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LEO rlt rule of law trust

note several orgs sim name and aim, but leo in at least 2, defense fund

Leonard Leo's mysterious $200 million dark money war chest - CREW | Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington

DEC 2022

A dark money group tied to conservative judicial activist and longtime Federalist Society executive Leonard Leo entered the 2022 midterms with a war chest of more than $202 million, according to tax documents obtained by CREW. The mysterious group, known as Rule of Law Trust (RLT), spent the last several years quietly raising millions of dollars from a very small handful of donors, cementing itself as one of the largest groups in Leo’s colossal dark money network. The network, which is now valued at well over $1 billion, is diving into culture war battles and leading efforts to remake federal elections.

The new tax documents show that RLT—which has no website, no employees, no volunteers, and no staffed office—brought in more than $157 million in contributions in 2021. This brings RLT’s total revenue from donations since its founding in 2018, not including investments, to $237 million, all of which came from, at most, just six donors who gave anonymously to the secretive group—an astounding total, considering that RLT didn’t receive any donations in 2019 or 2020. Almost all of the money RLT received in 2021 was from a $153 million grant from yet another Leo group called the Marble Freedom Trust, a $1.6 billion behemoth founded in May of 2020. Reports earlier over the summer showed that Marble Freedom Trust’s massive first-year revenue came from a single electronics manufacturing magnate.

Despite its prodigious fundraising, RLT has generally kept its powder dry, spending nearly $53 million since its founding—or 21 percent of its total revenue over that time. The vast majority of those funds were spent in 2020 when RLT gave nearly $36.3 million in grants out to allied groups. The largest beneficiary of that largesse was the Judicial Crisis Network (JCN)—now officially known as the Concord Fund—a dark money group with deep ties to Leo that is run by a former clerk to Justice Clarence Thomas. JCN has spent tens of millions of dollars helping Leo and the Trump administration seat conservative justices on the Supreme Court. In 2021, RLT’s largest expenditure was, again, a $3 million grant to JCN, which comes on top of the $16.5 million given by Marble Freedom Trust in its most recent tax year.

It will be a long time before the public has any idea how RLT deployed these funds in 2022 because RLT is registered as a section 501(c)(4) social welfare organizations, which typically file tax returns a year or more after the spending takes place. But Leo—whom Justice Thomas once referred to as “the number three most powerful person in the world”—has made it clear that he intends to take what he’s learned in his decades of judicial fights and apply them to rolling back what he calls “liberal dominance in other areas of American cultural, policy and political life.” The constellation of groups in Leo’s orbit have been increasingly active in culture war battles over Critical Race Theory, trans rights and climate change mitigation.

But Leo’s most potentially consequential project so far may be the effort to change how elections are conducted. This week, the Supreme Court will hear arguments in Moore v. Harper, a case that could potentially give state legislatures unfettered power to make rules about how elections are executed in their state, stripping governors and state courts of any check on that power. The underlying theory has been widely discredited, prompting a rare filing from top judges in all 50 states urging the Court to reject the theory, but Leo’s network has been pushing the theory since 2020 and an amicus brief filed by one of Leo’s groups in Moore argues that critics misunderstand the history and exaggerate the consequences of such a ruling. We will soon see what Leo’s efforts and his fundraising prowess accomplish in a Court he helped to shape.

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an 12 23

Trump's unofficial Supreme Court advisor who was actively involved in all three of his justice nominations has been revealed as the sole trustee of a perplexing group that generated more than $80 million in dark money in 2018.

A unfiled tax return for Rule of Law Trust (RLT) shows the name of Federalist Society co-chairman Leonard Leo, according to CREW. The mysterious tax return also includes a number of questionable details that raise alarms about the origin of the money.

In its first year of operation, there were no employees or volunteers working the firm's main address which appears to be a virtual office located in Virginia. The only people associated with RLT have statuses similar to Leo being Federalist Society officials who now work as "consultants" or have a long history of ties to companies circulating dark money.

The company's mission statement also notes that it strives "to advance conservative principles and causes through communications, research, strategy and assistance to other organizations."

In addition to the mysterious cash circulating and the business' hallow history, it also appears to have funneled nearly $2.7 million in company expenditures through another business known as the BH Group.

*"The filing vastly expands the amount of money known to be flowing into the growing constellation of dark money groups tied to Federalist Society co-chairman Leonard Leo."

Leo is also listed as the partial owner of that firm. While there has been speculation of Leo's affiliation with the company, his true status within the company had not been confirmed until recently. The BH Group garnered attention back in 2016 after it donated a cool $1 million to Trump's first presidential election campaign. The firm also has a history of funneling funds for the purpose of campaign contributions.

Wellspring Committee and Judicial Crisis Network (JCN), both 501(c)(4) social welfare groups relatively similar to RLT, also funneled money through the BH Group to sway elections and Supreme Court nominations.

Here is a quick timeline of how dark money has influenced politics over the last four years:

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trump scotus noms

United States courts of appeals

United States district courts

State supreme courts

Executive branch

United States senators

State executive branches

See also

https://www.alternet.org/playing-fast-loose-megadonor-watchdog/

an no lnx

How a Republican megadonor is 'playing fast and loose' to push 'dangerous, extreme agenda': watchdog

Maya Boddie  June 18, 2023

Republican billionaire Leonardo Leo's trust fund, Marble Freedom Trust's latest Internal Revenue Service (IRS) filing, revealing the former President Donald Trump donor's mission to control right-wing politics, Truthout reports.

Progressive watchdog Accountable.US obtained the recent IRS filing, which according to Truthout, shows the Federalist Society leader "has dumped at least $411 million into fueling right-wing infrastructure in the U.S. since mid-2020."

Furthermore, according to Truthout, the filing reveals "Leo has spent at least $182 million during the Biden administration to fund right-wing groups from May 1, 2020, through April 30, 2022," noting, "This surge has come as Leo has become more publicly outspoken in attacking reproductive rights as well as efforts to protect our environment and crucial measures that advance Americans' equality."

READ MORE: Conservative activist arranged for Clarence Thomas’ wife to get secret payouts

Additionally, it "adds to the growing public knowledge of how Leo's for-profit business works in tandem with nonprofit groups he funds to change the rules in our democracy, and also provides a glimpse of how lucrative this effort is."

The news outlet reports prior to Accountable's findings, "the Campaign for Accountability filed an IRS complaint against Leo based on other filings showing that seven of his affiliated nonprofits had sent $73 million to his for-profit CRC Advisors."

Truthout also notes:

As Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-Rhode Island) has noted, before the public learned of the existence of Marble Freedom Trust, Leo rose to prominence as a volunteer advising Trump by creating the list of Supreme Court candidates that Trump chose from, as well as by helping to secure the confirmation of three controversial high court nominees — Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett (and helped get numerous other lower court judges appointed). As True North documented, Leo's network played a central role in this right-wing court packing, raising over $600 million from 2014 through the 2020 election. This dark money network has received more than $2 billion when accounting for Marble.

Accountable President Kyle Herrig told Truthout he believes "Leonard Leo is playing fast and loose with his $1.6 billion slush fund, enriching himself and doling out paychecks and favors for his cronies," adding, "This kind of corruption is par for the course for Leo. It clearly pays to do his bidding."

READ MORE: Charities often move 'dark' money that shapes public policy: report

Herring said, "This is just the latest development in Leonard Leo's decades-long scheme to push his dangerous, extreme agenda and get rich while doing it. From personal enrichment for himself and his inner circle to his machine of nonprofits advancing the MAGA agenda, we’ve only scratched the surface of Leo’s devastating impact on our democracy."

READ MORE: 'Largest political donation ever': Trump ally received $1.6 billion through Federalist Society contact

Truthout's full report is available at this link.

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ref

apr 2023

https://truthout.org/articles/new-details-from-leonard-leos-trust-fund-expose-the-inner-workings-of-the-right/

newly obtained documents show that the billion-dollar trust fund given to Leonard Leo — the right-wing attorney and longtime leader the Federalist Society who orchestrated Donald Trump’s Supreme Court picks — has dumped at least $411 million into fueling right-wing infrastructure in the U.S. since mid-2020.

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The latest IRS filing of the new nonprofit, Marble Freedom Trust — obtained by:{ :(style="background-color:#f8f8f8;"):}::{Accountable.US:(style="background-color:#ffff66;"):}:, a progressive watchdog group — shows that Leo has spent at least $182 million during the Biden administration to fund right-wing groups from May 1, 2021, through April 30, 2022. This surge has come as Leo has become more publicly outspoken in attacking reproductive rights as well as efforts to protect our environment and crucial measures that advance Americans’ equality.

Leo chose to have most of that, more than $153 million, wash through the Schwab Charitable Fund, a “donor-advised fund” that serves as a passthrough to help obscure the money trail between a funder and its beneficiaries. In recent years, since Leo secured control of $1.6 billion in the largest single gift of its kind from Chicago billionaire Barre Seid, Leo’s network of groups has relied heavily on donor-advised funds to move cash between entities in ways that can help keep the original donor secret from the public.

marble’s filing included only one other grantee: the Concord Fund (also known as the Judicial Crisis Network), to which it gave a $29 million gift. The Concord Fund then paid $12 million in fees to CRC Advisors, a for-profit PR firm that Leo has helped helm since 2020.

Kyle Herrig, the president of Accountable told Truthout that in his opinion “Leonard Leo is playing fast and loose with his $1.6 billion slush fund, enriching himself and doling out paychecks and favors for his cronies. This kind of corruption is par for the course for Leo. It clearly pays to do his bidding."

before Accountable’s latest revelations, theCampaign for Accountability filed an IRS complaint against Leo based on other filings showing that seven of his affiliated nonprofits had sent $73 million to his for-profit CRC Advisors.

Despite more than $1 billion in assets, Leo’s Marble Freedom Trust has no publicly known website, and its street address is actually a UPS drop box in Utah. Meanwhile, however, Marble disclosed spending nearly $250,000 on “office expenses.” Its disclosed phone number, with an area code for southeastern coast of Florida, has been held for years — well before Marble was created — by Leo’s longtime collaborator Neil Corkery, an anti-gay rights and anti-abortion operative central to Leo’s court capture network.

This latest filing also adds to the growing public knowledge of how Leo’s for-profit business works in tandem with nonprofit groups he funds to change the rules in our democracy, and also provides a glimpse of how lucrative this effort is.

Marble’s filing shows that in its second year of operations Leo gave himself a raise from $350,000 to $400,000 a year for working part-time (25 hours a week) for the trust he controls. It also reported that he spends 10 hours a week onRule of Law Trust, a 501(c)(4)nonprofit launched in 2018 with a gift of nearly $80 million from a donor kept secret from the public.Leo is the only trustee of that entity, and Corkery holds its books. Like Marble, it has no website and its address is a drop box location. Its listed phone goes to a law firm.

Marble’s latest filing shows that Leo’s billion-dollar trust also added a new employee to its operations: Alex Marshall as CIO, an acronym that typically stands for Chief Information Officer. His salary was listed at a whopping $764,000.

According to Accountable, until 2021 Marshall was likely working as a branch manager for the investment firm Oppenheimer & Co., a brokerage firm and investment bank, and was likely making hundreds of thousands less because Marshall’s broker record indicates he completed “entry-level” financial industry exams for principal and supervisory roles.

How did Alex Marshall get plugged into Leo’s operation?

As True North Research’s Lisa Graves first uncloaked, Alex Marshall is married to Maria Marshall, who currently works at Leo’s CRC Advisors and previously worked for the Federalist Society, the networking group created to get right-wing lawyers into powerful offices. Marshall’s title was “director of operations” in the “Office of the Federalist Society’s Executive [Vice President].” That was Leo’s office, where she handled his schedule, among other roles. She previously worked as U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter’s scheduler.

She left her day job to work with Leo, who also left his day job at the Federalist Society in 2020 to help lead the PR firm Creative Response Concepts, which rebranded as CRC Advisors, though he still helps lead and fund the Federalist Society as co-chair of its board.

While she was working for Leo at the Federalist Society, Leo’s Rule of Law Trust paid nearly $600,000 to**YAS**, LLC. That is the name of the Washington, DC-filed consulting firm created in 2015 and owned by Maria Marshall. Leo’s Rule of Law Trust paid YAS another $175,000 in 2020, after he left his employment but not his leadership role with the Federalist Society.

The Marshalls were also guests at the special table purchased by the major “anonymous” donor to the renaming ceremony of George Mason University’s law school in tribute to Antonin Scalia, an event cohosted by Leo.

Allison Pienta, a George Mason student who worked with UnKoch My Campus to obtain public records, revealed that the anonymous donor who gave $20 million to rebrand the law school and put Leo in a key role was none other than Barre Seid. (Charles Koch also gave $10 million to fund the law school.) There is no indication that Seid, a notoriously secretive billionaire, was there at the Scalia tribute dinner cohosted by Leo.

The Marshalls were at that special table alongsideJonathan Bunch, who was later named as a successor trustee at Marble, meaning he is Leo’s potential successor at the billion-dollar trust. Bunch, who is now listed as president of CRC Advisors, was paid more than $1.5 million for consulting by Leo’s Rule of Law Trust in 2018, when he was also working at the Federalist Society with Leo. Two years later, as Heidi Przybyla from Politico documented, Bunch and his wife closed on a $1.28 million home on the Chesapeake Bay, a second home a few hours south of their longtime home in a suburb of Washington, D.C.

As Accountable uncovered, since the launch of YAS, the Marshalls also purchased a second home near the beach in Avalon, New Jersey, the third most expensive zip code in the state. That research revealed that the Marshalls rent out the home, valued at $1.38 million home, for up to $7,700 a week depending on the season.

As Robert O’Harrow Jr. and Shawn Boburg documented in the Washington Post, on the eve of the Senate vote on Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination by Donald Trump to the U.S. Supreme Court,Leo bought a $3.3 million seaside mansion in Maine.

Just two months after that story broke, and less than a year after he closed on the mansion, Leo paid off the mortgage in full, for more than $2 million, while he was still working as the executive vice president of the Federalist Society, with a six-figure salary. As the Post revealed, a year earlier, after Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy announced his retirement and as Leo was advising Trump on packing the Supreme Court as well as aiding the effort to get Trump’s nominees confirmed, Leo paid offhis 30-year mortgage 22 years ahead of schedule.

As Politicolater detailed, after officially joining CRC Advisors, Leo bought a second mansion in Maine, and has spent his growing wealth by purchasing four new cars, paying private school tuition for his children, and obtaining a wine buyer and locker at Morton’s Steakhouse. He has also donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to religious groups and he has also spent money on electoral candidates himself. Additionally, Leo-tied nonprofits have directed millions of dollars to playing an increasing role targeting voters around elections.

As Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-Rhode Island) has noted, before the public learned of the existence of Marble Freedom Trust, Leo rose to prominence as a volunteer advising Trump by creating the list of Supreme Court candidates that Trump chose from, as well as by helping to secure the confirmation of three controversial high court nominees — Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett (and helped get numerous other lower court judges appointed). As True North documented, Leo’s network played a central role in this right-wing court packing, raising over $600 million from 2014 through the 2020 election. This dark money network has received more than $2 billion when accounting for Marble.

As *Politico* noted, “Campaign-style politics — and the generous paydays that go along with it — are now adjacent to the Supreme Court, the one U.S. institution that’s supposed to be immune to it.”

Leo’s ties to such efforts are not only recent. Last month, the Washington Post revealed that in2012 Leo had been instructing Kellyanne Conway, who ran the Polling Company, to bill the Judicial Education Project (now known as the 85 Fund and the Honest Elections Project) to pay Ginni Thomas up to $100,000.She is the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.That is, Leo was secretly orchestrating the pay of the wife of a Supreme Court Justice, Clarence Thomas, from a secret funder. That funder’s identity remains hidden. That year, the Judicial Education Project also paid CRC $165,000. CRC later acquired the Polling Company in 2017, with the help of another Leo group, as Politico revealed late last year.

Leo’s income from his for-profit operations or any consulting, such as CRC Advisors, is not required to be publicly disclosed.

The new filing that Accountable.US obtained provides vital insights into how Leo is using the billion that Seid gave him and also provides new information about the shape of his efforts to remake our courts and our country to advance his view of the world.

“This is just the latest development in Leonard Leo’s decades-long scheme to push his dangerous, extreme agenda and get rich while doing it,” Herrig told Truthout. “From personal enrichment for himself and his inner circle to his machine of nonprofits advancing the MAGA agenda, we’ve only scratched the surface of Leo’s devastating impact on our democracy.”

Note: Lisa Graves, True North’s executive director, contributed to this piece. A correction was made post-publication to correct a typo in a date (changing “May 1, 2020” to “May 1, 2021).

https://www.alternet.org/2020/10/trump-supreme-court-advisor-leonard-leo-tied-to-more-than-80-mllion-in-dark-money

m ellis

President Donald Trump's unofficial Supreme Court advisor who was actively involved in all three of his justice nominations has been revealed as the sole trustee of a perplexing group that generated more than $80 million in dark money in 2018.

A unfiled tax return for Rule of Law Trust (RLT) shows the name of Federalist Society co-chairman Leonard Leo, according to CREW. The mysterious tax return also includes a number of questionable details that raise alarms about the origin of the money.

In its first year of operation, there were no employees or volunteers working the firm's main address which appears to be avirtual office located in Virginia. The only people associated with RLT have statuses similar to Leo being Federalist Society officials who now work as "consultants" or have a long history of ties to companies circulating dark money.

The company's mission statement also notes that it strives "to advance conservative principles and causes through communications, research, strategy and assistance to other organizations."

In addition to the mysterious cash circulating and the business' hallow history, it also appears to have funneled nearly $2.7 million in company expenditures through another business known as the BH Group.

"The filing vastly expands the amount of money known to be flowing into the growing constellation of dark money groups tied to Federalist Society co-chairman Leonard Leo."

Leo is also listed as the partial owner of that firm. While there has been speculation of Leo's affiliation with the company, his true status within the company had not been confirmed until recently. The BH Group garnered attention back in 2016 after it donated a cool $1 million to Trump's first presidential election campaign. The firm also has a history of funneling funds for the purpose of campaign contributions.

Wellspring Committee and Judicial Crisis Network (JCN), both 501(c)(4) social welfare groups relatively similar to RLT, also funneled money through the BH Group to sway elections and Supreme Court nominations.

Here is a quick timeline of how dark money has influenced politics over the last four years:

FROM YOUR SITE ARTICLES

ref

https://www.citizensforethics.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Rule-of-Law-Trust-2018-990.pdf

8300 boone ave ste 50 vienna va

ein 83-1047727

541 341-8808

80.5K$  2018  T raymond conlon  sil spr md

indep contr aka consultants?

jon bunch, YAS llc DC; regnery, holtzman vogel 190K legal?!

other income 2.5 mill$  4.5 mm transact BH gp more than 35% owned by leo  Rule of law trust; 2 milll$ consult, 480K research

twt

@mrspanstreppon

·

Nov 27, 2018

Replying to

@mrspanstreppon

@runPattirun

and

@RobertMaguire_

Maybe the Corkerys w/an assist from CPA Thomas Conlon, are hiding the names of the Wellspring Committee board members so no one asks them any q.s about the committee's operations. Or to disguise related party transactions.....

Nov 27, 2018

Kathleen Marie Corker married Thomas S. Mellon in Nov '16 & is,of course, a George Mason U. grad.  She is now developmental director at her father's "not-for-profit" , the Sudan Relief Fund. Curious what Mr. Mellon does for a living....

https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2016/04/new-nonprofit-tied-to-stealthy-circle-of-dark-money-groups/

hmmn

AKA:Thomas W Conlon, Thomas Raymond Conlon, Raymond T Conlon, T Raymond Conlon, Thomas R Conlon

Associates:Marlene M Conlon, Marlene M Conlon, Thomas T Conlon, Eileen Conlon, Marlene Conlon

Previous Addresses: Silver Spring, MD, Hyattsville, MD, Ocean View, DE

Work: PROUD PARENT BABYSITTIN at BROOKER BABYSITTING SERVICES

School: University Of Maryland College Park

Summary: Thomas Conlon was born on 07/17/1953 and is 67 years old. Thomas Conlon currently lives in Silver Spring, MD; in the past Thomas has also lived in Hyattsville MD and Ocean View DE. In the past, Thomas has also been known as Thomas W Conlon, Thomas Raymond Conlon, Raymond T Conlon, T Raymond Conlon and Thomas R Conlon. PROUD PARENT BABYSITTIN at bROOKER BABYSITTING SERVICES is presently Thomas's occupation. Other family members and associates include Marlene Conlon, Marlene Conlon, Thomas Conlon, Eileen Conlon and Isabelle Schatten. Read Full Summary

The RLDF   def fund Was Created As A 501(C)(4) In 2014 not same as project

2015 900K$ lee russell treas