“It was at that point that the grip of this little donor elite and Leo, its Federalist Society operative, really took hold. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, one of the most outspoken critics of dark money’s influence on politics, told the Guardian earlier this year that was a turning point. She was widely regarded as a weak candidate in any case, but when conservatives turned on her, and Miers withdrew, Leo saw to it that she was replaced by a figure far more acceptable to the right and opponents of abortion, Samuel Alito. In 2005, George W Bush nominated Harriet Miers, his deputy chief of staff, for a vacant seat on the supreme court. He rose to become the society’s co-chair and oversaw the rise in its influence at the expense of the more liberal American Bar Association, in part through the effectiveness of his fundraising to back conservative judicial nominees.Īs the conservative lawyer Ed Whelan wrote six years ago in the National Review: “No one has been more dedicated to the enterprise of building a supreme court that will overturn Roe v Wade than the Federalist Society’s Leonard Leo.” Leo went on to work for the Federalist Society, founded in 1982 to counter what conservatives claimed was liberal dominance of US courts and law schools. Leo’s close relationship with Thomas goes back to 1991 when he worked to gather evidence to support the judge during his confirmation hearing for the supreme court. “It’s high time for the conservative movement to be among the ranks of George Soros, Hansjörg Wyss, Arabella Advisors and other leftwing philanthropists, going toe-to-toe in the fight to defend our constitution and its ideals,” he said in a statement. Leo defended the injection of a huge amount of “dark money” into the political process by claiming it merely levels the playing field against Democrats funded by liberal billionaires. That still leaves more than $1bn to fund political causes close to Leo’s heart, including his interest in helping Republican officials manipulate elections ahead of the midterm vote and the next presidential ballot. The Marble Freedom Trust has already distributed nearly a quarter of a billion dollars, including $153m to the Rule of Law Trust to push the appointment of conservative judges. The roundabout process has prompted speculation Seid was sidestepping tax on the sale to maximize the funding for Leo. Marble sold the firm, the Chicago electronics manufacturer Tripp Lite, this year for $1.6bn, according to tax records. Seid, who has spent tens of millions of dollars funding conservative and libertarian organisations, donated an entire company last year to a newly founded political advocacy group run by Leo, the Marble Freedom Trust. Leo, a 56 year-old whose opposition to abortion is rooted in his Catholic faith, remains an obscure figure to much of the US public, even after revelations that he heads a political group that has received an astonishing $1.6bn donation to push conservative causes, including election manipulation ahead of this year’s midterm votes.Įarlier this month the New York Times revealed that the money, said to be one of the largest single contributions to a political pressure group, arrived in a circuitous route from a figure who is equally obscure to most Americans: Barre Seid. Most had never even heard of Leo, even though he was at that time instrumental in maneuvering Donald Trump to reshape the court on which Thomas sits, and so deliver one of its most politically sensitive rulings of recent times by overturning the right to abortion. Yet both men understood at that moment in 2018 just how influential Leo was, in ways that few Americans knew.
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