Tag Archives: Leonard Leo

The Guardian reports: A libertarian group that has been funded by Leonard Leo and Charles Koch has mounted a legal challenge against Donald Trump’s tariff regime, in a sign of spreading right wing opposition to a policy that has sent international markets plummeting. The New Civil Liberties Alliance filed a suit against Trump’s imposition of import tariffs on exports from …

The Daily Beast reports: Leonard Leo, a conservative activist and the former executive vice president of the Federalist Society, told the Financial Times his nonprofit group was pledging $1 billion to “crush liberal dominance” in corporate America. The conservative activist told the British broadsheet he would “direct resources to build talent and capital formation pipelines in the areas of news …

“No conservative justice has made any decision in any big case that surprised anyone, so let’s stop pretending this is about undue influence. It’s about Democrats destroying a court they don’t agree with. “If President Biden and the Democrats were truly serious about ethics reform, then they would ban all gifts and hospitality of any kind to any public official …

The Guardian reports: Tax filings obtained by the Guardian show how the rightwing dark money impresario Leonard Leo helped fuel the Bud Light boycott in response to ads featuring the transgender activist Dylan Mulvaney, an effort that generated threats against Mulvaney, violence against consumers and layoffs by Anheuser-Busch. Uncovered by the watchdog group Accountable.US, the filings for 2022 show the …

NBC News reports: Trump made time to call into a secretive donor meeting back at his Mar-a-Lago club. The event was hosted by the Rockbridge Network, an under-the-radar, new-age conservative group that sees itself as the leading edge of a changing Republican Party — and is putting tens of millions of dollars into building a fresh infrastructure to support it. …

The Washington Post reports: The Senate Judiciary Committee sent a subpoena Thursday to conservative judicial activist Leonard Leo as part of a months-long inquiry into undisclosed gifts to Supreme Court justices and he promptly rejected it, calling the move “politically motivated.” “I am not capitulating to his lawless support of Senator Sheldon Whitehouse and the left’s dark money effort to …

Politico reports: Groups aligned with the conservative legal movement and its financial architect, Leonard Leo, are working to promote a publicly funded Christian school in Oklahoma, hoping to create a test case to change the Supreme Court’s interpretation of the First Amendment’s separation of church and state. At issue is the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Oklahoma’s push to create the …

The Lever reports: In 2021 and 2022, two conservative, billionaire-funded legal interests sent more than 100 federal judges on 251 trips to conferences and seminars in cushy locations around the country and overseas, according to a Lever review of hundreds of federal financial disclosure forms. In all, George Mason University (GMU) and The Federalist Society, a conservative lawyers network, funded …

Politico reports: Conservative judicial activist Leonard Leo’s consulting firm received $21 million in 2022 from a group that is a pillar of Leo’s aligned nonprofit network, according to a new tax filing. That group, The 85 Fund, is part of an umbrella of nonprofits under investigation by the Washington, D.C. attorney general for potentially violating tax laws. The tax filing, …

NBC News reports: Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee announced plans Monday to seek subpoenas for three influential conservatives who have been a key focus of the panel’s investigation into Supreme Court ethics. In a joint statement, Committee Chairman Dick Durbin of Illinois and Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., who chairs the panel’s subcommittee on federal courts and oversight, said previous …

The Messenger reports: Two powerful House GOP chairmen are probing the D.C. attorney general’s investigation of the conservative legal mastermind behind the Supreme Court’s hard right turn, which led to overturning Roe v. Wade. It was reported in August that D.C. Attorney General Brian Schwalb launched an investigation into Leonard Leo, co-chairman of the conservative Federalist Society, after one of …

The Washington Post reports: For decades, the ambitions of Florida’s Republican governors were stymied by the liberal-leaning state Supreme Court. That is, until Ron DeSantis was elected. The court let him erase a congressional district with a large Black population. It opened the door to a law making it easier to impose the death penalty. Now, it’s poised to rule …

The Washington Post reports: Conservative judicial activist Leonard Leo arranged for the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas to be paid tens of thousands of dollars for consulting work just over a decade ago, specifying that her name be left off billing paperwork, according to documents reviewed by The Washington Post. In January 2012, Leo instructed the GOP pollster …

Politico reports: A network of political non-profits formed by judicial activist Leonard Leo moved at least $43 million to a new firm he is leading, raising questions about how his conservative legal movement is funded. Leo’s own personal wealth appeared to have ballooned as his fundraising prowess accelerated since his efforts to cement the Supreme Court’s conservative majority helped to …

Politico reports: Longtime judicial activist Leonard Leo appears to have helped facilitate the sale of former White House senior adviser Kellyanne Conway’s polling company in 2017 — as she was playing a key role in advocating for Leo’s handpicked list of Supreme Court candidates. The transaction came at a critical moment for Conway — shortly after her ownership of The …

Politico reports: After Justice Anthony Kennedy told President Donald Trump he would relinquish his seat on the Supreme Court, the president emerged from his private meeting with the retiring jurist focused on one candidate to name as his successor: Judge Brett Kavanaugh, Kennedy’s former law clerk. Trump, according to confidants and aides close to the White House, has become increasingly …