rights, gun control, union rights, student loan relief, healthcare, and the functioning of the administrative state, the court consistently leans toward the hard right. The one person who bears the most responsibility for this is Leonard Leo, a long-time majordomo of the Federalist Society who is also in charge of a $1.6 billion nonprofit called the Marble Freedom Trust, tasked with promoting conservative and libertarian values. The news organization ProPublica has in recent months specialized in keeping track of the legal network Leo has created over the last few decades, with special attention to his services as a matchmaker helping Supreme Court justices like Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito forge social ties with billionaires like Harlan Crow, Paul Singer, and Charles Koch.

Revelations about a tight social network between Supreme Court justices and billionaires has, of course, raised issues about conflicts of interest. While the potential corruption of these relationships is an important concern, these social networks are about more than just individual self-enrichment. They are about the creation of a coherent right-wing ideological network in the courts, not just at the highest level but also including the lower courts and district attorneys as well as Republican lawmakers.

Now, ProPublica - in a report written by Andy Kroll, Andrea Bernstein, and Ilya Marritz [summary below] - shows how this ideological network actually came together, by surveying the career of Leonard Leo. Born in 1965, Leo rose through the ranks of movement conservatism, imbibing the peculiar legal doctrine of originalism in the service of religious traditionalism and capitalism. As an intern in Washington in 1985, he was particularly inspired by a speech on behalf of originalism by Ronald Reagan's attorney general, Ed Meese. According to Meese and Robert Bork, Reagan's failed Supreme Court justice, originalism claimed to be a pro-democracy theory, one that would wrest power away from overweening activist judges and return it to lawmakers. In the speech that Leo credits with having an "enormous impact on my thinking," Meese said, "There is danger in seeing the Constitution as an empty vessel into which each generation may pour its passion and prejudice."

[📌 pinned article] [ProPublica.org, 2023-10-11] We Don't Talk About Leonard: The Man Behind the Right's Supreme Court Supermajority.  The inside story of how Leonard Leo built a machine that remade the American legal system - and what he plans to do next.

The inside story of how Leonard Leo built a machine that remade the American legal system - and what he plans to do next. If Americans had heard of Leo at all, it was for his role in building the conservative supermajority on the Supreme Court. He drew up the lists of potential justices that Donald Trump released during the 2016 campaign. He advised Trump on the nominations of Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett. Before that, he'd helped pick or confirm the court's three other conservative justices - Clarence Thomas, John Roberts and Samuel Alito. But the guests who gathered that night under a tent in Leo's backyard included key players in a less-understood effort, one aimed at transforming the entire judiciary. | It was not enough to have a majority of Supreme Court justices. They needed to see the right cases brought by the right people and heard by the right lower court judges. | With the Alito and Roberts confirmations in hand, the Federalist Society was turning its attention to the state courts, devoting nearly a fifth of its budget to the initiative. | Leonard Leo has done more to advance conservative causes than any single person in the history of the country." -- Executive director of the Republican Attorneys General Association | We're going to have great judges, conservative, all picked by the Federalist Society." - Donald Trump, on his list of potential nominees to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Tags: USA | politics | legislation | U.S. legal system | elections | education | civil rights & freedoms | Republican Party (GOP) | Republican Attorneys General Association (RAGA) | Federalist Society | Donald Trump | Mitch McConnell | Trumpism | neoconservatism | far right | Christian right | authoritarianism | neofascism | federal judiciary | state legislatures | state preemption | Governor Greg Abbott (R-TX) | Governor Ron DeSantis (R-FL) | U.S. Supreme Court (SCOTUS) | SCOTUS conservative supermajority | Roe vs. Wade | Sam Alito | Clarence Thomas | Amy Coney Barrett | systemic racism | structural violence | women's rights | anti-LGBTQ+ movement | anti-abortion movement | electoral fraud | campaign finance | dark money | Leonard Leo | Concord Fund | 85 Fund | Marble Freedom Trust | capitalism | corporations | billionaires | neoliberalism | Barre Seid | Charles Koch | Paul Singer | Harlan Crow

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Honest Elections Project

[📌 pinned article] [OpenSecrets.org, 2020-05-27] Honest Elections Project: Conservative "dark money" network rebranded to push voting restrictions before 2020 election.

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.

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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 A. 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 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 Heritage Foundation member Roger Severino, who as a member of the Trump administration spearheaded a Draconian, 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." ...

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[📌 pinned article] [Popular.info, 2022-09-12] The radical legal theory that could upend the 2024 election.  |  independent state legislature theory

In a 2018 address to the Federalist Society,   Supreme Court of the United States Justice Clarence Thomas "joked" that Leonard A. 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 A. 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 gerrymanderinggerrymandered 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).

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Anti-abortion advocacy: Ohio Issue 1 (2023)

[OhioCapitalJournal.com, 2023-11-02] U.S. Representative Jim Jordan issues warning to Washington D.C. Attorney General investigating conservative donor Leonard Leo.

U.S. Representative Jim Jordan, R-OH, is leveraging his leadership of the House Judiciary Committee to discourage an investigation into a conservative mega donor. Leonard Leo has gone from The Federalist Society to GOP judicial whisperer to the head of a sprawling, well-funded network of dark money organizations. Those political non-profits are at the center of the dispute. According to Politico, Washington D.C. Attorney General Brian Schwalb has begun investigating whether payments from one of the dark money groups to a Leo-controlled for profit entity violated the law.

In a letter to the attorney general, Jordan and House Oversight and Accountability chairman U.S. Representative James Comer, R-KY, alleged the investigation was politically motivated. They demanded access to documents and communications related to the inquiry, and ordered Schwalb to schedule a briefing for the committee.

Leo's political spending is particularly relevant with Ohio Issue 1 (2023) appearing on the ballot in November. So far, Leo's Concord Fund has contributed $18 million to oppose the reproductive rights amendment.

Who's Leonard Leo?

Leonard Leo rose to prominence through The Federalist Society. Under his stewardship, the conservative lawyers network became a kind of farm league for Leo's efforts to push the state and federal judiciary to the right. Leo played a significant role in advising George W. Bush's U.S. Supreme Court's nominations, but his influence grew substantially with the nomination and eventual election of Donald Trump. Leo was responsible for drafting the U.S. Supreme Court shortlists Trump touted during his campaign. All three of the justices Trump appointed during his tenure came at Leo's recommendation.

Outside of The Federalist Society, Leonard Leo helped establish the Judicial Confirmation Network in 2005. That nonprofit's first task was running a campaign in favor of now-U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Robert's nomination. The same organization promoted the nominations of conservative Justices Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett. It also campaigned against the Merrick Garland's Supreme Court nomination. As its mission grew, the organization changed its name to the Judicial Crisis Network. In 2019, JCN changed its name again - this time to The Concord Fund.

Leo's success in shaping the judiciary garnered significant attention in political circles. Last year it nabbed him a monumental donation. Barre Seid, who owned the electronics company Tripp Lite handed his entire stake to a newly created entity controlled by Leo called Marble Freedom Trust. The trust then sold Tripp Lite for more than $1.6 billion, putting Leo in control of a formidable political war chest.

Ohio spending and D.C. investigation

The Concord Fund has been the biggest single donor in opposition to Issue 1 this November. The group has spent $18 million in that effort as of its pre-general campaign finance report filed last week. For context, Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America has invested a bit more than $15 million in the campaign.

But Leo's involvement in the Issue 1 campaign hasn't just benefitted the organizers opposing the amendment. It's been good for Leo, as well.

Although the bulk of his political capital is held by or flows through non-profits, Leo maintains for profit entities as well. His company CRC Advisors brought in more than $1.3 million from PACs that received Concord Fund dollars. The expenditures paid for digital ads and consulting as well as "modeling/polling/testing" according to campaign finance reports.

That pattern, albeit at a much larger scale, is central to an IRS complaint filed by Campaign for Accountability. The organization alleges Leo's for-profit firms brought in $73 million in revenue from Leo-aligned non-profits between 2016 and 2021. In the letter to Washington D.C. Attorney General Brian Schwalb, Representatives Jordan and Comer draw a direct line from that CFA complaint to Schwalb's investigation. They also raise questions of jurisdiction - as the Politico story noted, Leo's organizations recently picked up stakes and registered instead in Texas.

"Worse yet," Jordan and Comer write, "the Committees are troubled that your investigation could infringe upon the fundamental rights of donor privacy and free association." They went on, warning they "will not tolerate" such efforts. Schwalb's office didn't respond to a request for comment. CFA's Executive Director Michelle Kuppersmith wrote, "our complaint speaks for itself, and we continue to believe that it merits investigation by both the IRS and the DC Attorney General."

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[Truthout.org, 2023-10-31] Leonard Leo's Network Has Spent $18M on Opposing Abortion Rights in Ohio Alone.  The $18 million accounts for nearly 60 percent of funding that key abortion rights groups have raised to oppose Ohio Issue 1 (2023).

The dark money network run by conservative judicial puppetmaster Leonard Leo has poured millions into opposing abortion rights in Ohio ahead of a crucial measure on the state's ballot this November. Leo's Concord Fund, which has been a fixture in Republican dark money circles, has funneled a staggering $18 million into opposing Ohio's Issue 1, which would enshrine abortion as a constitutional right in the state after state lawmakers passed a near-total ban on the procedure. The ban is currently on hold, pending the results of the ballot measure.

The money was given to a group called Protect Women Ohio Action, The Lever reports, with $6 million of it having been given just in the past two months after voters rejected a GOP-led effort that would have raised the threshold to amend the state constitution via ballot measure. Protect Women Ohio Action has, in turn, reported donating $17 million to the main group opposing the measure, buying a deluge of ads misleading voters about what Issue 1 would do.

Together, the two groups have raised $31 million to oppose the ballot measure, meaning that the Concord Fund's donations account for nearly 60 percent of the funding that the groups have raised so far. Some of this money is being siphoned right back into Leo's network, The Lever finds. Protect Women Ohio and Protect Women Ohio Action have directed over $2.3 million to Leo's consulting group, CRC Advisors.

Issue 1 would establish a constitutional right to abortion in Ohio, and would also protect contraception access. It would still allow the state to ban abortion after fetal viability, as long as there is a carveout for pregnant people whose life or health may be endangered by their pregnancy.

Some political experts view the ballot measure as a litmus test for how the issue of abortion will affect the 2024 election. Issue 1 supporters already notched a significant win when voters soundly defeated the GOP's measure by a vote of 57 percent to 43 percent in August.

"Leonard Leo has spent his entire career working to end abortion access at all levels of government, stripping millions of women of their critical rights and freedoms," Accountable.us president Caroline Ciccone said in a statement. "Leo leveraging his billion-dollar network to meddle in this election has dangerous, life-altering repercussions for Ohioans and Americans everywhere."

As Accountable.us points out, over a dozen coalition members of Protect Women Ohio have ties to the Alliance Defending Freedom, a hate group pushing a radical right-wing Christian agenda onto the U.S. through the courts. The group is responsible for authoring the Mississippi abortion ban that eventually led to the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade. Abortion opposition has long been a driving force behind Leo's court manipulation, with reports that he handpicked Justice Samuel Alito for nomination to the Supreme Court in 2005 for his friendliness with the anti-abortion movement.

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See also

• [OhioCapitalJournal.com, 2023-10-31] Ohio GOP politicians have gone to extraordinary lengths to subvert and deceive on Ohio Issue 1 (2023).

  Quietly purging nearly 27,000 Ohioans from the voter rolls late last month, even as some voting had already begun in the 2023-11-07 election, was dirty pool. The questionably timed expulsion of inactive voters - ahead of a statewide vote on abortion rights - was ordered by a vocal opponent of that ballot referendum without the usual public notice before or after the cancellation of thousands of registrations.

  Why? Voters who didn't know they'd been cancelled by Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose and didn't quickly re-register before 2023-10-10 - just 12 days after the purge - cannot vote in the upcoming election. They will not have a voice in deciding, among other issues, whether the right to abortion in Ohio should be constitutionally protected or banned by Republican fiat.

  The (integrity-free) elections chief could have postponed his voter purge until after the November election, the way he did before the August election, but chose not to. Typical. Along with the state's other partisan overlords of mostly white Republican men, LaRose has demonstrated he will stop at nothing to keep Ohio women from making their own private medical decisions.

  Serial GOP machinations to subvert and deceive on Issue 1, the proposed constitutional amendment to secure reproductive rights in Ohio, are truly a new low for race-to-the-bottom Ohio Republicans. They have gone to extraordinary lengths and lies to deny half the population in the state the fundamental right to bodily autonomy and self-determination.

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[Jacobin.com, 2023-10-30] Conservatives Are Attacking Abortion Rights at the State Level. After overturning Roe v. Wade last year, conservatives are now chipping away at abortion access at the state level. At the helm is a dark money network led by right-wing activists, which has so far spent $18 million on opposing reproductive justice in Ohio.

• See also: [@persagen@mastodon.social, 2023-07-05] [thread] Ohio, politics, GOP, abortion

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Conservative legal activist Leonard Leo's dark money network has spent $18 million trying to block a ballot measure to enshrine abortion rights in Ohio's constitution - accounting for nearly 60 percent of what abortion opponents have reported raising in advance of the November 7 election, according to new state campaign finance data.

As President Donald Trump's judicial adviser, Leo built the conservative Supreme Court supermajority that overturned federal protections for abortion rights last year, allowing states to ban the procedure. Now, we're seeing how much Leo - the beneficiary of a historic $1.6 billion dark money donation - will spend in order to restrict abortion access at the state level.

"Leonard Leo has spent his entire career working to end abortion access at all levels of government, stripping millions of women of their critical rights and freedoms," said Caroline Ciccone, president of the liberal watchdog group Accountable.us. "Leo leveraging his billion-dollar network to meddle in this election has dangerous, life-altering repercussions for Ohioans and Americans everywhere."

Ohio has been at the center of America's abortion debate since the Supreme Court's decision overturning Roe v. Wade, which allowed states to move forward with bans on the procedure.

The decision allowed Ohio Republicans to temporarily enforce a highly restrictive law banning abortions after six weeks, with no exceptions for victims of rape or incest and led to a national controversy about an Ohio child who was forced to travel to Indiana for an abortion after being raped.

The six-week abortion ban was recently blocked by a state judge, so abortion is currently legal in the state up until twenty-two weeks. However, Republicans are pushing the state's conservative Supreme Court to overturn this injunction.

Ohio Issue 1 (2023), on the ballot next month, could render that court fight moot - and establish an individual "right to make and carry out one's own reproductive decisions" in Ohio's state constitution.

So far, polling indicates that voters are likely to approve the measure - a prospect made easier after Ohio voters rejected an effort by abortion opponents to raise the threshold required to pass ballot amendments.

Leo's network, however, is pulling out all the stops to defeat the measure. State records show that Leo's Concord Fund has donated $18 million to a committee called Protect Women Ohio Action, including more than $6 million in the past two months. The committee disclosed paying $71,000 earlier this month to CRC Advisors, a consulting firm chaired by Leo, for polling and research.

Protect Women Ohio Action has reported donating about $17 million to the main committee opposing Issue 1, called Protect Women Ohio. Together, the two similarly-named groups have raised about $31 million to oppose the abortion ballot measure. Donations from Leo's network account for nearly 60 percent of what the groups have raised. Amy Natoce, press secretary for Protect Women Ohio, pointed out in an email that committees supporting the abortion ballot measure have received millions in "out-of-state dark money funding" - including from Democratic megadonor George Soros' Open Society Policy Center, the abortion rights group Planned Parenthood Action Fund, and the liberal dark money hub Sixteen Thirty Fund.

Gary Marx, the Concord Fund's president, told the Lever in a statement: "Our support for Protect Women Ohio pales in comparison to the $25 million the Arabella Advisors network and their allies have poured into Ohio to support Issue 1, which undermines parental rights and removes reasonable regulations on late-term abortions, including protections for babies that can feel pain." (Arabella Advisors administers the Sixteen Thirty Fund.)

Protect Women Ohio has swarmed voters with TV and digital ads - including ads that misleadingly suggest that Issue 1 would allow abortions at any time during pregnancy. One ad features a personal appeal from Ohio governor Mike DeWine (R) and his wife, Fran. "Issue 1 would allow an abortion at any time during pregnancy, and it would deny parents the right to be involved when their daughter is making the most important decision of her life," Fran DeWine claims in the ad. Mike DeWine adds: "I know Ohioans are divided on the issue of abortion. But whether you're pro-life or pro-choice, Issue 1 is just not right for Ohio." Another ad from Protect Women Ohio calls on voters to "stand with Trump against late-term abortions."

Issue 1's text says that "abortion may be prohibited after fetal viability," while clarifying that "in no case may such an abortion be prohibited if in the professional judgment of the pregnant patient's treating physician it is necessary to protect the pregnant patient's life or health."

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[LeverNews.com, 2023-10-27] Leonard Leo's Fight Against Abortion Access.  Leo's dark money network has spent $18 million opposing the campaign to enshrine abortion rights in Ohio's constitution.

• See also: [@persagen@mastodon.social, 2023-07-05] [thread] Ohio, politics, GOP, abortion

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Conservative legal activist Leonard Leo's dark money network has spent $18 million trying to block a ballot measure to enshrine abortion rights in Ohio's constitution - accounting for nearly 60 percent of what abortion opponents have reported raising in advance of the November 7 election, according to new state campaign finance data.

As President Donald Trump's judicial adviser, Leonard A. Leo built the conservative Supreme Court supermajority that overturned federal protections for abortion rights last year, allowing states to ban the procedure. Now, we're seeing how much Leo - the beneficiary of a historic $1.6 billion dark money donation - will spend in order to restrict abortion access at the state level.

"Leonard Leo has spent his entire career working to end abortion access at all levels of government, stripping millions of women of their critical rights and freedoms," said Caroline Ciccone, president of the liberal watchdog group Accountable.us. "Leo leveraging his billion-dollar network to meddle in this election has dangerous, life-altering repercussions for Ohioans and Americans everywhere."

Ohio has been at the center of America's abortion debate since the Supreme Court's decision overturning Roe v. Wade, which allowed states to move forward with bans on the procedure.

The decision allowed Ohio Republicans to temporarily enforce a highly restrictive law banning abortions after six weeks, with no exceptions for victims of rape or incest, and led to a national controversy about an Ohio child who was forced to travel to Indiana for an abortion after being raped.

The six-week abortion ban was recently blocked by a state judge, so abortion is currently legal in the state up until 22 weeks. However, Republicans are pushing the state's conservative Supreme Court to overturn this injunction.

Ohio Issue 1 (2023), on the ballot next month, could render that court fight moot - and establish an individual "right to make and carry out one's own reproductive decisions" in Ohio's state constitution.

So far, polling indicates that voters are likely to approve the measure - a prospect made easier after Ohio voters rejected an effort by abortion opponents to raise the threshold required to pass ballot amendments.

Leo's network, however, is pulling out all the stops to defeat the measure.

State records show that Leo's Concord Fund has donated $18 million to a committee called Protect Women Ohio Action, including more than $6 million in the past two months. The committee disclosed paying $71,000 earlier this month to CRC Advisors (Creative Response Concepts), a consulting firm chaired by Leo, for polling and research.

Protect Women Ohio Action has reported donating about $17 million to the main committee opposing Issue 1, called Protect Women Ohio. Together, the two similarly-named groups have raised about $31 million to oppose the abortion ballot measure.

Donations from Leo's network account for nearly 60 percent of what the groups have raised.

Amy Natoce, press secretary for Protect Women Ohio, pointed out in an email that committees supporting the abortion ballot measure have received millions in "out-of-state dark money funding" - including from Democratic megadonor George Soros' Open Society Policy Center, the abortion rights group Planned Parenthood Action Fund, and the liberal dark money hub Sixteen Thirty Fund.

Gary Marx, the Concord Fund's president, told The Lever in a statement: "Our support for Protect Women Ohio pales in comparison to the $25 million the Arabella Advisors network and their allies have poured into Ohio to support Issue 1, which undermines parental rights and removes reasonable regulations on late-term abortions, including protections for babies that can feel pain." (Arabella Advisors administers the Sixteen Thirty Fund.)

Protect Women Ohio has swarmed voters with TV and digital ads - including ads that misleadingly suggest that Issue 1 would allow abortions at any time during pregnancy.

One ad features a personal appeal from Ohio Governor Mike DeWine (R) and his wife Fran.

"Issue 1 would allow an abortion at any time during pregnancy, and it would deny parents the right to be involved when their daughter is making the most important decision of her life," Fran DeWine claims in the ad.

Mike DeWine adds: "I know Ohioans are divided on the issue of abortion. But whether you're pro-life or pro-choice, Issue 1 is just not right for Ohio."

Another ad from Protect Women Ohio calls on voters to "stand with Trump against late-term abortions."

Issue 1's text says that "abortion may be prohibited after fetal viability," while clarifying that "in no case may such an abortion be prohibited if in the professional judgment of the pregnant patient's treating physician it is necessary to protect the pregnant patient's life or health."

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[ProPublica, 2023-10-23] Trump's Court Whisperer Had a State Judicial Strategy. Its Full Extent Only Became Clear Years Later.  Conservative activist Leonard Leo helped elect a judge in Wisconsin. Without him, the GOP feared their agenda would be "toast," according to an email.

In July 2015, Wisconsin's Supreme Court shielded Governor Scott Walker, then a rising Republican star with aspirations to the presidency, from a criminal investigation. The court's conservative majority halted the probe into what prosecutors suspected were campaign finance violations. One of the deciding votes was cast by Justice David Prosser, a conservative who had won reelection a few years earlier in a heavily contested race. During the race, a state GOP operative said if their party lost Prosser, "The Walker agenda is toast," according to an email included in a trove of documents the Guardian surfaced. Another vote for Walker came from Michael Gableman, a justice who had also waged a contentious campaign for his Wisconsin Supreme Court seat.

The high court, determining the prosecutors had overreached, ordered the investigation's documents destroyed. But not before the Guardian got its hands on a copy. And buried in the 1,500 pages was a reference to a key figure in propelling both Prosser and Gableman to victory: the co-chair of the right-leaning legal group the Federalist Society, organizer of dark money groups and conservative strategist Leonard Leo.

The Prosser and Gableman races were crucial skirmishes in Leo's decadeslong, ambitious effort to shape American law from the ground up. It's a project whose full dimensions are only now becoming clear. ProPublica detailed the arc of Leo's activism in a recent story and podcast with "On The Media."

If Leo's name sparks a note of recognition, it's usually because he was Donald Trump's judge whisperer and a leading figure in helping create the 6-3 conservative supermajority on the U.S. Supreme Court. Leo realized decades ago it was not enough to have a majority of Supreme Court justices; he would have to approach the legal system holistically if he wanted to bring lasting change. To undo landmark rulings like Roe v. Wade, Leo understood that he needed to make sure the court heard the right cases brought by the right people and heard by the right lower court judges.

Leo built a machine to achieve that goal. He helped ensure the nominations of justices from Clarence Thomas to Amy Coney Barrett. He used his closeness to the justices to attract donors to support his larger effort. He then used those donations to build a network of dark money groups supporting his candidates and causes across the U.S. And he helped elect or appoint state Supreme Court justices who were predisposed to push American jurisprudence to the right.

Wisconsin was where Leo honed his strategy. In 2008, in a racially charged challenge to the state's first Black Supreme Court justice, Leo himself raised money for Gableman, according to a person familiar with the campaign. Leo passed along a list of wealthy donors with the instructions to "tell them Leonard told you to call," this person said. All those people gave the maximum. Gableman won, the first time an incumbent was unseated in Wisconsin in 40 years. (Leo declined to comment to us on his role in that race.)

Then in 2011, state GOP operatives turned to Leo to boost Prosser. They hoped he would help them raise $200,000 for "a coalition to maintain the Court," the emails show. Prosser won, by half a percentage point. (When the emails mentioning his race surfaced, Prosser defended his independence.)

In 2016, Leo got involved again. Walker had a vacancy to fill and had three people on his shortlist: two Court of Appeals justices and the former attorney for an anti-abortion group and Federalist Society chapter head, Dan Kelly. "Leo stepped in and said it's going to be Dan Kelly," a person familiar with the selection told us. Walker denied speaking to Leo, who said he didn't remember. From 2016 until the present, a group called the Judicial Crisis Network (which is now known as the Concord Fund), was a regular donor to state judicial races. Leo has no official role at the JCN, which as a dark money group does not have to disclose its donors. But he helped create and raise money for it, and JCN often works toward the same goals as the Federalist Society.

JCN was a crucial financial supporter of the public campaigns to win support for Supreme Court nominees backed by Leo, from Chief Justice John Roberts to Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Coney Barrett. In Wisconsin, JCN sent increasing amounts of money to judicial races through circuitous routes. Sometimes the contribution flowed through a national political organization like the Republican State Leadership Committee. Other times, the money was sent to Wisconsin-based outfits.

Wisconsin is not the only state that Leo focused on. North Carolina shows the effects of more than a decade's worth of big-dollar funding from his network and a torrent of negative ads questioning the integrity of the judiciary.

In 2022, after years of sustained campaign spending by the Judicial Crisis Network and allied groups, North Carolina's high court flipped from a 4-3 Democratic majority to a 5-2 Republican majority. Months later, the court did something extraordinary: It reinstated a voter ID law that the same court, in its Democratic-led iteration, had found discriminated against Black voters. It also overturned a newly court-approved elections map that had produced an electoral outcome reflecting the state's partisan split.

[ ... snip ... ]

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Other Leonard Leo news

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[Politico.com, 2023-12-03] ‘Plain historical falsehoods’: How amicus briefs bolstered Supreme Court conservatives .  A POLITICO review indicates most conservative briefs in high-profile cases have links to a small cadre of activists aligned with Leonard Leo.

Princeton Professor Robert P. George, a leader of the conservative legal movement and confidant of the judicial activist and Donald Trump ally Leonard Leo, made the case for overturning Roe v. Wade in an amicus brief a year before the Supreme Court issued its watershed ruling.

Roe, George claimed, had been decided based on "plain historical falsehoods." For instance, for centuries dating to English common law, he asserted, abortion has been considered a crime or "a kind of inchoate felony for felony-murder purposes."

The argument was echoed in dozens of amicus briefs supporting Mississippi's restrictive abortion law in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, the Supreme Court case that struck down the constitutional right to abortion in 2022. Seven months before the decision, the argument was featured in an article on the web page of the conservative legal network, the Federalist Society, where Leo is co-chair.

In his majority opinion, Justice Samuel Alito used the same quote from Henry de Bracton, the medieval English jurist, that George cited in his amicus brief to help demonstrate that "English cases dating all the way back to the 13th century corroborate the treatises' statements that abortion was a crime."

George, however, is not a historian. Major organizations representing historians strongly disagree with him.

That this questionable assertion is now enshrined in the court's ruling is "a flawed and troubling precedent," the Organization of American Historians, which represents 6,000 history scholars and experts, and the American Historical Association, the largest membership association of professional historians in the world, said in a statement. It is also a prime example of how a tight circle of conservative legal activists have built a highly effective thought chamber around the court's conservative flank over the past decade.

A POLITICO review of tax filings, financial statements and other public documents found that Leo and his network of nonprofit groups are either directly or indirectly connected to a majority of amicus briefs filed on behalf of conservative parties in seven of the highest-profile rulings the court has issued over the past two years.

It is the first comprehensive review of amicus briefs that have streamed into the court since Trump nominated Justice Amy Coney Barrett in 2020, solidifying the court's conservative majority. POLITICO's review found multiple instances of language used in the amicus briefs appearing in the court's opinions.

The Federalist Society, the 70,000-member organization that Leo co-chairs, does not take political positions. But the movement centered around the society often weighs in through many like-minded groups. In 15 percent of the 259 amicus briefs for the conservative side in the seven cases, Leo was either a board member, official or financial backer through his network of the group that filed the brief. Another 55 percent were from groups run by individuals who share board memberships with Leo, worked for entities funded by his network or were among a close-knit circle of legal experts that includes chapter heads who serve under Leo at the Federalist Society.

The picture that emerges is of an exceedingly small universe of mostly Christian conservative activists developing and disseminating theories to change the nation's legal and cultural landscape. It also casts new light on Leo's outsized role in the conservative legal movement, where he simultaneously advised Trump on Supreme Court nominations, paid for media campaigns promoting the nominees and sought to influence court decision-making on a range of cases.

Adam Kennedy, Leo's spokesperson, said Leo has "no comment at this time."

George, in an emailed response, defended his claim that abortion was a crime, saying the historians have been "comprehensively refuted," including by John Keown, a leading English scholar of Christian ethics at Georgetown University and Joseph Dellapenna, a now-retired law professor who also submitted a brief.

Like George's view of abortion as a crime throughout history, arguments in amicus briefs often find their way into the justices' opinions. In major cases involving cultural flashpoints of abortion, affirmative action and LGBTQ+ rights POLITICO found information cited in amicus briefs connected to Leo's network in the court's opinions.

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• [Truthout.org, 2023-12-07] Leonard Leo Tied to 69 Percent of Right-Wing Amicus Briefs in Major SCOTUS Cases.  Amicus briefs, or arguments filed by third parties in a case, have been on the rise since “Citizens United.”

The past two years have seen among the most extreme and regressive Supreme Court decisions in modern U.S. history, with conservative justices yanking away rights left and right - while also granting protections to some of the most privileged people in the U.S. The past two years of Supreme Court cases have also had a stunning amount of influence from dark money puppetmaster Leonard Leo, a new analysis finds.

According to a Politico analysis published on amicus briefs this week [original source: Politico, Leo and his vast network are directly connected to or affiliated with nearly 70 percent of 259 conservative amicus briefs filed in the seven most high-profile Supreme Court cases over the past two years, or about 178 amicus briefs. Only about 31 percent, or less than a third, had no connection, the analysis found.

In 15 percent of the amicus briefs, Leo was either a leader or financial backer of the group behind the brief. The other 55 percent of briefs were led by groups with a leader who serves on a board with Leo or who is within a "close-knit circle of legal experts" with ties to the Federalist Society, or groups that had received funding from Leo's network.

This is a huge number of amicus briefs, which are filed by third parties in support of a viewpoint or argument in a case, that have ties to just one person. It is revealing of Leo's position in politics as a powerhouse manipulating the Supreme Court in the shadows, not only hand picking every single sitting conservative justice on the bench, but also reaching into cases whose outcome will affect the lives of hundreds of millions.

These briefs can have a major impact on the Supreme Court's decisions. The Politico analysis found that language used in the briefs often showed up in the Court's decision, and pointed out that there has been a huge surge in amicus briefs since 2010 - right after the Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission decision that also fueled a major uptick in dark money in politics.

Perhaps partially as a result of Leo's influence, the report further found that 50 percent of amicus briefs filed in the seven cases Politico analyzed were supporting conservative parties, lending right-wingers a slight edge over liberal parties, which saw only 46 percent of briefs filed in their support. Further, the liberal groups filing briefs are more decentralized, whereas the conservative network has strong connections to each other and seemingly to Leo.

Another element that could be lending Leo and his far right network an advantage in cases is conservative justices' intimate friendships and personal ties to Leo. Of the major figures involved in this year's Supreme Court scandals - Paul Singer, billionaire benefactor to Justice Samuel Alito, and Harlan Crow, provider of Justice Clarence Thomas' lavish lifestyle - all of them are connected to Leo's network; in fact, Leo appears to have brokered the relationship between Alito and Singer.

Combined with the fact that the conservatives justices on the Supreme Court in large part owe their seats to Leo and his influence, it's possible that Leo's influence via the amicus briefs his network is tied to has an even larger impact on Court decisions.

"Leonard Leo has written the playbook on court corruption and dark money influence," Accountable.us President Caroline Ciccone said in response to the report. "He leverages his web of nonprofits, his cozy relationships with decision-makers, and his handpicked Supreme Court to push his extreme agenda because he knows it will never win at the ballot box."

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[NPR.org, 2022-08-12] This conservative group helped push a disputed election theory.

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 A. 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.

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[NewRepublic.com, 2022-07-11] How Leonard Leo Became the Grey Cardinal of the American Right.  The Federalist Society kingpin has exerted more influence on the country's rightward drift than almost anyone in conservative circles, including presidents. He's not done by a long shot.

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 anthropogenic 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 A. 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.

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[ExposedByCMD.org, 2021-10-04] ALEC Leaders Boast About Anti-Abortion, Anti-Trans Bills.

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.

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[ExposedByCMD.org, 2021-08-03] Group Run by Trump's "Judge Whisperer" Leonard Leo Provides More Than a Third of RAGA's Revenue So Far in 2021

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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[PRWatch.org, 2020-10-10] Snapshot of Secret Funding of Amicus Briefs Tied to Leonard Leo -- Federalist Society Leader, Promoter of Amy Barrett. A new review of grant documents, first published on the dark web, provides a snapshot of how groups tied to Leonard A. Leo -- the man who put Amy Coney Barrett on President Trump's list for the Supreme Court - have been secretly funded to file briefs with the Supreme Court to overturn U.S. laws, including the Affordable Care Act.

[OpenSecrets.org, 2019-05-23] Wellspring Committee: An influential 'dark money' group turns off the lights for the last time

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

[2018-07-06]:  The anti-abortion conservative quietly guiding Trump's supreme court pick, Leonard Leo -- who is advising Trump on his nominee -- is a mild-mannered Republican who has become one of the Washington's most influential people.

As the owlish Executive Vice-President of the Federalist Society,   Leonard A. 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.

The Wellspring Committee, 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.

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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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