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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">leo1118</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">16 tags here (vs 12)</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><span style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb">many nodes, rebrand thus</span><b style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"> lnrd tag</b><span style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"> 4 22</span></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">oops see LEO 2 bak</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">see mcconn ct stack</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">see clarence clerk mafia carrie s</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</div><div><a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/how-right-wing-dark-money-is-trying-to-kneecap-the-biden-doj">https://www.thedailybeast.com/how-right-wing-dark-money-is-trying-to-kneecap-the-biden-doj</a></div><div>NO LNX</div><div>OPINION</div><div><b>How Right-Wing Dark Money Is Trying to Kneecap the Biden DOJ</b></div><div>TIME TO FIGHT</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">A shadowy group is fighting DOJ appointees Vanita Gupta and Kristen Clarke. Their crime? Their desire to use their skills to defend Americans’ right to vote.</span></div><div><b>
</b></div><div><b>Sheldon Whitehouse</b></div><div><b>Published Mar. 22, 2021 </b></div><div>OPINION</div><div>
</div><div>Someone is targeting Biden Justice Department nominees Vanita Gupta and Kristen Clarke with attacks. Why? Both nominees hold exceptional records as litigators and civils rights activists. The respect they’ve earned extends beyond the civil rights movement and progressives to law enforcement and leading conservatives. They ought to be consensus picks.</div><div>
</div><div>But pull back the curtain, and strategy and motive take shape. Gupta and Clarke are poised to use their skills to defend Americans’ right to vote, just as the Republican Party is going all in on voter suppression as its path to political victory in 2022.</div><div>
</div><div>Unraveling the strategy starts with the dark-money group running the ads: the so-called<b> Judicial Crisis Network (JCN). </b>This group’s ordinary work has been to translate big donors’ money into political attack ads in the “Court capture” mission that set out to remake the Supreme Court to the donors’ advantage. JCN has placed more than 10,000 ads since 2012 in pursuit of that mission, and they’ve kept secret the identity of those big donors.</div><div>
</div><div>[Biden’s AG’s the Perfect Person to Clean Up Trump’s Cesspool</div><div>CLEANUP IN AISLE 5</div><div>Jay Michaelson]</div><div>
</div><div>In Donald Trump and Mitch McConnell’s court-packing machine, this Judicial Crisis Network spent $7 million to oppose President Obama’s Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland, and then spent another $10 million to boost Trump’s nominee Neil Gorsuch. JCN pledged $10 million or more for Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination. It spent $10 million in under two months to support Amy Coney Barrett’s bid. These campaigns were funded with tens of millions of anonymous dollars, primarily through four separate donations of at least $15 million. Those donations may well have been the same donor.</div><div>
</div><div>Eye-popping as that is, those millions are a tiny slice of the funding behind the overall dark-money operation. A 2019 Washington Post investigation revealed JCN is one of a web of front groups coordinated by Leonard Leo, the long-time executive vice president of the Federalist Society. The Post tracked more than $250 million in dark money flowing through Leo’s groups.</div><div>
</div><div>The groups see to the grooming and selection of reliable nominees, the lobbyists needed to shepherd nominees through confirmation, and the attack ads to motivate the confirmation votes. Then, more groups lobby the selected judges through amicus curiae briefs, signaling how their donors want the judges to rule.</div><div>
</div><div>The dark-money network has won an avalanche of victories for its donors. There are 80 partisan, 5-4 Supreme Court decisions that limit workers’ rights and access to reproductive health care, erode environmental protections, block commonsense gun safety laws, undermine civil rights, and protect corporations from courtrooms. It is an astounding 80-0 rout for big right-wing donors.</div><div>
</div><div><b>After The Washington Post exposed the $250 million operation, Leo stepped back from his Federalist Society</b> role and turned up at a new organization improbably named the <b>Honest Elections Project</b>. This project began voter suppression work in political swing states like Florida, Nevada, Wisconsin, and Michigan that included: negative ads against Democrats; threatening letters to election officials challenging voter rolls; and a barrage of lawsuits seeking voting restrictions for November’s election.</div><div>
</div><div>“Trump’s cronies at the Justice Department showed dark-money donors the value of a captive Department that would look away from voter suppression schemes. ”</div><div>The media soon uncovered that the Honest Elections Project was a rebrand of the Judicial Education Project—which shared connections, donors, and aims with its sister group — yes, the Judicial Crisis Network. As a reporter for The Guardian observed, the Honest Elections Project melds two goals of the right-wing dark-money operation: first, pack the federal judiciary; and second, bring voting rights cases before the packed courts. Rigging elections through the courts is now a Republican judicial priority.</div><div>
</div><div>This brings us back to Gupta and Clarke. Gupta once ran the Civil Rights Division. She prosecuted hate crimes and human trafficking, promoted disability and LGBTQ rights, and fought discrimination in education, housing, employment, lending, and religious exercise. But most important, she challenged voter suppression. Gupta, if confirmed as assistant attorney general, will supervise the Civil Rights Division she once ran.</div><div>
</div><div>Accomplished civil rights attorney Clarke will fill Gupta’s former role running the Division and enforcing voting rights. The Honest Elections Project, kin to the Judicial Crisis Network, wants no part of these two women, because they will be strong, motivated leaders against unlawful voter suppression. They preferred Trump’s Civil Rights Division, which didn’t bring one single Voting Rights Act case until late May of 2020.</div><div>
</div><div>That’s the motive. The donor-approved Republican appointees to the Supreme Court may handcuff the Civil Rights Division with further judicial assaults on voting rights. But Trump’s cronies at the Justice Department showed dark-money donors the value of a captive Department that would look away from voter suppression schemes. As Republicans hinge their election strategy on keeping Americans from voting, an active Civil Rights Division is a deadly threat.</div><div>
</div><div>I get it. If I were a right-wing special interest group, the last thing I would want is these two experienced lawyers wielding the power of the Justice Department to defend voting rights. But for everybody else, these women are two appointments to applaud.</div><div>
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</div><div>[TONY ORTEGA</div><div>Even Trump Can’t Make Sense of His Own Dark-Money Maze</div></div><div><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></p></div></div><div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2019/07/clarence-thomas-trump/593596/">https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2019/07/clarence-thomas-trump/593596/</a></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">no lnx</font></font></font></font></font></font></font></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The Clarence Thomas Effect</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The notoriously quiet Supreme Court justice has had a far-reaching influence on the personnel of the Trump administration, which may be his most lasting legacy.</span></div><div>
</div><div>By Emma Green</div><div>
</div><div><b>JULY 10, 2019</b></div><div>
</div><div>Clarence Thomas is the longest-serving justice currently sitting on the Supreme Court. For much of his tenure, court watchers and critics have dismissed his jurisprudence as largely irrelevant, demoting him to the late Justice Antonin Scalia’s judicial sidekick. In the public imagination, he is most remembered for his worst moment. Last fall’s confirmation hearings for Justice Brett Kavanaugh resurrected the debate over Anita Hill, the woman who famously accused Thomas of sexual harassment during his 1991 confirmation hearings.</div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">And yet, during his time on the Court, Thomas has written prolifically and introduced ideas that have gradually gained influence among other justices. Of all the Supreme Court justices, Thomas takes an approach to the law that is arguably the purest embodiment of the conservative judicial philosophies known as<b> textualism, which holds that the plain meaning of the text of a law is all that matters in judicial interpretation, and originalism, which holds that the Constitution should be interpreted only as its authors intended.</b></span></div><div>
</div><div><b>The most significant part of Thomas’s legacy, however, may take shape long after he has stopped writing opinions. </b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);"><b>Personnel is policy</b>. Thomas’s vast network, more than that of any other justice, has defined President Donald Trump’s administration and the federal judiciary Trump has built. Through his clerks and mentees, the notoriously silent justice may end up with an outsize voice in the legal system for years to come.</span></div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Numbers are the first evidence of the sizable Thomas effect. He has had more of his former clerks nominated to federal judgeships under Trump than any other justice, past or present: 10, compared with Anthony Kennedy’s seven and Scalia’s five. Roughly one-fifth of Thomas’s former clerks either are in the Trump administration or have been nominated to the federal bench by the president. The clerks whom Thomas trained, has mentored, and actively stays in touch with are taking up lifetime appointments, and on the whole, they are quite young: Allison Jones Rushing, who now sits on the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, is just in her mid-30s.</span></div><div>
</div><div>[Read: Conservative women are leading the defense of Kavanaugh]</div><div>
</div><div><b>These relatively small numbers offer insight into the broad influence Thomas has had on the Trump-era legal establishment. Even clerks who aren’t in formal positions of public service have gained prominence under Trump: Laura Ingraham</b>, the conservative commentator who clerked for Thomas during his early years on the bench, has hosted one of the top-rated programs on Fox News since October 2017 and is an outspoken supporter of the president. <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">Another former clerk, Carrie Severino, the chief counsel and policy director of the Judicial Crisis Network, has been one of the most vocal advocates for Trump’s judicial nominees, including Kavanaugh.</span></div><div>
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</div><div>The Thomas effect started taking shape early on in the Trump administration. As Slate’s Dahlia Lithwick and Mark Joseph Stern noted as early as mid-2017, when the pattern was still nascent, <b>“Everywhere you turn in Trumpland, you’ll find a slew of Thomas’ former clerks in high places.”</b> <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">In part, this effect may have been driven by the people making the hires. Gregory Katsas, who clerked for Thomas on the D.C. Circuit and the Supreme Court, joined the Trump administration right after the inauguration as a deputy assistant to the president and deputy counsel. Later, when Katsas was nominated to his own judgeship on the D.C. Circuit Court, he told U.S. senators that he had been involved in “interviewing and recommending candidates for various executive and judicial appointments.”</span></div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">At least three other people who have worked in Trump’s White House counsel’s office are also former Thomas clerks: John Eisenberg, David Morrell, and Kate Todd. When the Trump administration released its list of potential Supreme Court nominees in November 2017, four former Thomas clerks were included: Thomas Lee, Margaret Ryan, David Stras, and Allison Eid.</span></div><div>
</div><div><b>Any new administration has a huge number of positions to fill across the executive branch. When Trump took office, he also faced significant judicial vacancies—142 empty seats, according to data from the American Bar Association.</b> <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">By comparison, when Barack Obama took office in 2008, there were only 53 federal judicial vacancies. </span>These jobs are filled like any other: through personal networks and recommendations. Under Trump, the most influential source of potential candidates for these vacancies has been the <b>Federalist Society, </b>a professional network for conservative and libertarian lawyers. “It happens that a lot of the people in the White House counsel’s office are Federalist Society members, and as a result of having been Federalist Society members, they have their own set of contacts,” said John Malcolm, who works on judicial issues at the <b>Heritage Foundation and is chairman of the Federalist Society’s criminal-law practice group.</b> <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">The organization’s executive vice president, Leonard Leo, has had an influential role in advising the Trump administration on possible nominees.</span></div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">Although stories about the Federalist Society often focus on the intellectual role and legacy of the late Justice Scalia, who was an early faculty adviser to the group at the University of Chicago, <b>Thomas is a central figure in the Federalist Society universe</b></span><b>. </b>William Eskridge, a law professor at Yale known for his work on LGBTQ legal issues, told me the Federalist Society is “a social circle. It’s a professional circle. It’s a circle that gives [the justices] law clerks. It’s a circle that gives them positive publicity.” And, he added, “Thomas is at the center of that.”</div><div>
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</div><div>[Read: The Supreme Court hands a victory to the pro-life movement]</div><div>
</div><div><b>Scalia famously described himself as a “fainthearted originalist,” although he later repudiated that label. By contrast, Thomas’s originalism has been “unflinching,</b>” as one conservative law professor wrote in a recent column for The New York Times<b>.</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b> Scalia himself told a Thomas biographer that Thomas does not believe in the legal principle of generally following settled precedent.</b> “Among Federalist Society members, he probably would be their No. 1 favorite justice of anyone on the Court,” Severino told me. “As wonderful as Justice Scalia is, Thomas is someone who has inspired a lot of young lawyers.”</span></div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">The Thomas effect may be due to more than just the power of networks, however. Thomas has been on the Supreme Court bench since 1991, and his clerks are entering their professional peaks during a Republican administration. Several former clerks told me <b>Thomas goes out of his way to stay in touch with his clerks and cultivate their careers; they have monthly lunches and regularly get together for intergenerational reunions</b></span><b>. Each year, Thomas takes his clerks on a field trip to the site of the deadliest battle in the Civil War. “I want them to go to Gettysburg </b>and to think about … the price that was paid for this country to exist,” he said in an interview with the appeals-court judge Diane Sykes at a Federalist Society event in 2013. “<b>I love my law clerks,” Thomas added. “These kids are my family.”</b></div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Thomas’s clerks tend to fit a particular profile. They come from all over the country, including law schools outside the Ivy League, which makes them particularly suitable candidates for federal judgeships. “Judges have to have ties to the local area typically,” said Saikrishna Prakash, a former Thomas clerk and professor of law at the University of Virginia. “The Thomas clerks, because they come from more regions in the country, and certainly go to law schools all over the country, are more apt to go outside of the I-95 corridor.</span>” After their clerkships, these lawyers often go into public service, taking up positions in U.S. attorneys’ offices or as professors, which means they don’t mind the pay cut that often comes with a move to the federal bench. (A federal district-court judge can expect to make slightly more than $200,000 a year; by comparison, partners at top-tier law firms can earn multimillion-dollar salaries.)<b> And, like Thomas, they tend to be very conservative, committed originalists and textualists. As Eskridge put it, they are true believers.</b></div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">The Trump administration’s most marked achievement in terms of shifting the federal judiciary has come throug<b>h Circuit Courts of Appeals. </b>Trump has far outpaced his recent predecessors, with 42 confirmed appointments to these courts over the past two and a half years; by comparison, Obama had gotten less than half as many appeals-court judges confirmed by this point in his first term</span>. <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">These seats are where Thomas clerks will have the most influence—and are outpacing the former clerks for conservative justices. Former Thomas clerks have now been </span><b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">confirmed to the Fourth, Fifth, Eighth, Ninth, and Tenth Circuits, along with two judges confirmed to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals—Katsas and Neomi Rao, the former head of Trump’s </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">. </span></b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The D.C. Circuit is particularly influential, because it is responsible for reviewing the actions of federal agencies; in recent years, it has issued important decisions on topics ranging from Obamacare to gun rights</span>.</div><div>
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</div><div><b>Thomas is famously silent during oral arguments. But as a writer, he has been prolific: </b>He wrote the most concurrences, dissents, and opinions of any justice during each of the past five terms, according to data from SCOTUSblog<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">. Over time, his work has significantly shifted the window of acceptable legal opinions on various issues, said <b>John Yoo, a former Thomas clerk</b></span><b> </b>and law professor at UC Berkeley who is best known for his work on the George W. Bush administration’s torture memos. <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“When I clerked for him, he published some opinions I thought were really radical, and the legal profession would never be interested,” Yoo told me. “Now those opinions are heavily debated in law schools and are very influential.” He specifically mentioned Thomas’s concurrence in a 1995 case on affirmative action, Adarand v. Peña, and another concurrence in a case on the Constitution’s commerce clause, United States v. Lopez.</span></div><div>
</div><div><b>On the Court, Thomas’s purist approach may cost him the ability to convince his fellow justices on controversial cases. “He’s less of a traditional politician,” Yoo told me. “I think he’s more interested in saying, ‘This is the correct view of the Constitution,’ rather than assembling five votes. And that’s a trade-off.</b>” Thomas’s views often come out in dissents or concurrences, offered solo or joined by just one or two other justices.<b> “He has not, until recently, written any of the blockbuster majority opinions,” Yoo said, “because to do that, you have to horse-trade to get votes</b>.”<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> (Notable majority opinions by Thomas include a 2001 case concerning the rights of a religious student group, Good News Club v. Milford Central School, and a 2018 First Amendment case involving a crisis-pregnancy center, NIFLA v. <b>Becerra.)</b></span></div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">This is all the more reason the rise of Thomas’s former clerks is important. His approach to controversial legal questions—generally opposing affirmative action, favoring limited power for federal agencies, defending gun rights, and more—has been developed and popularized over his decades on the bench, and will be carried forward by a new generation of judges<b>. He openly defies what he sees as bad precedent—just last month, Thomas wrote in a concurrence that “the Constitution itself is silent on abortion.”</b></span></div><div>
</div><div>[Adam Cohen: Clarence Thomas knows nothing of my work]</div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>Other conservative justices’ clerks have had a significant footprint in the Trump administration. Two of former Justice Anthony Kennedy’s clerks, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh, now sit on the Supreme Cour</b>t. Trump’s secretary of health and human services, Alex Azar, and his solicitor general, Noel Francisco, both clerked for Scalia, as did the White House counselor Emmet Flood and the recently confirmed Seventh Circuit judge, Amy Coney Barrett, who is widely thought to be on Trump’s short list for any potential future Supreme Court slots.</span></div><div>
</div><div>Thomas’s influence, however, is particularly broad, reaching from the Department of Justice to the White House to the federal bench. Thomas is now 71 years old. If he follows the path of his colleagues Stephen Breyer and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who are both in their 80s<b>, he could easily have a decade or more to go on the Supreme Court.</b> His greatest legacy, however, may be in the intellectual seeds he has planted in the generation of lawyers who came up studying his work.</div><div>
</div><div>Olivia Paschal contributed reporting to this article.</div><div>
</div><div>Emma Green is a former staff writer at The Atlantic.</div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div></div><div><p><b><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">=</font></b></p><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">raw story</span></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2022/03/clarence-thomas/">https://www.alternet.org/2022/03/clarence-thomas/</a></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</font></div><div><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas' right leaning political views have been obvious for decades in his writings for the Court. A new report in the <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/supreme-court-justice-clarence-thomas-strange-pick-to-promote-his-book-says-it-all?ref=home" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Daily Beast</a>, however, spotlights just how intertwined his financial connections are to an ultra-conservative judicial activist.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>When Thomas was looking to promote the release of his memoir last October he chose to hire a public relations firm, CRC Advisors, run by the former chief of the Federalist Society, Leonard Leo</b>. Leo is a top fundraiser for right-wing judicial activist groups. The Daily Beast reports that "Leo has raised hundreds of millions of dollars over the three decades on behalf of right-wing dark money groups to influence the federal judiciary and Supreme Court. He advised and persuaded Republican presidents George W. Bush and Donald Trump in their appointments of Justices Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, Amy Coney Barrett, and Chief Justice John Roberts—and prepped Justice Thomas for his nomination hearings."</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The report also says that</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);"> Leo is the <b>"hub"</b> of dark money groups </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">that stealthily fund and link up with parties who argue cases before the Supreme Court, something that Supreme watchers have dubbed an <b>"amicus flotilla."</b></span></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Leo’s affiliations with the court - and especially Thomas - are especially pronounced. He made the justice the godfather of one of his children and has hosted him on vacation at his New England retreat.</b></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Paul Collins is a professor of political science at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and author of several books about the high court. He says Thomas’ choice of Leo’s firm is “strange” and “unnecessary.”
</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“It signals that this world of the Federalist Society is even smaller than we thought,” Collins told The Daily Beast.</font></p></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">busted/outed by sen kickass acb</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">aha yikes scotus supposed to be the least political branch thus best insulated from bribery/corruption?! </font></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">an 2 22</font></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">As President Joe Biden weighs his options for a U.S. Supreme Court nominee to replace the retiring Justice Stephen Breyer, far-right MAGA Republicans are running ads claiming that Biden is up to something sinister.</span><b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, in an </span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/02/17/federalist-society-dark-money-breyer-supreme-court-seat/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">op-ed published by the Washington Post</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> on February 17, finds those fearmongering ads to be an example of projection — as </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">GOP dark money has helped Republicans obtain the 6-3 hard-right majority they presently enjoy on the High Court.</span></b></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">“When Supreme Court vacancies occur, a Republican dark-money operation swings into action,” the Democratic senator explains. “Now, an anonymously funded right-wing group is airing an ad aimed at the yet-to-be-picked nominee to replace retiring Supreme Court Justice Stephen G. Breyer</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">. The group alleges that liberal dark-money interests will guide President Biden’s choice. The music is ominous, the central claim false, and the hypocrisy thick.”</span></font></p><p><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The group that Whitehouse is referring to calls itself the Judicial Crisis Network. And its anti-Biden ad, Whitehouse writes, is total hypocrisy in light of all the Republican dark money that has been spent on the U.S. Supreme Court.</font></span></p><p><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“The ad, launched by the same right-wing donor interests that captured our Supreme Court under President Donald Trump, is an effort to distract from their own dark-money operation,” Whitehouse notes. “Their accusations of dark-money corruption are a bizarre reimagining of the very strategy that they, themselves, hatched and executed.”</font></span></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Judicial Crisis Network and other “dark money groups,” according to Whitehouse, are “linked to Leonard Leo, Federalist Society co-chairman and former executive vice president.”</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Leo has been a force behind dark-money court-capture dating back to the George W. Bush Administration,” Whitehouse notes. “When Trump was elected, this operation ramped up: The network selected reliable right-wing judicial nominees, its trusted advisers shepherded nominees through the Senate, and millions in dark-money PR campaigns and ads propelled nominees’ toward confirmation. <b>Thus, today The Court That Dark Money Built reliably hands down decisions favorable to the donors.”</b></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Judicial Crisis Network, according to Whitehouse, is accusing Democrats of the very thing that it is doing: spending dark money to influence the federal judiciary.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“It’s an old propaganda technique: Accuse your adversary of the exact wrong you are committing,” Whitehouse writes. “Russian President Vladimir Putin uses it regularly.”</font></p></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div></div><div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">=</div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">speech 1st // parents def fdm CRT BS"</div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><h2 style="font-family: sans-serif; background: none rgb(255, 255, 255); font-weight: normal; margin: 1em 0px 0.25em; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(162, 169, 177); line-height: 1.3;"><span class="mw-headline" id="Funding"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Funding</font></span></h2><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: small; line-height: inherit; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In May of 2018, Neily refused to disclose donor information to <i>Politico</i> and refused to say if the Kochs were involved to <i>The Nation.</i> The organization collects $5 dues from its members. Neily said in May that Speech First had around 1,000 members.<sup id="cite_ref-Politico_3-3" class="reference" style="line-height: 1em; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Speech_First#cite_note-Politico-3" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background: none;">[3]</a></sup> Such makes up a “negligible part” of Speech First's Funding "which mainly comes from undisclosed backers."<sup id="cite_ref-nation_2-2" class="reference" style="line-height: 1em; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Speech_First#cite_note-nation-2" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background: none;">[2]</a></sup></font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Speech First is not required to disclose its funders. Its major funders, however, can be found through a search of IRS filings.</font></p><ul data:image="data:image" svg="svg" xml="xml" csvg="Csvg" width="%225%22" height="%2213%22%3E" ccircle="Ccircle" cx="%222.5%22" cy="%229%22" r="%222.5%22" fill="%22%23222%22/%3E" c="C" e="E" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="font-family: sans-serif; font-size: small; margin: 0.3em 0px 0.5em 1.6em; padding: 0px; list-style-image: url(" xmlns="%22http://www.w3.org/2000/svg%22" xmlns:data="data"><li style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Bader_Family_Foundation&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Bader Family Foundation (page does not exist)" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">Bader Family Foundation</a>: $175,000 (2018-2019)</font></li><li style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Conru Foundation: $5,000 (2019)</font></li><li style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund</b>: $500,250 (2018)</font></li><li style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Judicial_Education_Project" class="mw-redirect" title="Judicial Education Project" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">Judicial Education Project</a>: $1,000,000 (2017-2</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">018)</span></b></font></li><li style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Melvin_S_Cohen_Foundation&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Melvin S Cohen Foundation (page does not exist)" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">Melvin S Cohen Foundation</a>: $10,000 (2020)</font></li><li style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">National Philanthropic Trust: $1,050,000 (2018-2019)</font></li><li style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=The_85_Fund" title="The 85 Fund" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">The 85 Fund</a>: $1,000,000 (2019-2020)</font></li></ul></div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">
</div><div style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">=</div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">11/19</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://truenorthresearch.org/report/wisconsin-supreme-court-capture-leonard-leo-tied-dark-money-judicial-crisis-network-rslc/">https://truenorthresearch.org/report/wisconsin-supreme-court-capture-leonard-leo-tied-dark-money-judicial-crisis-network-rslc/</a></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div>
</div></div><div><p times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><a href="https://www.exposedbycmd.org/2021/11/16/alec-academy-featured-a-whos-who-of-voter-suppression-leaders/">h<font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none;">ttps://www.exposedbycmd.org/2021/11/16/alec-academy-featured-a-whos-who-of-voter-suppression-leaders/</font></a></p><p times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>a<span style="word-spacing: 3.6px;">n “Academy” for state lawmakers on voter suppression strategies run by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) in July featured a veritable who’s who of the right-wing leaders behind this year’s disinformation campaign about voter fraud and assaults on voting rights across the country,</span></b><span style="word-spacing: 3.6px;"> </span><a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/21109009-alec-hep-2021-voter-suppression-academy-agenda" data-wpel-link="external" target="blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; word-spacing: 3.6px; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s;">documents</a><span style="word-spacing: 3.6px;"> </span><span style="word-spacing: 3.6px;">obtained by the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) show.</span></font></p><article class="post-9964 post type-post status-publish format-standard has-post-thumbnail category-alec category-democracy category-featured-investigations category-news category-trump entry" aria-label="ALEC “Academy” Featured a Who’s Who of Voter Suppression Leaders" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" box-sizing="box-sizing" inherit="inherit" word-spacing="word-spacing" px="px" style=""><div class="entry-content" style="box-sizing: inherit; float: left; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; width: 999.797px;"><p class="p1" style="margin: 0px 0px 10px; box-sizing: inherit; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">While the July 26-28 session was ostensibly led by the dark money group <a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Honest_Elections_Project" data-wpel-link="external" target="blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s;"><span class="s1" style="box-sizing: inherit;">Honest Elections Project</span></a>, it was organized, hosted, and bankrolled by <a href="https://www.alecexposed.org/" data-wpel-link="external" target="blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s;"><span class="s1" style="box-sizing: inherit;">ALEC</span></a>, despite repeated claims by its CEO, Lisa Nelson, that the group does not work on voting issues</span>.</font></p><p class="p1" style="margin: 0px 0px 10px; box-sizing: inherit; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Nelson provided the formal welcome at the conference’s opening session, ALEC staff organized turnout, and ALEC provided two nights of accommodations at the five-star Grand America Hotel, five meals, and a $450 travel reimbursement for attendees<span class="s2" style="box-sizing: inherit;">.</span> ALEC’s annual meeting was held at the same hotel immediately after the Academy.</font></p><p class="p1" style="margin: 0px 0px 10px; box-sizing: inherit; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">An <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/21016587-alecs-sarah-walls-invite-to-honest-election-projets-academy?responsive=1&title=1" data-wpel-link="external" target="blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s;">invite</a> published by CMD in July stated that <b>“13 legislators from across the country” would be in attendance, but the materials acquired by CMD do not include an attendance list.</b></font></p><p class="p1" style="margin: 0px 0px 10px; box-sizing: inherit; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Rather than email materials to ALEC lawmakers that may be subject to open records laws, ALEC distributed hard copies of the agenda at registration along with a “zip drive containing a resources document and a one-pager on your state’s election policies,” according to an <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/21108989-alecs-sarah-walls-email-to-academy-attendeespdf" data-wpel-link="external" target="blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s;">email</a> from Sarah Wall, ALEC’s manager of legislative outreach and coalitions, obtained by CMD. Wall’s email also lists Michael Bowman, president of ALEC Action, as a key contact for the event.</font></p><p class="p1" style="margin: 0px 0px 10px; box-sizing: inherit; padding: 0px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Nelson tipped her hand about ALEC’s voter suppression subterfuge in May at a meeting of the far-right Council for National Policy. <a href="https://youtu.be/DFRsAiiXyic" data-wpel-link="external" target="blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s;"><span class="s1" style="box-sizing: inherit;">Video</span></a> of the event obtained by CMD shows Nelson speaking frankly about ALEC’s work on voting and revealing its plans to outsource model policy on the controversial topic to avert the spotlight. “We don’t have model policy. We will be developing that at the Honest Elections Project [Academy], through them<span class="s2" style="box-sizing: inherit;">,”</span> Nelson said.</font></span></p><p class="p1" style="margin: 0px 0px 10px; box-sizing: inherit; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Honest Elections Project, the group ALEC chose to carry the ball on its voting agenda, is a dark money operation formed in February 2020 to push for voting restrictions and spread <a href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/05/leonard-leo-federalist-society-voter-fraud.html" data-wpel-link="external" target="blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s;"><span class="s1" style="box-sizing: inherit;">baseless and dangerous claims</span></a> about election fraud, laying the groundwork for Trump’s attempt to overturn the election. It is a project of The <a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=The_85_Fund" data-wpel-link="external" target="blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s;"><span class="s1" style="box-sizing: inherit;">85 Fund</span></a>,</b> the new legal name for the Judicial Education Project, a group linked to<span class="s2" style="box-sizing: inherit;"> <a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Leonard_Leo" data-wpel-link="external" target="blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s;"><span class="s3" style="box-sizing: inherit;">Leonard Leo</span></a></span> that played a central role in Trump’s effort to pack the federal judiciary with right-wing judges.</font></p><p class="p1" style="margin: 0px 0px 10px; box-sizing: inherit; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Speakers at the Academy featured many of the key strategists and leaders on the Right spreading misinformation around voter fraud, promoting Trump’s lies around the 2020 election, and pushing sweeping new voting restrictions.</font></p><p class="p1" style="margin: 0px 0px 10px; box-sizing: inherit; padding: 0px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita gave the keynote address. A <a href="https://www.indystar.com/story/news/politics/elections/2021/02/17/twitter-backtracks-indiana-ag-todd-rokitas-election-fraud-tweet/6779212002/" data-wpel-link="external" target="blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s;"><span class="s1" style="box-sizing: inherit;">proponent</span></a> of Trump’s Big Lie that the election was stolen, Rokita recently <a href="https://www.wfyi.org/news/articles/indiana-ag-rokita-opposes-strengthened-voting-rights-act-in-senate-testimony" data-wpel-link="external" target="blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s;"><span class="s1" style="box-sizing: inherit;">testified</span></a> in front of the U.S. Senate against strengthening the federal Voting Rights Act.</font></span></p><p class="p1" style="margin: 0px 0px 10px; box-sizing: inherit; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Rokita was one of only four state attorneys general to not sign a National Association of Attorneys General <a href="https://indianapublicmedia.org/news/indiana-ag-todd-rokita-defends-choice-not-to-sign-national-ag-group-letter-condemning-capitol-insurrection,-violence.php" data-wpel-link="external" target="blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s;"><span class="s1" style="box-sizing: inherit;">letter</span></a> condemning the Jan. 6 violent insurrection at the U.S. Capito</b>l, and is a member of the <a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Republican_Attorneys_General_Association" data-wpel-link="external" target="blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s;">Republican Attorneys General Association</a> (<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">RAGA</span>). RAGA was a <a href="https://www.exposedbycmd.org/2021/01/11/republican-ags-forever-tied-to-violent-pro-trump-insurrection/" data-wpel-link="internal" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s;">member</a> of the “March to Save America” coalition that organized the Jan. 6 rally, and its policy arm, <a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Rule_of_Law_Defense_Fund" data-wpel-link="external" target="blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s;">Rule of Law Defense Fund</a>, sent out robocalls urging supporters to “<a href="https://documented.net/reporting/republican-attorneys-general-dark-money-group-organized-protest-preceding-capitol-mob-attack" data-wpel-link="external" target="blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s;">march to the Capitol building and call on Congress to stop the steal</a><span class="s2" style="box-sizing: inherit;">.”</span></font></p><h2 class="p1" style="box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 1.2; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Agenda Focused on Election Legislation</font></span></h2><p class="p1" style="margin: 0px 0px 10px; box-sizing: inherit; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Most of the Academy sessions focused on legislation, giving legislators a chance to discuss bills to restrict voting that have already been introduced and passed in their states this year and hear from Republican-aligned leaders about what more they think needs to be done.</font></p><p class="p1" style="margin: 0px 0px 10px; box-sizing: inherit; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">By the time<b> ALEC held its voter suppression Academy in July, 18 states had already passed <a href="https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/voting-laws-roundup-july-2021" data-wpel-link="external" target="blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s;"><span class="s1" style="box-sizing: inherit;">30 laws</span></a> this year making it harder to vote, according to the Brennan Center for Justice.</b></font></p><p class="p1" style="margin: 0px 0px 10px; box-sizing: inherit; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Honest Elections Project’s Executive Director Jason Snead, who worked with ALEC to organize the event, laid out “priorities for election integrity across the states” and polling results in a breakfast session and appeared on another panel on how to “shore up” legislative control over election processes with Jason Torchinsky and Lee Goodman.</font></p><p class="p1" style="margin: 0px 0px 10px; box-sizing: inherit; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Honest Elections Project has aggressively promoted a radical legal theory called the “<a href="https://www.salon.com/2021/09/27/beware-the-independent-state-legislatures-doctrine--it-could-checkmate-democracy/" data-wpel-link="external" target="blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s;">independent state legislatures doctrine</a><span class="s2" style="box-sizing: inherit;">,”</span> which holds that state courts don’t have the authority to review state election laws and would empower heavily gerrymandered state legislatures to determine election outcomes.</font></p><p class="p1" style="margin: 0px 0px 10px; box-sizing: inherit; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Republican legislators have already introduced and passed bills in 2021 “interfering with nonpartisan local election administration and consolidating power to administer and determine elections results themselves,” the Voting Rights Lab <a href="https://votingrightslab.org/a-threat-to-our-democracy-election-subversion-in-the-2021-legislative-session/" data-wpel-link="external" target="blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s;">reported</a><span class="s2" style="box-sizing: inherit;">.</span></font></p><p class="p1" style="margin: 0px 0px 10px; box-sizing: inherit; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Snead is a former senior policy analyst with the Heritage Foundation where he developed its Election Fraud Database, which the Brennan Center for Justice says “<a href="https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/heritage-fraud-database-assessment" data-wpel-link="external" target="blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s;">grossly exaggerated</a>” the extent of voter fraud.<span class="Apple-converted-space" style="box-sizing: inherit;"> </span></font></p><p class="p1" style="margin: 0px 0px 10px; box-sizing: inherit; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Torchinsky is general counsel for the National Republican Redistricting Trust and has been defending ALEC against CMD’s state <a href="https://www.exposedbycmd.org/2021/07/26/watchdogs-filing-complaints-in-15-states-against-alec-for-illegal-campaign-scheme/" data-wpel-link="internal" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s;">complaints</a> alleging that ALEC illegally gave sophisticated voter management campaign software linked to the Republican National Committee to its legislative members.</font></p><p class="p1" style="margin: 0px 0px 10px; box-sizing: inherit; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Goodman is an elections attorney and a former Republican chairman and commissioner of the Federal Election Commission (FEC) between 2013 and 2018.</font></p><p class="p1" style="margin: 0px 0px 10px; box-sizing: inherit; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Jessica Anderson, the executive director of Heritage Action, and Ken Blackwell, executive director of the <a href="https://www.exposedbycmd.org/2021/09/14/trump-die-hards-launch-maga-voter-suppression-center/" data-wpel-link="internal" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s;"><span class="s1" style="box-sizing: inherit;">MAGA voter suppression center</span></a> at America First Policy Institute </b>led another legislative session on “securing absentee ballots.”<span class="Apple-converted-space" style="box-sizing: inherit;"> </span></font></p><p class="p1" style="margin: 0px 0px 10px; box-sizing: inherit; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Anderson <a href="https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2021/05/heritage-foundation-dark-money-voter-suppression-laws/" data-wpel-link="external" target="blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s;">bragged to Heritage donors</a> in April that policies, “severely restricting mail ballot drop boxes” and “preventing election officials from sending absentee ballot request forms to voters” were among recommendations Heritage gave Georgia for its massive voter suppression bill.</font></p><p class="p1" style="margin: 0px 0px 10px; box-sizing: inherit; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Blackwell’s <span class="s1" style="box-sizing: inherit;">Center for </span><span class="s1" style="box-sizing: inherit;">Election</span><span class="s1" style="box-sizing: inherit;"> Integrity</span> recently published a “<a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/21108981-afpis-top-25-common-sense-state-election-integrity-reforms" data-wpel-link="external" target="blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s;">Top 25 Common-Sense State Election Integrity Reforms</a>” fact sheet that includes these Heritage recommendations</b> <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 0);">alongside other extreme voter suppression wish-list items, such as eliminating no-excuse absentee ballots and requiring an affidavit for absentee applications.</span></font></p><p class="p1" style="margin: 0px 0px 10px; box-sizing: inherit; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Blackwell also moderated a panel at the Academy with state legislators “discussing election challenges they’ve faced in their own states.”</font></p><p class="p1" style="margin: 0px 0px 10px; box-sizing: inherit; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Another panel over breakfast covered “things to consider with implementation of laws” related to election day voter registration, “election observer protections,” and organizing seniors to work the polls. Chairman of the U.S. Election Assistance Commission <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">Donald Palmer, a Trump appointee, and <a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Cleta_Mitchell" data-wpel-link="external" target="blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s;"><span class="s1" style="box-sizing: inherit;">Cleta Mitchell</span></a>, chair of the Conservative Partnership Institute’s Election Integrity Network<span class="s2" style="box-sizing: inherit;">,</span> led the session.</span></font></p><p class="p1" style="margin: 0px 0px 10px; box-sizing: inherit; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Mitchell is a Big Lie fueler and Trump legal advisor who lost her job at Foley & Lardner following news that she participated in a January call in which Trump asked Georgia election officials to “find” enough votes to make him the winner of the state’s electoral votes.</font></p><p class="p1" style="margin: 0px 0px 10px; box-sizing: inherit; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“On<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);"> Dec. 30, Cleta Mitchell wrote to White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and offered to send some 1,800 pages of documents purporting to support claims of election fraud,” <i style="box-sizing: inherit;">The Washington Post Magazine </i><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/magazine/2021/10/25/god-trump-closed-door-world-council-national-policy/?itid=a" data-wpel-link="external" target="blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s;"><span class="s1" style="box-sizing: inherit;">reported</span></a>. Meadows is now a colleague of Mitchell’s at the Conservative Partnership Institute.</span></font></p><p class="p1" style="margin: 0px 0px 10px; box-sizing: inherit; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">T<b>hree Republican secretaries of state, Tennessee’s Tre Hargett, Kentucky’s Michael Adams, and West Virginia’s Mac Warner, spoke on a panel about “what policies the states need to employ to make it easier to vote and harder to cheat.</b>”</font></p><p class="p1" style="margin: 0px 0px 10px; box-sizing: inherit; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Easier to vote and harder to cheat” has been a favored talking point of Republicans in recent years.</font></p><p class="p1" style="margin: 0px 0px 10px; box-sizing: inherit; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">All three are active in the <a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Republican_Secretaries_of_State_Committee" data-wpel-link="external" target="blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s;"><span class="s1" style="box-sizing: inherit;">R<b>epublican Secretaries of State Committee</b></span></a><b> (RSSC)</b>, with Hargett serving as chair and Adams as vice chair. Republican secretaries of state produced a report on “<a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/21040992-republican-secretaries-of-state-commission-election-integrity-best-practices" data-wpel-link="external" target="blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s;">Best Practices for Making It Easier to Vote and Harder to Cheat</a>” for the Republican State Leadership Committee, obtained by CMD.<span class="Apple-converted-space" style="box-sizing: inherit;"> </span></font></p><p class="p1" style="margin: 0px 0px 10px; box-sizing: inherit; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">RSSC holds <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/21108979-republican-secretaries-of-state-committee-february-conference-call-minutes" data-wpel-link="external" target="blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s;">monthly calls</a> that Commissioner Palmer often attends. Secretary Warner and Palmer also participated in an “off-the-record” Election University session on June 21 as part of the U.S. House GOP’s “Faith in Elections Project,” as first <a href="https://www.exposedbycmd.org/2021/07/26/house-gop-launches-faith-in-elections-project/" data-wpel-link="internal" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s;"><span class="s1" style="box-sizing: inherit;">reported</span></a> by CMD.</span></font></p><h2 class="p1" style="box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 1.2; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">ALEC Lawmakers Consider Litigation</font></span></h2><p class="p1" style="margin: 0px 0px 10px; box-sizing: inherit; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">ALEC’s Academy featured two panels on litigation. The first dealt with “anticipating challenges to the Voting Rights Act in Arizona,” <b>legal challenges mounted by Democratic voting rights attorney Marc Elias, and redistricting fights, and was led by with Republican lawyers Torchinsky, Michael Thielen, and Brian Barnes.</b></font></p><p class="p1" style="margin: 0px 0px 10px; box-sizing: inherit; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 51);">Thielen is the executive director of the Republican National Lawyers Association and served on the national board of Lawyers for Trump in 2020.</span> Barnes was involved in legal challenges to changes in voting procedures in North Carolina and Pennsylvania last fall.</font></p><p class="p1" style="margin: 0px 0px 10px; box-sizing: inherit; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Goodman and Utah’s former Solicitor General Tyler Green led the second panel on “operationalizing litigation challenges.” Noted in the description of the panel are “ways to challenge the scope of litigation attacks on new election integrity legislation (defense) as well as advance the ball on election integrity (offense).”</font></p><p class="p1" style="margin: 0px 0px 10px; box-sizing: inherit; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">As of Oct. 3, “at least 43 voting cases have been filed in 12 states, and Georgia and Texas lead the way with ten new lawsuits each in 2021,” the Brennan Center <a href="https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/voting-rights-litigation-tracker-2021" data-wpel-link="external" target="blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s;">reports</a><span class="s2" style="box-sizing: inherit;">.</span></font></p><h2 class="p1" style="box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 1.2; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Training Sessions on “the Left”</font></span></h2><p class="p1" style="margin: 0px 0px 10px; box-sizing: inherit; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Two trainings focused on “the Left” filled out the remaining agenda at the ALEC <b>Academy. Hans von Spakovsky, senior legal fellow and manager of the Heritage Foundation’s “Election Reform Initiative,” and Ken Cuccinelli</b>, former Trump staffer and chairman of the Election Transparency Initiative, led a session focused on “the Left’s attack on our election system” through “state-level attacks on election integrity legislation” and HR 1, the sweeping voting rights and campaign reform bill pending in Congress.<span class="Apple-converted-space" style="box-sizing: inherit;"> </span></font></p><p class="p1" style="margin: 0px 0px 10px; box-sizing: inherit; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Spakovsky, who was appointed by Trump to his <a href="https://www.npr.org/2018/01/03/575524512/trump-dissolves-controversial-election-commission" data-wpel-link="external" target="blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s;">ill-fated</a> Presidential Advisory Committee on Election Integrity, has been a major mouthpiece of the <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2012/10/29/the-voter-fraud-myth" data-wpel-link="external" target="blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s;">voter fraud myth</a> from the Right for well over a decade.</font></p><p class="p1" style="margin: 0px 0px 10px; box-sizing: inherit; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">P<b>resident of the <a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Capital_Research_Center" data-wpel-link="external" target="blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s;"><span class="s1" style="box-sizing: inherit;">Capital Research Center</span></a> Scott Walter gave the keynote for a “Mapping the Left Lunch</b>.” Walter and CRC received funding from the Bradley Foundation <a href="https://www.exposedbycmd.org/2017/12/20/influence-watch-website-launched-berman-alec-heartland-copy-cmds-sourcewatch-org-site/" data-wpel-link="internal" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s;">to develop</a><span class="Apple-converted-space" style="box-sizing: inherit;">  </span>an “Online Encyclopedia of the Left<span class="s2" style="box-sizing: inherit;">,”</span> inspired by CMD’s SourceWatch, called “Influence Watch.” The site was “constructed in partnership with Berman and Company,” run by PR spin doctor Richard Berman, and in collaboration with ALEC.</font></p><p class="p1" style="margin: 0px 0px 10px; box-sizing: inherit; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p class="p1" style="margin: 0px 0px 10px; box-sizing: inherit; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></p></div></article></div><div><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">=</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">not named but his web</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">igor salon</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">https://www.alternet.org/2021/10/glenn-youngkin-2655355138/</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>A billionaire <a href="https://www.salon.com/2021/05/10/trump-spawned-a-new-group-of-mega-donors-who-now-hold-sway-over-the-gops-future_partner/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Trump donor</a> who funded a group that marched on the Capitol ahead of the <a href="https://www.salon.com/topic/capitol_riot" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Jan. 6 Capitol riot</a> is bankrolling a dark-money group boosting Virginia Republican gubernatorial candidate Glenn Youngkin's attacks on Democratic opponent Terry McAuliffe.</b></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The Republican-aligned Restoration PAC </b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">this week </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 51);">launched <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3CHUDIw4Yac" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">new ads</a> attacking McAuliffe, who served a previous term as governor, over crime rates. (Virginia's unusual term limits restrict governors to one term, but does not bar them from running again after leaving office.) The PAC has spent <a href="https://www.vpap.org/indexpenditures/150240/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">$1.767 million</a> funding ads against McAuliffe, making it <a href="https://www.vpap.org/money/independent-expenditures/spenders/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">by far the largest</a> <b>independent</b> expenditure group in the race.</span></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The group is funded almost entirely by Republican mega-donor Richard Uihlein, co-founder of the Wisconsin shipping supply giant Uline. Uihlein contributed <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/outsidespending/contrib.php?cycle=2020&cmte=C00571588" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">$24.5 million</a> to the group in the 2020 election cycle, making up 97% of its funding, according to data from the Center for Responsive Politics. He put another $1.5 million into the group in May, according to <a href="https://www.fec.gov/data/receipts/?cycle=2022&data_type=processed&committee_id=C00571588&line_number=F3X-11AI" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">FEC filings</a>.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Uihlein and his wife Liz are among the biggest Republican donors in the country, having given more than <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/outsidespending/summ.php?disp=D" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">$65 million</a> to former President Donald Trump, </b>Republican candidates and conservative groups since 2019. The Uihleins have also contributed <a href="https://www.wbez.org/stories/chicago-area-billionaire-gave-millions-to-patriots-group-that-backed-pro-trump-rally/a5ea9afa-e58f-4987-a698-7d847c244189" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">$4.3 million</a> over the past five years to the<b> Tea Party Patriots, including $800,000 in October 2020</b>, making them by far the <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/outsidespending/contrib.php?cycle=2020&cmte=C00540898" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">group's biggest donors</a>. </font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The Tea Party Patriots participated in the "March to Save America" rally that preceded the Capitol riot and were one of 11 groups listed as part of the "#StopTheSteal coalition,"</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> according to </span><a href="https://www.wbez.org/stories/chicago-area-billionaire-gave-millions-to-patriots-group-that-backed-pro-trump-rally/a5ea9afa-e58f-4987-a698-7d847c244189" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">WBEZ</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">. </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 0);">The group also contributed to Rep. Mo Brooks, R-Ala., who was <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/01/13/ali-alexander-capitol-biggs-gosar/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">accused</a> by "Stop the Steal" organizer Ali Alexander of helping plan the rally, which Brooks has denied. Tea Party Patriots also contributed to Sens. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and Josh Hawley, R-Mo., who led objections to the certification of Electoral College results in the Senate.</span></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Restoration PAC last month also gave <a href="https://www.vpap.org/committees/399840/women-speak-out-virginia-2021/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">$942,000</a> to Women Speak Out Virginia — 2021, a PAC affiliated with the anti-choice Susan B. Anthony List that launched a <a href="https://www.sba-list.org/newsroom/press-releases/women-speak-out-virginia-2021-announces-1-4m-campaign-to-defeat-abortion-extremist-terry-mcauliffe" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">$1.4 million</a> campaign to attack McAuliffe on abortion.</b></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 102);">Uihlein's foundation also contributed $275,000 to Trump booster Charlie Kirk's Turning Point Action between 2014 and 2016. </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The group was listed as a participant in the Capitol protest and Kirk took credit for "sending 80+ buses full of patriots to DC to fight for this president" in a </span><a href="https://twitter.com/yashar/status/1348660824886296577?s=20" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">since-deleted tweet</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">.</span></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 102, 0);">Turning Point Action also previously received <a href="https://jacobinmag.com/2021/01/dark-money-gop-capitol-riot-biden-trump" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">$50,000</a> from the Judicial Crisis Network</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">, a conservative </span><a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2020/05/conservative-dark-money-network-voting-restrict/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">dark-money group</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> that helped Trump fill federal courts with conservative judges and is pushing to restrict voting</span></b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">. </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">The group also </span><a href="https://documented.net/2020/10/new-filing-shows-massive-dark-money-support-from-judicial-crisis-network-to-republican-attorneys-general-association/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">funds</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);"> the</span><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 102, 0);"> Republican Attorneys General Association (RAGA)</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">, giving it $2.1 million last October and a total of $12.7 million since 2014. RAGA's fundraising arm, the <b>Rule of Law Defense Fund, </b></span><a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/republican-ags-group-sent-robocalls-urging-march-capitol-n1253581" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;"><b>sent out robocalls</b></a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b> urging supporters to "march to the Capitol building and call on Congress to stop the steal" on Jan. 6</b>.</span></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 102);">The Judicial Crisis Network has <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2021/06/secretive-dark-money-network-anti-critical-race-theory/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">multiple legal aliases</a> it uses for other initiatives, including The Concord Fund and <b>Free to Learn Action. </b></span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">That latter group has launched a </span><a href="https://freetolearn.org/press-release-free-to-learn-coalition-launches-with-national-ad-campaign-focused-on-taking-politics-out-of-the-classroom/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">$1 million</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> ad campaign focused on "critical race theory" in schools, an issue Youngkin and other conservatives have seized on. The group is spending </span><a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/577761-education-group-backed-by-conservatives-1-million-ad-campaign-hitting" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">$1 million</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> attacking McAuliffe for arguing that parents should not dictate school curricula.</span></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 102);">The Judicial Crisis Network is also <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2020/05/conservative-dark-money-network-voting-restrict/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">closely aligned and shares staff</a> with the Judicial Education Project and its Honest Elections Project</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">, a conservative initiative pushing voting restrictions. The Judicial Education Network is almost entirely funded by th</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">e Donors Trust,</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> a dark-money group backed by the Koch network</span></b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">. Donors Trust in 2019 gave more than </span><a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2021/01/13/dark-money-gop-fund-funneled-millions-groups-that-pushed-voter-fraud-claims.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">$20 million</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> to at least a dozen groups who would later question the results of the election. Last year, the Honest Elections Project </span><a href="https://www.salon.com/2021/10/22/billionaire-donor-funded-jan-6-group-now-pouring-dark-money-into-glenn-youngkin-campaign/#blogHeader" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">announced</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> a six-figure ad campaign stoking fears of a "brazen attempt to manipulate the election system for partisan advantage" before the election even happened.</span></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Youngkin has tried to <a href="https://www.salon.com/2021/10/12/va-candidate-backs-away-from-trumps-big-lie--but-wants-an-audit/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">walk a fine line</a> on Trump's election lies as he tries to solidify his Republican base without alienating independent and suburban voters in the increasingly blue state. He refused to acknowledge President Biden's election victory while seeking the Republican nomination, doing so only after he had already triumphed over Republican rivals. And while Youngkin has said he would have voted to certify the election results, he is nonetheless <a href="https://www.salon.com/2021/10/12/va-candidate-backs-away-from-trumps-big-lie--but-wants-an-audit/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">calling for an "audit"</a> of voting machines in Virginia (something the state already does) and boosting election conspiracy theorists.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Youngkin, the former CEO of the private equity firm the Carlyle Group</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">,</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 0);"> is also the primary funder of <a href="https://www.salon.com/2021/07/24/virginia-gop-candidate-glenn-youngkin-tries-to-pivot-away-from-trump--but-theres-nowhere-to-go/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Virginia Wins</a>, contributing $1 million to back Republican candidates in down-ballot races.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> The PAC has funneled tens of thousands to candidates who attended the Stop the Steal rally, organized transportation for others to attend the event, defended Capitol rioters or pushed election conspiracy theories, </span><a href="https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2021/10/virginia-gop-candidate-glenn-youngkin-financed-a-pac-that-supports-2020-deniers-and-1-6-apologists/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Mother Jones</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> reported on Thursday....</span></font></p></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/10/trump-supreme-court-advisor-leonard-leo-tied-to-more-than-80-mllion-in-dark-money">https://www.alternet.org/2020/10/trump-supreme-court-advisor-leonard-leo-tied-to-more-than-80-mllion-in-dark-money</a></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">m ellis</font></div><div><p style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">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.</font></p><p style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">A unfiled <a href="https://www.citizensforethics.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Rule-of-Law-Trust-2018-990.pdf" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">tax return</a> for Rule of Law Trust (RLT) shows the name of Federalist Society co-chairman Leonard Leo, according to <a href="https://www.citizensforethics.org/reports-investigations/crew-investigations/80-million-dark-money-group-tied-to-trump-supreme-court-advisor-leonard-leo/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">CREW</a>. The mysterious tax return also includes a number of questionable details that raise alarms about the origin of the money.</font></p><p style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">In its first year of operation, there were no employees or volunteers working the firm's main address which appears to be a</span><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> virtual office located in Virginia.</b> <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">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.</span></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">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."</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>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.</b></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-left: 20px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="">"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."</font></p><p style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">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.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>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.</b></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Here is a quick timeline of how dark money has influenced politics over the last four years:</b></font></p><ul class="ee-ul" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; display: inline-block; width: 589.446px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /><li><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In 2016, JCN shelled out millions of dollars to dissuade senators from considering President Barack Obama's last Supreme Court nominee, Judge Merrick Garland.</font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></li><li>In 2017, JCN dumped millions into having Trump's first Supreme Court nominee Justice Neil<b> Gorsuch </b>fill the seat Obama's nominee was denied.</li><li>In 2018, the group repeated the same process to back Trump's second nomination of Justice Brett <b>Kavanaugh.</b>
<span class="redactor-invisible-space" /></li><li>Now, in 2020, JNC has poured millions into the confirmation of Trump's nomination, Amy Coney Barrett to quickly fill the seat of the late Ruth Bader Ginsburg before the upcoming election.</li></ul><div class="around-the-web" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="from-your-siteheadline" style="text-transform: uppercase;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="">FROM YOUR SITE ARTICLES</font></div><ul class="around-the-weblist" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; display: inline-block; width: 589.446px; list-style: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /><li class="from-your-siteitem"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/01/trump-judicial-adviser-tied-to-secretive-network-of-dark-money-dedicated-to-putting-far-right-justices-on-the-supreme-court/" class="from-your-sitelink" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s; line-height: normal; display: inline-block; margin-top: 10px;">Trump judicial adviser tied to 'secretive network' of 'dark money ... ›</a></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></li><li class="from-your-siteitem"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2019/05/meet-the-federalist-society-executive-and-unofficial-trump-judicial-advisor-whos-stealthily-moving-the-courts-right/" class="from-your-sitelink" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s; line-height: normal; display: inline-block; margin-top: 10px;">Meet the Federalist Society executive and unofficial Trump judicial ... ›</a></li><li class="from-your-siteitem"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2019/11/trump-allies-want-conservative-legal-activists-to-fight-impeachment-as-payment-for-stacking-the-courts-with-right-wingers/" class="from-your-sitelink" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s; line-height: normal; display: inline-block; margin-top: 10px;">Trump allies want conservative legal activists to fight impeachment ... ›</a></li></ul></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">mcconn 300 judges?!</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>cmd 1020</b></span></font></p><p class="p1" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; word-spacing: 3.6px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span class="s1" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A new review of grant documents, first published on the dark web, provides a snapshot of how groups tied to Leonard Leo–the man who put Amy 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.</font></span></p><p class="p1" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; word-spacing: 3.6px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span class="s1" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Leo, the co-chair of the Federalist Society;s board, was previously the group’s Executive Vice President. Earlier this year, he announced the launch of a for-profit firm called CRC Advisors, which is working closely with Leo-tied non-profits that were being rebranded–including one previously known only as the “Judicial Education Project” (JEP).</font></span></p><p class="p1" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; word-spacing: 3.6px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span class="s1" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">His move came in the aftermath of an in-depth <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/investigations/leonard-leo-federalists-society-courts/" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer external" data-wpel-link="external" style="box-sizing: inherit; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;"><span class="s2" style="box-sizing: inherit;">investigation of Leo in 2019</span></a> by Robert O’Harrow and Shawn Boberg of the <i style="box-sizing: inherit;">Washington Post’</i>s investigative unit, which documented how Leo directed millions from big donors to groups spending big to get nominees of Trump confirmed and to block Merrick Garland’s confirmation to the Supreme Court. Senators Stabenow, Schumer, and Whitehouse recently <a href="https://www.whitehouse.senate.gov/news/release/-stabenow-schumer-whitehouse-announce-next-phase-of-captured-courts-effort-detailing-whats-at-stake-for-the-american-people" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer external" data-wpel-link="external" style="box-sizing: inherit; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;"><span class="s2" style="box-sizing: inherit;">announced</span></a> that they will be issuing a new series of reports about the impact of court capture on Americans’ rights, following on earlier <a href="https://www.hsdl.org/?view&did=839500" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer external" data-wpel-link="external" style="box-sizing: inherit; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;"><span class="s2" style="box-sizing: inherit;">white papers</span></a>, and Senator Whitehouse recently <a href="https://www.whitehouse.senate.gov/news/release/whitehouse-testifies-on-the-right-wing-capture-of-our-courts" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer external" data-wpel-link="external" style="box-sizing: inherit; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;"><span class="s2" style="box-sizing: inherit;">testified</span></a> about these issues before the House.</font></span></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><a href="https://www.whitehouse.senate.gov/news/release/-stabenow-schumer-whitehouse-announce-next-phase-of-captured-courts-effort-detailing-whats-at-stake-for-the-american-people">https://www.whitehouse.senate.gov/news/release/-stabenow-schumer-whitehouse-announce-next-phase-of-captured-courts-effort-detailing-whats-at-stake-for-the-american-people</a></font></span></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><b>
</b></font></span></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">In May, Stabenow, Schumer and Whitehouse released </span><a href="https://www.democrats.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Courts%20Report%20-%20FINAL.pdf" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-line: none; cursor: pointer;">a report</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> to shed a light on the right-wing takeover of our judicial system. Working hand in hand with the administration and anonymously funded outside groups, the Senate has confirmed more than 200 new life-tenured federal judges to aggressively remake the federal courts and rewrite the Constitution. Most were chosen not for their qualifications or experience—which are often lacking—but for their demonstrated allegiance to Republican Party political goals.</span></font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></span></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.democrats.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Courts%20Report%20-%20FINAL.pdf">https://www.democrats.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Courts%20Report%20-%20FINAL.pdf</a></font></span></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">long incl amicus</font></span></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">no lnx</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">...This has not come about by happenstance. It is the product of a long-term strategy to</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">influence judicial selections and outcomes, which is well-funded by millions of dollars in</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">anonymous, special-interest money.</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Playing the Long Game: The Right’s 50-Year Project to Capture the Courts</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Lewis Powell, Edwin Meese, and the Origins of the Republican Judicial Takeover</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">The right-wing plan to reshape our nation’s courts finds its roots in the 1960s and 1970s,</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">amid a deep sense of corporate grievance and conservative racial resentment.</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">While the post-World War II economic boom broadened the middle class and allowed</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">American business interests to prosper, many Americans still labored in unsafe and</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">unsanitary workplaces, or suffered exposure to toxic consumer products and polluted</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">air and water.</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Against that backdrop, Americans mobilized to demand a government that would</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">protect them from corporate</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">excesses. The result was the bipartisan</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">establishment of public safety and</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">welfare programs and agencies that</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">protect us to this day—such as President</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Johnson’s “Great Society” programs and</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">the Environmental Protection Agency,</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">established by President Nixon.</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">In certain corporate circles, these</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">developments were met with alarm. In</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">1971, at the request of the U.S. Chamber</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">of Commerce—which would grow to</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">become, in the words of its president,</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">“the biggest gorilla” in Washington12— a</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">corporate lawyer in Virginia wrote a</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">confidential memo titled “Attack on</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">American Free Enterprise System.” That lawyer was future Supreme Court Justice</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Lewis Powell.</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">The 1971 Powell Memo</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">10</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">The Powell Memo sought to galvanize the business community toward political</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">action. It announced that the “American economic system is under broad attack”</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">from academics, the media, liberal politicians, and other progressives. In the wake</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">of watershed civil rights advancements like the Court’s ruling in Brown v. Board of</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Education and Congress’s passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Powell claimed that</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">“we have seen the civil rights movement insist on re-writing many of the textbooks in</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">our universities and schools.” Against the popular force of</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">the anti-war, civil rights, and environmental movements,</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Powell argued:</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">[I]ndependent and uncoordinated activity by</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">individual corporations, as important as this is, will</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">not be sufficient. Strength lies in organization, in</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">careful long-range planning and implementation,</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">in consistency of action over an indefinite period</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">of years, in the scale of financing available only</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">through joint effort, and in the political power</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">available only through united action and national</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">organizations.</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Powell urged the business community to mobilize its</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">counterattack through “a broader and more vigorous role</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">in the political arena.” This meant corporate lobbying</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">in Congress.13 And lobby corporations did. In 1971, only 175</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">corporate firms had registered lobbyists in Washington;</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">by 1982, nearly 2,500 firms had registered lobbyists.14</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Powell also identified the courts as a “vast area of opportunity.” Bemoaning the</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">“exploit[ation] of the judicial system” by groups such as the American Civil Liberties</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Union, Powell called on the business community to aggressively invest in the courts.</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">“Under our constitutional system,” Powell argued, “especially with an activist-minded</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Supreme Court, the judiciary may be the most important instrument for social,</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">economic and political change.”</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Just two months after submitting his memo, Powell was nominated by President Nixon</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">to the Supreme Court. He was confirmed by a bipartisan vote of 89-1. This memo was</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">not disclosed.</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Growth of the Conservative Legal Movement</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">In the following decades, conservative Republicans and the American business</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">community took up Powell’s cause with remarkable zeal. Major business interests such</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">as Exxon, Pfizer, RJR Nabisco, Koch Industries, Dow Chemical, Aetna, and Monsanto</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">pumped millions of dollars into industry trade associations like the U.S. Chamber of</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Commerce. Ronald Reagan, then governor of California, and his state attorney general,</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Edwin Meese, encouraged the founding of Pacific Legal Foundation (PLF), the first of</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">several business-funded “public interest” law firms. These groups filed strategic</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Supreme Court Justice</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Lewis F. Powell Jr.</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">11</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">lawsuits to advance business interests—and rewrite the laws—through the courts</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">while obscuring the identities of the interests backing them. Ideological foundations</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">established by wealthy industrialists—such as the Olin Foundation, the Sarah Scaife</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Foundation, and the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation—joined the fray. “Combining</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">their vast resources,” these “self-interested business concerns and ideologically driven</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">foundations” invested millions of dollars into a broad array of programs designed</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">to build the intellectual framework “for a new legal vision that was predominantly</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">concerned with promoting and protecting commercial and private wealth”, according</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">to a report from Alliance for Justice.15</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">By the time Reagan became president, the conservative legal movement was well</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">underway and well-funded. It now had an ally in the White House—and soon, under</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Attorney General Edwin Meese, one in the U.S. Department of Justice as well. The</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">movement began aggressively pushing the courts to play an active role by striking</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">down laws and reversing precedents it disliked.</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Originalism is a</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">political project,</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">not a legal or</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">constitutional one.</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">The New Judicial Activism</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Ironically, this aggressively activist legal movement</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">came masked as a call for “judicial restraint.”</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">In the years following the Second World War,</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">the Supreme Court recognized a constitutional</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">right to privacy and reproductive rights, allowed</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">government agencies to regulate pollution and</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">other harmful externalities of industry, provided</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">due process protections for criminal defendants,</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">and imposed school desegregation and</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">constitutional civil rights protections for</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">minorities. In particular, Brown v. Board of Education—the landmark Supreme Court</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">case that unanimously declared racial segregation in public schools unconstitutional—</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">became a lightning rod for conservative outrage.</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Arguing that these developments were the product of liberal “judicial activism,” the</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">conservative movement countered by advancing the legal theory of originalism—</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">that the Constitution’s meaning should be treated as frozen in time at the moment</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">of its ratification. The movement claimed that sticking closely to the “original intent”</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">of the Framers was the only authoritative, neutral, and objective way to “follow the</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Constitution.” In contrast to the liberals’ so-called “activism” and the idea that our</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">centuries-old Constitution must be interpreted to account for the needs of an evolving</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">society, they argued that originalism was a model for “judicial restraint.” Hardly.</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Originalism is a political project, not a legal or constitutional one. Originalism is</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">a judicial tool to achieve political and policy ends that serve corporate interests, social</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">conservatives, and ultra-rich Americans. In the 1980s, the conservative legal movement</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">began weaving an ornate tapestry of jurisprudential theory around “originalism,”</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">injecting it into legal academia and government. This provided an excellent screen for</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">the work’s true, political purpose, which was crystal clear behind the scenes. In a 1986</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">internal memo to Attorney General Edwin Meese, for example, Justice Department</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">12</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">lawyer Steven Calabresi criticized his department for “not acting as an agent of</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">counterrevolutionary change.”16 Calabresi denounced the idea of “judicial restraint,”</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">insisting that aggressive originalism should be the driving force of the conservative</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">legal movement. Calabresi argued that “the courts and the executive must start</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">using their constitutional powers to hold the Congress within its proper constitutional</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">sphere.”17</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">As one scholar wrote, “in addition to rolling back liberal judicial precedent, the</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">movement conservatives in the Republican Party were intent on relitigating the New</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Deal by thoroughly reconceiving the scope of Congress’s power vis-à-vis the states, and</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">by attacking the constitutional legitimacy of the administrative state.”18</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Calabresi, who had co-founded the Federalist Society four years earlier, became an</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">influential figure in the conservative legal movement. His vision of judicial activism</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">and executive power, and of right-wing “counterrevolutionary” change through the</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">courts, became the guiding light of the Federalist Society’s legal movement. Not</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">coincidentally, as Republicans gained political and judicial power under Reagan,</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">George H. W. Bush, George W. Bush, and Trump, the purportedly foundational</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">originalist concept of “judicial restraint” fell quickly by the wayside in favor of aggressive</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">judicial review of Congressional lawmaking.</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Before long, this “counterrevolutionary” project took hold at the Supreme Court.</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Originalism—with its aura of objectivity—provided the perfect cover. And where it</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">didn’t lead to sufficiently “counterrevolutionary” policy results, originalism—like other,</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">actually law-conserving principles such as stare decisis and deference to fact</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">finders—was conveniently ignored.</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">A Right-Wing Rout at the Supreme Court</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">The proof is in the numbers. During John Roberts’s tenure as Chief Justice, the</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Court’s five-justice Republican-appointed majority has handed down more than 80</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">partisan 5-4 decisions—joined by no Democratic appointee—that delivered wins to</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">the Republican Party and the big corporate interests behind it. As we will address in</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">greater detail as part of future efforts, these decisions have had dire consequences for</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /></span></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">ordinary American...</font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">----</font></font></font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">....</span>This has not come about by happenstance. It is the product of a long-term strategy to influence judicial selections and outcomes, which is well-funded by millions of dollars in anonymous, special-interest money. Playing the Long Game: The Right’s 50-Year Project to Capture the Courts Lewis Powell, Edwin Meese, and the Origins of the Republican Judicial Takeover The right-wing plan to reshape our nation’s courts finds its roots in the 1960s and 1970s, amid a deep sense of corporate grievance and conservative racial resentment. While the post-World War II economic boom broadened the middle class and allowed American business interests to prosper, many Americans still labored in unsafe and unsanitary workplaces, or suffered exposure to toxic consumer products and polluted air and water. Against that backdrop, Americans mobilized to demand a government that would protect them from corporate excesses. The result was the bipartisan establishment of public safety and welfare programs and agencies that protect us to this day—such as President Johnson’s “Great Society” programs and the Environmental Protection Agency, established by President Nixon. In certain corporate circles, these developments were met with alarm. In 1971, at the request of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce—which would grow to become, in the words of its president, “the biggest gorilla” in Washington12— a corporate lawyer in Virginia wrote a confidential memo titled “Attack on American Free Enterprise System.” That lawyer was future Supreme Court Justice Lewis Powell. The 1971 Powell Memo 10 The Powell Memo sought to galvanize the business community toward political action. It announced that the “American economic system is under broad attack” from academics, the media, liberal politicians, and other progressives. In the wake of watershed civil rights advancements like the Court’s ruling in Brown v. Board of Education and Congress’s passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Powell claimed that “we have seen the civil rights movement insist on re-writing many of the textbooks in our universities and schools.” Against the popular force of the anti-war, civil rights, and environmental movements, Powell argued: [I]ndependent and uncoordinated activity by individual corporations, as important as this is, will not be sufficient. Strength lies in organization, in careful long-range planning and implementation, in consistency of action over an indefinite period of years, in the scale of financing available only through joint effort, and in the political power available only through united action and national organizations. Powell urged the business community to mobilize its counterattack through “a broader and more vigorous role in the political arena.” This meant corporate lobbying in Congress.13 And lobby corporations did. In 1971, only 175 corporate firms had registered lobbyists in Washington; by 1982, nearly 2,500 firms had registered lobbyists.14 Powell also identified the courts as a “vast area of opportunity.” Bemoaning the “exploit[ation] of the judicial system” by groups such as the American Civil Liberties Union, Powell called on the business community to aggressively invest in the courts. “Under our constitutional system,” Powell argued, “especially with an activist-minded Supreme Court, the judiciary may be the most important instrument for social, economic and political change.” Just two months after submitting his memo, Powell was nominated by President Nixon to the Supreme Court. He was confirmed by a bipartisan vote of 89-1. This memo was not disclosed. Growth of the Conservative Legal Movement In the following decades, conservative Republicans and the American business community took up Powell’s cause with remarkable zeal. Major business interests such as Exxon, Pfizer, RJR Nabisco, Koch Industries, Dow Chemical, Aetna, and Monsanto pumped millions of dollars into industry trade associations like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Ronald Reagan, then governor of California, and his state attorney general, Edwin Meese, encouraged the founding of Pacific Legal Foundation (PLF), the first of several business-funded “public interest” law firms. These groups filed strategic Supreme Court Justice Lewis F. Powell Jr. 11 lawsuits to advance business interests—and rewrite the laws—through the courts while obscuring the identities of the interests backing them. Ideological foundations established by wealthy industrialists—such as the Olin Foundation, the Sarah Scaife Foundation, and the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation—joined the fray. “Combining their vast resources,” these “self-interested business concerns and ideologically driven foundations” invested millions of dollars into a broad array of programs designed to build the intellectual framework “for a new legal vision that was predominantly concerned with promoting and protecting commercial and private wealth”, according to a report from Alliance for Justice.15 By the time Reagan became president, the conservative legal movement was well underway and well-funded. It now had an ally in the White House—and soon, under Attorney General Edwin Meese, one in the U.S. Department of Justice as well. The movement began aggressively pushing the courts to play an active role by striking down laws and reversing precedents it disliked. Originalism is a political project, not a legal or constitutional one. The New Judicial Activism Ironically, this aggressively activist legal movement came masked as a call for “judicial restraint.” In the years following the Second World War, the Supreme Court recognized a constitutional right to privacy and reproductive rights, allowed government agencies to regulate pollution and other harmful externalities of industry, provided due process protections for criminal defendants, and imposed school desegregation and constitutional civil rights protections for minorities. In particular, Brown v. Board of Education—the landmark Supreme Court case that unanimously declared racial segregation in public schools unconstitutional— became a lightning rod for conservative outrage. Arguing that these developments were the product of liberal “judicial activism,” the conservative movement countered by advancing the legal theory of originalism— that the Constitution’s meaning should be treated as frozen in time at the moment of its ratification. The movement claimed that sticking closely to the “original intent” of the Framers was the only authoritative, neutral, and objective way to “follow the Constitution.” In contrast to the liberals’ so-called “activism” and the idea that our centuries-old Constitution must be interpreted to account for the needs of an evolving society, they argued that originalism was a model for “judicial restraint.” Hardly. Originalism is a political project, not a legal or constitutional one. Originalism is a judicial tool to achieve political and policy ends that serve corporate interests, social conservatives, and ultra-rich Americans. In the 1980s, the conservative legal movement began weaving an ornate tapestry of jurisprudential theory around “originalism,” injecting it into legal academia and government. This provided an excellent screen for the work’s true, political purpose, which was crystal clear behind the scenes. In a 1986 internal memo to Attorney General Edwin Meese, for example, Justice Department 12 lawyer Steven Calabresi criticized his department for “not acting as an agent of counterrevolutionary change.”16 Calabresi denounced the idea of “judicial restraint,” insisting that aggressive originalism should be the driving force of the conservative legal movement. Calabresi argued that “the courts and the executive must start using their constitutional powers to hold the Congress within its proper constitutional sphere.”17 As one scholar wrote, “in addition to rolling back liberal judicial precedent, the movement conservatives in the Republican Party were intent on relitigating the New Deal by thoroughly reconceiving the scope of Congress’s power vis-à-vis the states, and by attacking the constitutional legitimacy of the administrative state.”18 Calabresi, who had co-founded the Federalist Society four years earlier, became an influential figure in the conservative legal movement. His vision of judicial activism and executive power, and of right-wing “counterrevolutionary” change through the courts, became the guiding light of the Federalist Society’s legal movement. Not coincidentally, as Republicans gained political and judicial power under Reagan, George H. W. Bush, George W. Bush, and Trump, the purportedly foundational originalist concept of “judicial restraint” fell quickly by the wayside in favor of aggressive judicial review of Congressional lawmaking. Before long, this “counterrevolutionary” project took hold at the Supreme Court. Originalism—with its aura of objectivity—provided the perfect cover. And where it didn’t lead to sufficiently “counterrevolutionary” policy results, originalism—like other, actually law-conserving principles such as stare decisis and deference to fact finders—was conveniently ignored. A Right-Wing Rout at the Supreme Court The proof is in the numbers. During John Roberts’s tenure as Chief Justice, the Court’s five-justice Republican-appointed majority has handed down more than 80 partisan 5-4 decisions—joined by no Democratic appointee—that delivered wins to the Republican Party and the big corporate interests behind it. As we will address in greater detail as part of future efforts, these decisions have had dire consequences for ordinary American....</font></font></font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Shadow Justice: Leonard Leo and the $250 Million Dark Money Judicial Influence Machine</font></font></font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> In May 2019, the Washington Post published a groundbreaking investigation into Leonard Leo and his judicial-influence network. “At a time when Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell are rapidly reshaping federal courts by installing conservative judges and Supreme Court justices,” the Post explained, “few people outside government have more influence over judicial appointments now than Leo.” “For two decades, Leo has been on a mission to turn back the clock” at the Supreme Court.53 At a closed-door gathering of allies, Leo explained, “we’re going to have to understand that judicial confirmations these days are more like political campaigns. . . . No one in this room has probably experienced the kind of transformation that I think we are beginning to see.” Introduced as having “a significant leadership role in the selection and successful confirmation of a third of the currently sitting justices on the Supreme Court,” Leo flexed his muscles: “I’ve seen that comment about the third of the Supreme Court, I prefer controlling interests,” Leo said to laughs from the crowd. “But we haven’t quite been able to launch a hostile takeover yet.”54 While Leo was already “widely known as a confidant to Trump and as executive vice president of the Federalist Society,” the Post’s reporting revealed that, “behind the scenes, Leo is the maestro of a network of interlocking nonprofits working on media campaigns and other initiatives to sway lawmakers by generating public support for conservative judges.”55 When pressed by the Post to explain his role coordinating the millions of dollars of special-interest money he is connected to, Leo avoided the question: “The Washington Post and other entities are more than welcome to write stories about money in politics,” he demurred, “but I don’t engage in that conversation because one, I’m not particularly knowledgeable about a lot of it, but, secondly, because it’s just not what I do. . . . I don’t waste my time on stories that involve money in politics because what I care about is ideas.”56 IS IT LEGAL? While presidents can of course seek advice, conflict-of-interest-laws require federal employees to disclose their potential conflicts of interest and to take steps to address them. Transparency prevents corruption. Senate Democrats are investigating whether the Trump Administration and Leonard Leo, who took leave from his Federalist Society job to advise the Trump Administration, complied with these laws. Working to help certain people to become judges is not in itself wrong. But orchestrating secret, multi-million-dollar campaigns to get judges on the bench who will reliably support your donors’ interests may run afoul of federal law. And it certainly undermines the integrity of the courts. 23 But building off previous investigative efforts by OpenSecrets and MapLight, the Post report found Leonard Leo at the heart of a network of more than two dozen right-wing nonprofit entities–groups that raised over $250 million between 2014 and 2017 alone.57 As the Post reported, the money was largely used to promote far-right policies and legal doctrines, and the judicial nominees who advance them. The public has little idea who is funding this effort, or what their political or financial interests are before the courts, or how they stand to gain. One thing seems clear: no one spends a quarter-billion dollars, anonymously, for no good reason. Behind the Veil: Understanding Leo’s Secret Influence Machine In January 2020, Leonard Leo announced that he was stepping aside from his $400,000-per-year job as the Federalist Society’s Executive Vice President.58 While remaining as co-chair of the Federalist Society’s board, Leo announced the formation of a new venture, CRC Advisors. Leo indicated it would spend a “minimum of $10 million for an issue advocacy campaign focusing on judges in the 2020 cycle.”59 CRC Advisors is just one cog in the complicated and opaque machine working to influence and capture our judicial system. Even Leo himself seems unable to keep track of it all: “I have no idea how many groups I’ve been involved with over the years,” he told the Post. But as the Post reported, “the groups in Leo’s network often work in concert and are linked to Leo and one another by finances, shared board members, phone numbers, addresses, back-office support and other operational details, according to tax filings, incorporation records, other documents and interviews.”60 The extraordinary overlaps suggest a common effort seeking to hide behind a confusing but coordinated array of front groups.</font></font></font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">...</font></font></font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Judicial Lobbying: Special-Interest “Friends of the Court” </font></font></font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In recent years, amicus curiae briefs have become a favored vehicle for the Federalist Society network, allowing it to inject its boundary-pushing theories directly into Supreme Court jurisprudence. Submitted by non-parties to a case for the purpose of providing information, expertise, insight, or advocacy, amicus briefs have become a powerful judicial lobbying tool, and have increased in both volume and influence in the past decade. During the Supreme Court’s 2014 term, amici submitted 781 amicus briefs, an increase of over 800% from the 1950s and a 95% increase from 1995. From 2008 to 2013, the Supreme Court cited amicus briefs 606 times in 417 opinions. Although interest groups that lobby Congress face stringent financial-disclosure requirements, no similar requirements exist for this form of judicial lobbying. The Supreme Court, for its part, does not require meaningful disclosure of amicus funding. So there is no way for the public to know either who the funders are or what those anonymous funders’ interests before the Court might be. Two recent examples show that many seemingly independent amici may be hiding common funders—financial ties that connect them to each other and to the ideological hothouse of the Federalist Society. The first is the pending challenge to the constitutionality of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Seila Law v. CFPB. The Center for Media and Democracy found that since 2014, 16 right-wing foundations donated a total of nearly $69 million to 11 groups that filed amicus briefs in favor of scrapping the CFPB. Over the same period, the same 16 foundations donated over $33 million to the Federalist Society.119 Why does this matter? The challenge to the CFPB is based on the so-called “Unitary Executive Theory,” a once-fringe theory of constitutional interpretation giving the president political dominance over any and all expert administrative agencies. The Federalist Society has promoted this theory for decades. It could now become law. 37 Janus v. AFSCME, the 2018 decision that dealt a major blow to public-sector labor unions, is another textbook example of a coordinated judicial lobbying campaign with massive political implications. That case garnered over 75 amicus briefs opposing the rights of public-sector labor unions, including many from groups funded by Federalist Society donors. Investigative reporting revealed that at least 13 of those “friends of the court” had been funded by the Koch brothers’ DonorsTrust and Donors Capital Fund.120 Similarly, the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation—a long-time Federalist Society donor and avowed foe of public-sector unions—is known to have funded 12 groups that filed amicus briefs in the Janus case.... </font></font></font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">=</b></font></font></font></font></font></p></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.exposedbycmd.org/2020/10/10/snapshot-secret-funding-amicus-briefs-tied-leonard-leo-federalist-society-leader-promoter-amy-barrett/">https://www.exposedbycmd.org/<b>2020/10/10</b>/snapshot-secret-funding-amicus-briefs-tied-leonard-leo-federalist-society-leader-promoter-amy-barrett/</a></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">lisa g</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><p class="p1" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; word-spacing: 3.6px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span class="s1" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A new review of grant documents, first published on the dark web, provides a snapshot of how groups tied to Leonard Leo–the man who put Amy 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.</font></span></p><p class="p1" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; word-spacing: 3.6px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span class="s1" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Leo, the co-chair of the Federalist Society's board, was previously the group’s Executive Vice President. Earlier this year, he announced the launch of a for-profit firm called <b>CRC Advisors, which is working closely with Leo-tied non-profits that were being rebranded–including one previously known only as the “Judicial Education Project” (JEP).</b></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; word-spacing: 3.6px;"><span class="s1" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">His move came in the aftermath of an in-depth </span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/investigations/leonard-leo-federalists-society-courts/" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer external" data-wpel-link="external" style="background: 0px 0px rgb(255, 255, 102); box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;"><span class="s2" style="box-sizing: inherit;">investigation of Leo in 2019</span></a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> by Robert O’Harrow and Shawn Boberg of the </span><i style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102); box-sizing: inherit;">Washington Post’</i><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">s investigative unit, which documented how Leo directed millions from big donors to groups spending big to get nominees of Trump confirmed and to block Merrick Garland’s confirmation to the Supreme Court. </span><b style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Senators Stabenow, Schumer, and Whitehouse recently </span><a href="https://www.whitehouse.senate.gov/news/release/-stabenow-schumer-whitehouse-announce-next-phase-of-captured-courts-effort-detailing-whats-at-stake-for-the-american-people" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer external" data-wpel-link="external" style="background: 0px 0px rgb(255, 255, 102); box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;"><span class="s2" style="box-sizing: inherit;">announced</span></a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> that they will be issuing a new series of </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">reports about the impact of court capture on Americans’ rights,</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> f</span></b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">ollowing on earlier </span><a href="https://www.hsdl.org/?view&did=839500" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer external" data-wpel-link="external" style="background: 0px 0px rgb(255, 255, 102); box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;"><span class="s2" style="box-sizing: inherit;">white papers</span></a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">, and Senator Whitehouse recently </span><a href="https://www.whitehouse.senate.gov/news/release/whitehouse-testifies-on-the-right-wing-capture-of-our-courts" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer external" data-wpel-link="external" style="background: 0px 0px rgb(255, 255, 102); box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;"><span class="s2" style="box-sizing: inherit;">testified</span></a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> about these issues before the House.</span></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; word-spacing: 3.6px;"><span class="s1" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Last year, the <em style="box-sizing: inherit;">Post</em> tallied the Leo network’s spending to get federal and state judges appointed and to influence the law at more than $250 million over the past few years–not counting money given in 2018, which was not publicly available due to tax filing deadlines.</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> Leo-tied groups, like the legally separate Judicial Crisis Network, have also recently funneled money from major donors, who are not publicly known, to fund activities by the </span><b style=""><a href="https://truenorthresearch.org/report/wisconsin-supreme-court-capture-leonard-leo-tied-dark-money-judicial-crisis-network-rslc/" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer external" data-wpel-link="external" style="background: 0px 0px rgb(255, 255, 102); box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;"><span class="s2" style="box-sizing: inherit;">Republican State Leadership Committee</span></a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">, which has used a related entity to</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);"> spend big on negative ads the week before</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">state supreme court elections, </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">and the </span><a href="https://twitter.com/duboo/status/1285322819153403909?s=20" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer external" data-wpel-link="external" style="background: 0px 0px rgb(255, 255, 102); box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;"><span class="s2" style="box-sizing: inherit;">Republican Attorneys General Association</span></a></b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">. Earlier this year, JEP filed for the use of a “</span><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">fictitious name” to do business in Virginia, calling itself the “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/may/27/honest-elections-project-conservative-voting-restrictions" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer external" data-wpel-link="external" style="background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;"><span class="s2" style="box-sizing: inherit;">Honest Elections Project.</span></a>”</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> This new Leo-connected group is amplifying claims of voter fraud and downplaying evidence of voter suppression measures, assertions that have been widely </span><a href="https://fairfight.com/honest-elections-project-exposed/" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer external" data-wpel-link="external" style="background: 0px 0px rgb(255, 255, 102); box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;"><span class="s2" style="box-sizing: inherit;">assailed</span></a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">.</span></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; word-spacing: 3.6px;"><span class="s1" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The newly reviewed grant documents include</span><a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/7223998-2014-Bradley-Leonard-Leo-Neil-Corkery-Carrie.html" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer external" data-wpel-link="external" style="background: 0px 0px; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;"><span class="s2" style="box-sizing: inherit;"> emails </span></a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">showing that the Bradley Foundation”s grant officer conferred with Leo at the Federalist Society about how the foundation could fund “two Supreme Court </span><i style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit;">amicus</i><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> projects” without funneling the money through DonorsTrust, in 2014. Leo connected them to Neil Corkery, a long-time ally of his in an array of groups, and the listed leader of JEP. That group was launched in 2004 alongside another group Leo has deep ties to: the Judicial Confirmation Network, which is now known as the Judicial Crisis Network (JCN).</span><b style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> JCN was created at a </span><a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2015/03/the-jcn-story-building-a-secretive-gop-judicial-machine/" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer external" data-wpel-link="external" style="background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;"><span class="s2" style="box-sizing: inherit;">small dinner party Leo attended with Corkery and others that Justice Antonin <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Scalia </span></span></a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">attended too, after the 2004 election.</span></b></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; word-spacing: 3.6px;"><span class="s1" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Corkery is also a central figure in the now-defunct <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2019/05/an-influential-dark-money-group-turns-off-the-lights-for-the-last-time/" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer external" data-wpel-link="external" style="background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;"><span class="s2" style="box-sizing: inherit;">Wellspring Committee</span></a></span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">, which transferred millions from one secret source to JCN, as it fought to block Merrick Garland’s confirmation to the Court and to advance Neil Gorsuch to that seat. Corkery has been on the board of a number of </span><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Wellspring_Committee" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer external" data-wpel-link="external" style="background: 0px 0px; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;"><span class="s2" style="box-sizing: inherit;">anti-choice and anti-gay rights</span></a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> groups and other entities–sometimes with </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><a href="https://www.americanoversight.org/new-records-illustrate-extensive-influence-wielded-by-leader-of-group-pushing-conservative-judicial-agenda" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer external" data-wpel-link="external" style="background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;"><span class="s2" style="box-sizing: inherit;">Gary Marx</span></a> or <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-jcn-story-how-to-build-a-secretive-right-wing-judicial-machine" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer external" data-wpel-link="external" style="background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;"><span class="s2" style="box-sizing: inherit;">Dan Casey</span></a>.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> At the time of the Bradley grant, Corkery was operating JEP as president, with </span><b><a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2020/09/dark-money-groups-gear-up-supreme-court/" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer external" data-wpel-link="external" style="background: 0px 0px; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;"><span class="s2" style="box-sizing: inherit;">Carrie Severino</span></a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> as staff and on the Board. She is a former law clerk for Justice Clarence Thomas.</span></b></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; word-spacing: 3.6px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span class="s1" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Severino is now the leader and spokesperson of JCN, which recently announced a multi-million dollar ad campaign in support of Barrett’s confirmation. As the <em style="box-sizing: inherit;">Washington Post</em> documented, during the fight over Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination she had an office <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/five-takeaways-from-the-posts-report-on-leonard-leo/2019/05/20/c547954c-78e9-11e9-b3f5-5673edf2d127_story.html" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer external" data-wpel-link="external" style="box-sizing: inherit; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;"><span class="s2" style="box-sizing: inherit;">just down the hall from the Federalist Society.</span></a></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; word-spacing: 3.6px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span class="s1" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Bradley <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/7223993-2015-Bradley-Summary-Judicial-Education-Project.html" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer external" data-wpel-link="external" style="box-sizing: inherit; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;"><span class="s2" style="box-sizing: inherit;">grant summary</span></a> states that the request for funding for JEP’s amicus briefs was “initiated by Bradley Prize recipient Leonard Leo of the Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies.”</font></span></p><p class="p1" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; word-spacing: 3.6px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span class="s1" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">According to that document, JEP provided Bradley with a proposal seeking $200,000 to help subsidize the cost of two amicus briefs, which were described by Bradley as costing $250,000 each. Bradley’s grant officer recommended that its board approve $150,000 to help underwrite the costs of those briefs to the Supreme Court, stating:</font></span></p><blockquote style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 40px; word-spacing: 3.6px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p class="p2" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span class="s3" style="box-sizing: inherit;">At this highest of legal levels, it is often very important to orchestrate high-caliber amicus efforts that showcase respected high-profile parties who are represented by the very best lawyers with strong ties to the Court. Such is the case here, with </span><span class="s4" style="box-sizing: inherit;">King</span><span class="s3" style="box-sizing: inherit;"> and </span><span class="s4" style="box-sizing: inherit;">Friedrichs</span><span class="s3" style="box-sizing: inherit;">, even given Bradley’s previous philanthropic investments in the actual, underlying legal actions. (Bradley Grant Proposal Record of the Judicial Education Project)</span></font></p></blockquote><p class="p1" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; word-spacing: 3.6px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span class="s1" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Bradley’s proposal summary expressly stated that the funding was needed “for two important cases pending before the U.S. Supreme Court.”</font></span></p><h2 class="p4" style="box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 1.2; margin: 0px 0px 10px; word-spacing: 3.6px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span class="s1" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The King Litigation Was an Attack on Health Care</font></span></h2><p class="p1" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; word-spacing: 3.6px;"><span class="s1" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="">“King” is a reference to <a href="https://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/king-v-burwell/" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer external" data-wpel-link="external" style="background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;"><span class="s2" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><i style="box-sizing: inherit;">King v. Burwell</i></span></a>, which the Court decided later that year, in 2015. That case involved a challenge by four individual plaintiffs to an IRS rule providing <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/7224742-2015-Bradley-FGA-Proposa-JEP-King-v-Burwell.html" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer external" data-wpel-link="external" style="background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;"><span class="s2" style="box-sizing: inherit;">federal-exchange subsidies</span></a> nationwide as part of the implementation of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), the signature health insurance reform bill of the Obama administration.</font></span></p><p class="p1" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; word-spacing: 3.6px;"><span class="s1" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Bradley’s recommendation to provide funding to support JEP’s amicus brief <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/7223993-2015-Bradley-Summary-Judicial-Education-Project.html" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer external" data-wpel-link="external" style="background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;"><span class="s2" style="box-sizing: inherit;">noted </span></a>that “the King statutory interpretation case itself was brought with Bradley support by the <b style="">Competitive Enterprise Institute” (CEI</b>)</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">. The Supreme Court’s Rule 29.6 required disclosure in the case notes that the plaintiffs were four individuals. There is no reference to CEI in the Supreme Court’s </span><a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/search.aspx?filename=/docketfiles/14-114.htm" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer external" data-wpel-link="external" style="background: 0px 0px; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;"><span class="s2" style="box-sizing: inherit;">docket sheet</span></a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> for the case as a lawyer or litigant, but the group’s website stated that </span><a href="https://cei.org/content/scotus-announces-review-cei%E2%80%99s-healthcare-case-king-v-burwell" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer external" data-wpel-link="external" style="background: 0px 0px; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;"><span class="s2" style="box-sizing: inherit;">CEI “is coordinating and funding both the King v. Burwell case and the D.C. Circuit Halbig v. Burwell case.”</span></a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> There is no mention of CEI as an intermediary for Bradley funding of this litigation.</span></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; word-spacing: 3.6px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span class="s1" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">After the Supreme Court ruled against the four plaintiffs and upheld the ACA, the Bradley summary for CEI’s grant <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/7223999-2015-Bradley-Competitive-Enterprise-Institute.html" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer external" data-wpel-link="external" style="box-sizing: inherit; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;"><span class="s2" style="box-sizing: inherit;">stated</span></a>:</font></span></p><blockquote style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 40px; word-spacing: 3.6px;"><p class="p2" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span class="s3" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">[T]he U.S. Supreme Court handed CEl, and perhaps conservatism in general, one of its biggest legal losses ever.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> The Court ruled against CEI’s ambitiously creative challenge to Obamacare’s tax subsidies to individuals purchasing insurance coverage through the federal health-insurance exchange. CEI acknowledges that the loss was deeply disappointing – not only because it kept intact subsidies not authorized by statute, but also because it signaled a shift in the Court’s respect for the plain meaning of laws enacted by Congress. Nonetheless, it argues, the case succeeded in reshaping the country’s public discourse about health-care policy, the rule of law, the role of Congress, and agency accountability. (</span></span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Bradley Grant Proposal Record of the Competitive Enterprise Institute)</span></font></p></blockquote><p class="p1" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; word-spacing: 3.6px;"><span class="s1" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="">Bradley’s grant summary also <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/7223999-2015-Bradley-Competitive-Enterprise-Institute.html" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer external" data-wpel-link="external" style="background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;"><span class="s2" style="box-sizing: inherit;">specifies</span></a> that CEI has long been funded by the Koch family fortune, Sarah Scaife, Barre Seid, Exxon, Murray Energy, and Pfizer. It also noted that Leo was on CEI’s board of legal advisors alongside Michael Greve of George Mason’s law school, which has received many millions in Koch money. (<a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/competitive-enterprise-institute" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer external" data-wpel-link="external" style="background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;"><span class="s2" style="box-sizing: inherit;">CEI</span></a> was founded by Fred Smith in the 1980s after he worked with Charles Koch at his <a href="https://kochdocs.org/2019/06/07/charles-koch-chairman-council-competitive-economy-new-member/" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer external" data-wpel-link="external" style="background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;"><span class="s2" style="box-sizing: inherit;">Council for a Competitive Economy</span></a>, the predecessor of Citizens for a Sound Economy, now known as Americans for Prosperity. CEI has a long history of peddling <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/a-two-decade-crusade-by-conservative-charities-fueled-trumps-exit-from-paris-climate-accord/2017/09/05/fcb8d9fe-6726-11e7-9928-22d00a47778f_story.html" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer external" data-wpel-link="external" style="background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;"><span class="s2" style="box-sizing: inherit;">climate change denial</span></a>.)</font></span></p><p class="p1" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; word-spacing: 3.6px;"><span class="s1" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Billionaire Charles Koch’s political arm, Americans for Prosperity, has announced that it will spend millions to push for the quick confirmation of Barrett to the Supreme Court.</b> <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Koch has spent tens of millions through organizations he controls to attack the ACA over the past decade. He began <a href="https://kochdocs.org/2020/02/06/breaking-new-documents-show-charles-kochs-fortune-subsidizing-attacks-on-election-laws-since-more-than-40-years-ago/" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer external" data-wpel-link="external" style="background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;"><span class="s2" style="box-sizing: inherit;">subsidizing litigation against anti-corruption election laws</span></a> in the 1970s.</span></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; word-spacing: 3.6px;"><span class="s1" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The Koch-founded and -funded Cato Institute also submitted an </span><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20160331182238/https://www.americanbar.org/content/dam/aba/publications/supreme_court_preview/BriefsV4/14-114_amicus_pet_Cato.authcheckdam.pdf" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer external" data-wpel-link="external" style="background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;"><span class="s2" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">amicus</span> brief </span></a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">in the </span><i style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit;">King</i><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> case, urging that the Supreme Court strike down the ACA.</span></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; word-spacing: 3.6px;"><span class="s1" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="">The <a href="http://sblog.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/14-114-Amicus-Brief-of-Senator-John-Cornyn-et-al-.pdf" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer external" data-wpel-link="external" style="background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;"><span class="s2" style="box-sizing: inherit;">JEP brief</span></a> that Bradley mentioned as worthy of its philanthropic subsidy had been filed in 2014 by Severino and other lawyers on behalf of seven elected officials: Senators John Cornyn, Ted Cruz, Orrin Hatch, Rob Portman, and Marco Rubio as well as Reps. Dave Camp and Darrell Issa. The main law firm on the brief with JEP was Cooper & Kirk, one of the firms Bradley noted in its grant write-up. The discussion with Leo about funding occurred about two weeks before this brief was submitted to the Court.</font></span></p><p class="p1" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; word-spacing: 3.6px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span class="s1" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">So, in essence, the Bradley Foundation wanted to subsidize an amicus brief to the U.S. Supreme Court prepared by a for-profit law firm for GOP Members of Congress by funding a non-profit group working with that firm.</font></span></p><p class="p1" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; word-spacing: 3.6px;"><span class="s1" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The Bradley proposal documents also noted that it was funding two other groups that submitted amicus briefs in the <i style="box-sizing: inherit;">King</i> litigation: the <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/7224001-2014-Bradley-Pacific-Research-Institute-Board.html" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer external" data-wpel-link="external" style="background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;"><span class="s2" style="box-sizing: inherit;">Pacific Research Institute (</span></a>PRI) and the <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/7224005-2014-Bradley-Galen-Amicus-IRA-Pages-Pdf-3.html" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer external" data-wpel-link="external" style="background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;"><span class="s2" style="box-sizing: inherit;">Galen Institute</span></a>.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> Both groups specifically requested Bradley funding for amicus briefs seeking to get the Supreme Court to overturn the ACA. PRI’s brief is</span><a href="http://sblog.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/Cert-Amicus-Brief-PRI.pdf" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer external" data-wpel-link="external" style="background: 0px 0px; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;"><span class="s2" style="box-sizing: inherit;"> here</span></a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">. The Galen Institute’s brief is </span><a href="https://boydengrayassociates.com/brief-of-amicus-curiae-the-galen-institute-king-v-burwell-no-14-114-s-ct-dec-29-2014/" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer external" data-wpel-link="external" style="background: 0px 0px; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;"><span class="s2" style="box-sizing: inherit;">here</span></a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">, on the website of C. Boyden Gray’s law firm.</span></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; word-spacing: 3.6px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span class="s1" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Galen also received funding for its amicus briefs against the ACA from the Randolph Foundation, which is controlled by Vicks VapoRub heir, Heather Higgins, who leads the Independent Women’s Voice (IWV) and Independent Women’s Forum (IWF). IWV received $150,000 from JCN in 2014, and later <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2019/02/dark-money-group-led-by-trump-judicial-adviser-scotus-picks/" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer external" data-wpel-link="external" style="box-sizing: inherit; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;"><span class="s2" style="box-sizing: inherit;">received $4 million from Leo’s Freedom and Opportunity Fund </span></a>over two years as it opposed Garland’s confirmation and supported Gorsuch’s confirmation. Her groups also played a prominent role in defense of Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination, and JEP gave $300K to IWF in 2018. IWF and IWV leaders are actively pressing for Barrett’s rapid confirmation. Notably, Higgins has used claims about the ACA in outreach to swing-state voters right before the election in 2016, and she <a href="https://truenorthresearch.org/report/group-stealthily-targeted-independent-women-and-claimed-decisive-role-in-trumps-win/" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer external" data-wpel-link="external" style="box-sizing: inherit; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;"><span class="s2" style="box-sizing: inherit;">took credit for moving women in Wisconsin toward Trump</span></a> in sufficient numbers to help him win the presidency.</font></span></p><p class="p1" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; word-spacing: 3.6px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span class="s1" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>IWF joined forces with the Cato Institute in the follow-on case to <i style="box-sizing: inherit;">King</i></b>, a consolidated set of cases under the name <a href="https://www.cato.org/publications/legal-briefs/zubik-v-burwell" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer external" data-wpel-link="external" style="box-sizing: inherit; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;"><span class="s2" style="box-sizing: inherit;">Zubik v. Burwell</span></a>. IWF has received both Koch and <a href="https://www.exposedbycmd.org/2017/06/21/bradley-foundation-fueled-independent-womens-forum-campaign-against-paid-sick-leave-laws-and-more/" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-wpel-link="internal" style="box-sizing: inherit; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;"><span class="s2" style="box-sizing: inherit;">Bradley funding</span></a> for other work over the years. It has deep ties to Koch–even being led for years by the former top lobbyist for Koch Industries and being co-led and co-located with Citizens for a Sound Economy/Americans for Prosperity.</font></span></p><p class="p1" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; word-spacing: 3.6px;"><span class="s1" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="">Judge Barrett, Trump’s nominee for Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s seat on the Supreme Court, has <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/judge-barrett-aca-health-care-law/2020/09/28/429d165e-ff4c-11ea-b555-4d71a9254f4b_story.html" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer external" data-wpel-link="external" style="background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;"><span class="s2" style="box-sizing: inherit;">criticized the Affordable Care Act</span></a>. The Court has schedule oral arguments for November 10 in the <a href="https://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/california-v-texas/" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer external" data-wpel-link="external" style="background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;"><span class="s2" style="box-sizing: inherit;">latest case attacking that law</span></a>–which extended access to health care to millions of Americans and which makes it illegal for insurance companies to discriminate against people with pre-existing conditions.</font></span></p><p class="p1" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; word-spacing: 3.6px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span class="s1" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Trump has attacked the ACA repeatedly and sought its repeal, and never forgave Senator McCain for refusing to go along with his plan. <a href="https://www.apha.org/news-and-media/news-releases/apha-news-releases/2020/executive-order" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer external" data-wpel-link="external" style="box-sizing: inherit; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;"><span class="s2" style="box-sizing: inherit;">Trump’s recently issued declaration “policy” about pre-existing conditions would provide no actual enforceable protections</span></a>, if the Court were to strike down the law as he seeks. That declaration is little more than a talking point that was issued right after Justice Ginsburg died, as he prepared to nominate Barrett to the Supreme Court. With covid-19 spreading in the U.S., millions of Americans may now or in the future have significant pre-existing conditions as a result of this deadly pandemic.</font></span></p><h2 class="p4" style="box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 1.2; margin: 0px 0px 10px; word-spacing: 3.6px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span class="s1" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Friedrichs Litigation Was an Attack on Unions</font></span></h2><p class="p1" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; word-spacing: 3.6px;"><span class="s1" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="">The “Friedrichs” case mentioned by Bradley in its funding document was <a href="https://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/friedrichs-v-california-teachers-association/" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer external" data-wpel-link="external" style="background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;"><span class="s2" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><i style="box-sizing: inherit;">Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association</i></span></a>. That case attacked the dues collected by unions from employees to negotiate for benefits for all non-management employees.</font></span></p><p class="p1" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; word-spacing: 3.6px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span class="s1" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Bradley <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/7223993-2015-Bradley-Summary-Judicial-Education-Project.html" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer external" data-wpel-link="external" style="box-sizing: inherit; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;"><span class="s2" style="box-sizing: inherit;">noted</span></a> in early 2015 that “Various amici in Friedrichs likely will include current and former governors, state attorneys general, First Amendment scholars, and leading Bradley-supported education-reform entities — including PRl. At this writing, two or three others may be commissioned.” The Koch-funded Cato Institute also <a href="https://www.scotusblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/NAI_1500534639_1_14-915tsacTheCatoInstitute.pdf" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer external" data-wpel-link="external" style="box-sizing: inherit; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;"><span class="s2" style="box-sizing: inherit;">filed</span></a> an amicus brief in <i style="box-sizing: inherit;">Friedrichs.</i></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; word-spacing: 3.6px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span class="s1" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">It is noteworthy that in its evaluation of which groups to fund on these issues, Bradley touted that the Friedrich’s case and a related case could be a “powerful one-two punch” against unions that could cause them to “lose an estimated $60 million annually.: (That was part of the summary of the Bradley grant recommendation for the group <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/7224004-2015-Bradley-Students-First-IRA-Pages-1-Pdf-2.html" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer external" data-wpel-link="external" style="box-sizing: inherit; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;"><span class="s2" style="box-sizing: inherit;">StudentsFirst</span></a> in 2015.)</font></span></p><p class="p1" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; word-spacing: 3.6px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span class="s1" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">After Justice Antonin Scalia died in early 2016, the Court was deadlocked 4-4 in the <i style="box-sizing: inherit;">Friedrichs</i> case, which resulted in affirming a lower court decision that had refused to overrule “agency shop” rules for public sector unions. Those long-standing rules prevent free riders from benefiting from union negotiations without dues. However, after Gorsuch was confirmed, the Court struck down those rules in a 5-4 decision with a different plaintiff, Mark <a href="https://theintercept.com/2018/06/30/janus-bleed-unions-state-policy-network/" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer external" data-wpel-link="external" style="box-sizing: inherit; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;"><span class="s2" style="box-sizing: inherit;">Janus</span></a>, pursuing the same line of arguments as those subsidized by the Bradley Foundation. (A brief history of the roots of the Janus litigation and the so-called “right-to-work” laws that undermine collective bargaining rights is available <a href="https://inthesetimes.com/article/koch-anti-union-janus-supreme-court" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer external" data-wpel-link="external" style="box-sizing: inherit; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;"><span class="s2" style="box-sizing: inherit;">here</span></a>.)</font></span></p><p class="p1" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; word-spacing: 3.6px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span class="s1" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The <a href="http://www.cir-usa.org/legal_docs/friedrichs_merits_amicus_con_law_profs.pdf" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer external" data-wpel-link="external" style="box-sizing: inherit; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;"><span class="s2" style="box-sizing: inherit;">amicus brief JEP submitted</span></a> in the <i style="box-sizing: inherit;">Friedrichs </i>case, after receiving Bradley funding, was on behalf of eight law professors, all of whom were then and are still leading voices in the Federalist Society, including one of its co-founders: Steven Calabresi. (One of them has since passed away.) In 2010, the Bradley Foundation awarded Calabresi, Leonard Leo, and other founders or leaders of the Federalist Society the <a href="https://fedsoc.org/2009-bradley-prize" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer external" data-wpel-link="external" style="box-sizing: inherit; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;"><span class="s2" style="box-sizing: inherit;">Bradley Prize</span></a>, a gift of $250,000, which it has also given to others like <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/7224062-BradleyPrize10AnnRep-Doc.html" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer external" data-wpel-link="external" style="box-sizing: inherit; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;"><span class="s2" style="box-sizing: inherit;">Paul Gigot</span></a>, when he was on the <i style="box-sizing: inherit;">Wall Street Journal </i>editorial board.</font></span></p><p class="p1" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; word-spacing: 3.6px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span class="s1" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">So, in the case of <i style="box-sizing: inherit;">Friedrichs</i>, the Bradley Foundation was in touch with the Executive Vice President of the Federalist Society about helping to subsidize an amicus brief for the U.S. Supreme Court that was later written and filed on behalf of professors, all of whom were contributors to the Federalist Society.</font></span></p><p class="p1" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; word-spacing: 3.6px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span class="s1" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">This is only one snapshot of the role that the Bradley Foundation and others have played in funding amicus briefs submitted to the Supreme Court to try to get laws overturned. In this instance, one of the groups that submitted amicus briefs the foundation subsidized is part of Leo’s dark money network, which has spent millions to get the judges he wants on our nation’s highest court.</font></span></p><p class="p1" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; word-spacing: 3.6px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span class="s1" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: inherit;">The documents used to illustrate this story in the public interest are only a few of the thousands of pages of documents in the Bradley files trove, which the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) began examining in 2017</span>. It noted:</font></span></p><p class="p1" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; word-spacing: 3.6px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span class="s1" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: inherit;">“The documents were made public in October 2016 on two Twitter accounts that cyber security analysts have linked to one of the Russian hackers alleged to have breached the Democratic National Committee. The Bradley Foundation confirmed </span><a href="http://www.bradleyfdn.org/On-Lion-Letter/ID/2342/Statement-of-Bradley-Foundation-president-Richard-W-Graber-on-cyber-intrusion" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer external" data-wpel-link="external" style="box-sizing: inherit; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;"><span class="s2" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><span style="box-sizing: inherit;">in a statement</span></span></a><span style="box-sizing: inherit;"> that the hack had taken place and was reported to the FBI. More information about how the Bradley files became public is available </span><a href="https://www.exposedbycmd.org/how-did-bradley-files-become-public/" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-wpel-link="internal" style="box-sizing: inherit; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;"><span class="s2" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><span style="box-sizing: inherit;">here</span></span></a><span style="box-sizing: inherit;">.</span></font></span></p><p class="p1" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; word-spacing: 3.6px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span class="s1" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><span style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The documents open a window to the behind-the-scenes workings of one of America’s largest right-wing foundations. With $835 million in assets as of June 2016, the Bradley Foundation is as large as the three Koch family foundations combined, yet receives much less attention as a significant funder of the right.”</font></span></span></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; word-spacing: 3.6px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">For more on the Bradley Foundation’s activities, see CMD’s <a href="https://www.exposedbycmd.org/bradley-files/" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-wpel-link="internal" style="box-sizing: inherit; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">Bradley Files</a> investigation.</font></span></p></div><div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.exposedbycmd.org/2020/10/13/senator-whitehouse-calls-out-dark-money-networks-behind-amy-coney-barretts-scotus-nomination" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">https://www.exposedbycmd.org/2020/10/13/senator-whitehouse-calls-out-dark-money-networks-behind-amy-coney-barretts-scotus-nomination</a></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>Senator Whitehouse Calls Out Dark-Money Networks Behind Amy Coney Barrett’s SCOTUS Nomination</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">By ExposedByCMD Editors | October 13th, 2020</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Bradley Files, Democracy, Featured Investigations, Koch, News, RAGA, Trump7 Comments</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Editor’s Note: The following is a transcript of remarks made by Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) in the October 13, 2020, Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on the nomination of Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the U.S. Supreme Court.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Thank you, Chairman, Judge Barrett. You can take a bit of a breather on your return to the committee, because what I want to do is go through with the people who are watching this now the conversation that you and I had when we spoke on the telephone. You were kind enough to hear out a presentation that I made, and I intend to ask some questions in that area, but it doesn’t make sense to ask questions if I haven’t laid the predicate, particularly for viewers who are watching this.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">So, I guess the reason that I want to do this is because people who are watching this need to understand that this small hearing room and the little TV box that you are looking at, the little screen that you are looking at, are a little bit like the frame of a puppet theater, and if you only look at what’s going on in the puppet theater you’re not going to understand the whole story. You are not going to understand the real dynamic what is going on here, and you are certainly not going to understand forces outside of this room who are pulling strings and pushing sticks and causing the puppet theater to react.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>So first, let me say, why do I think outside forces are here pulling strings? </b>Well, part of it is behavior. We have colleagues here who supported you, this nominee, before there was a nominee. That’s a little unusual.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">We have the political ram job that we have already complained of driving this process through at breakneck speed in the middle of a pandemic while the Senate is closed for safety reasons and while we are doing nothing about the COVID epidemic around us. We have some very awkward 180s from colleagues. Mr. Chairman, you figure in this. Our leader said back when it was Garland versus Gorsuch, that of course, of course, the American people should have a say in the Court’s direction. Of course, of course, said Mitch McConnell. That’s long gone.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Senator Grassley said the American people shouldn’t be denied a voice. That’s long gone. Senator Cruz said you don’t do this in an election year. That’s long gone. And our chairman made his famous hold-the-tape promise if an opening comes in the last year of President Trump’s term we’ll wait until the next election. That’s gone too.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">So there is a lot of hard-to-explain hypocrisy and rush taking place right now, and my experience around politics is that when you find hypocrisy in the daylight, look for power in the shadows. Now people say well, what does all this matter? This is a political parlor game; it’s no big deal. Well, there are some pretty high stakes here that we have been talking about here on our side, and I will tell you three of them right here.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Roe v. Wade, Obergefell, and the Obamacare cases. Here’s the GOP platform, the Republican platform, the platform of my colleagues on the other side of this aisle say that a Republican president will<b> appoint judges who will reverse Roe, Obergefell, and the Obamacare cases</b>. </span>So if you have a family member with an interest in some autonomy over their body under Roe v. Wade, the ability to have a marriage, have friends marry, have a niece or a daughter or a son marry someone of their same-sex they have – you’ve got a stake, and if you are one of the millions and millions of Americans who depend on the affordable care act you’ve got a stake.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">It’s not just the platform. Over and over again, let’s start by talking about the Affordable Care Act. Here is the president talking about this litigation that we are gearing up this nominee for for November 10. In this litigation, he said we want to terminate healthcare under Obamacare.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">That is the president’s statement, so when we react to that, don’t act as if we are making this stuff up. This is what President Trump said. This is what your party platform says: reverse the Obamacare cases. Senator after senator, including many in this committee, filed briefs saying that the Affordable Care Act should be thrown out by courts. Why is it surprising for us to be concerned that you want this nominee to do what you want nominees to do?</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">One quick stop on NFIB v. Sebelius, because a lot of this has to do with money. This is an interesting comparison. <b>National Federation of Independent Businesses,</b> until it filed the NFIB v. Sebelius case, had its biggest donation ever of $21,000. In the year that it went to work on the Affordable Care Act, ten wealthy donors gave $10 million. Somebody deserves a thank you.</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">So let’s go on to Roe v. Wade. Same thing. Same thing. The president has said that reversing Roe v. Wade will happen automatically because he is putting pro-life justices on the Court. Why would we not take him at his word? The Republican Party platform says it will reverse Roe. Why would we not comment on that and take you at your word?</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Senators here, including Senator Hawley, have said I will vote only for nominees who acknowledge that Roe v. Wade is wrongly decided, and their pledge to vote for this nominee. Do the math. That’s a really simple equation to run.</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The Republican brief in June Medical said Roe should be overruled, so don’t act surprised when we ask questions about whether that’s what you are up to here. And finally, out in the ad world that you have spared yourself wisely Judge Barrett, the Susan B Anthony Foundation is running advertisements right now saying that you are set, you are set to give our pro-life country a Court that it deserves.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Here is the ad with the voiceover. She said – she said. And then Roe, Obamacare cases and Obergefell, gay marriages. National Organization for Marriage, the big group that opposes same-sex marriage, says in this proceeding, all our issues are at stake. The Republican platform says it wants to reverse Obergefell. And the Republican brief filed in the case said same-sex relationships don’t fall within any constitutional protection, so when we say the stakes are high on this, it’s because you have said the stakes are high on this. You have said that is what you want to do. So how are people going about doing it? What is the scheme here?</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Let me start with this one. In all cases, there’s big anonymous money behind various lanes of activity. One lane of activity is through the conduit of the Federalist Society. It is managed by a guy – was managed by – a guy named Leonard Leo, and it has taken over the selection of judicial nominees. How do we know that to be the case? Because Trump has said so over and over again. His White House counsel said so. </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">So we have an anonymously funded group controlling judicial selection run by this guy <b style="">Leonard Leo.</b></span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Then in another lane, we have again anonymous funders running through something called the <b>Judicial Crisis Network, which is run by Carrie Severino</b>, and it is doing PR and campaign ads for Republican judicial nominees. It got $17 million – a single $17 million donation in the Garland-Gorsuch contest. It got another single $17 million donation to support<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> Kavanaugh. Somebody, perhaps the same person, spent $35 million to influence the United States Supreme Court. Tell me that’s good.</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">And then over here you have a whole array of legal groups, also funded by dark money, which have a different role. They bring cases to the Court. They don’t wind their way to the Court, your Honor, they get shoved to the Court to by these legal groups, many of which ask to lose below so they can get quickly to the Court to get their business done there. And then they turn up in a chorus, an orchestrated chorus of amici.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Now I’ve had a chance to have a look at this. And I was in a case, actually, as an amicus myself, the <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Consumer Financial Protection Board case. And in that case there were 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 amicus briefs filed, and every single one of them was a group funded by something called <b>DonorsTrust.</b></span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">DonorsTrust is a gigantic identity-scrubbing device for the right wing so that it says DonorsTrust is the donor without whoever the real donor is. It doesn’t have a business. It doesn’t have a business plan. It doesn’t do anything. It’s just an identity scrubber.</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>And this group here, the Bradley Foundation, funded eight out of the 11 briefs.</b> That seems weird to me when you have amicus briefs coming in little flotillas that are funded by the same groups but nominally separate in the court.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">So I actually attached this to my brief as an appendix. Center for Media and Democracy saw it, and they did better work. They went on to say which foundations funded the brief writers in that CFPB case. Here is the Bradley Foundation for $5.6 million to those groups. Here’s DonorsTrust, $23 million to those brief writing groups. <b>The grand total across all the donor groups was $68 million to the groups that were filing amicus briefs, pretending that they were different groups.</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Right-Wing Foundations Fund Anti-Consumer Protection Groups, 2014-present</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>Sixteen right-wing foundations gave nearly $69 million to groups urging the Supreme Court to <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">abolish the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau</span> since 2014.</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>Donor<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Amount</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">DonorsTrust<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>$23,460,705</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Charles Koch Foundation<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>$12,986,462</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Sarah Scaife Foundation<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>$7,550,000</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">L&H Bradley Foundation<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>$5,579,500</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Searle Freedom Trust<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>$4,550,000</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Dunn Foundation<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>$4,450,000</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Donors Capital Fund<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>$2,522,680</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">John William Pope Foundation<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>$1,895,175</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Bradley Impact Fund<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>$1,363,000</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Mercer Family Foundation<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>$1,200,000</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Adolph Coors Foundation<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>$1,155,000</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">F.M. Kirby Foundation<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>$672,500</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Charles Koch Institute<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>$517,134</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Ed Uihlein Family Foundation<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>$408,000</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Pierre F. and Enid Goodrich Foundation<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>$395,000</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">William H. Donner Foundation<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>$167,000</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>TOTAL<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>$68,872,156</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">And it’s not just in the Consumer Financial Protection Board case.<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> You might say well that was just a one-off. Here’s Janus, the anti-labor case that had a long trail through the Court, through Friedrichs, and through Knox, and through other decisions.</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">And SourceWatch and ProPublica did some work about this. Here’s DonorsTrust and Donors Capital Fund. And here’s the Bradley Foundation. And they totaled giving $45 million to the 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15<b> groups that filed amicus briefs, pretending to be different groups, and both of the lawyer groups in the case, funded by DonorsTrust, funded by Bradley Foundation in Janus.</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">This is happening over and over and over again, and it goes beyond just the briefs. It goes beyond just the amicus presentations.<b> The Federalist Society </b>– remember this group that is acting as the conduit and that Donald Trump has said is doing his judicial selection? They’re getting money from the same foundations, from DonorsTrust, $16.7 million and the Bradley Foundation, $1.37 million. From the same group of foundations total, $33 million.</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style=""><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">Donors to the Federalist Society, 2014-present</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The same 16 foundations that fund the amicus brief filers all give to the Federalist Society</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>donor<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>               Amount</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">DonorsTrust<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>$16,733,100</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Mercer Family Foundation<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>$4,850,000</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Donors Capital Fund<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>$4,231,120</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Charles Koch Foundation<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>$2,419,264</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Searle Freedom Trust<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>$1,551,000</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>$1,375,000</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Ed Uihlein Family Foundation<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>$1,000,000</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">John William Pope Foundation<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>$250,000</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Adolph Coors Foundation<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>$230,000</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Pierre F. and Enid Goodrich Foundation<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>$210,000</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Dunn Foundation<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>$150,000</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">F.M. Kirby Foundation<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>$120,000</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">William H. Donner Foundation<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>$45,000</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Bradley Impact Fund<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>$15,250</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Charles Koch Institute<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>$6,400</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>TOTAL<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>$33,286,134  </b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style=""><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">So you can start to look at these, and you can start to tie them together.</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> The legal groups, all the same funders over and over again, bringing the cases and providing us orchestrated, orchestrated chorus of amici. Then the same group also funds the Federalist Society over here</span><b style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);"> The Washington Post wrote a big expose about this, and that made Leonard Leo a little hot, a little bit like a burned agent. So he had to jump out. And he went off to go do anonymously-funded voter suppression work. Guess who jumped in to take over the selection process in this case for Judge Barrett? Carrie Severino made the hop. </span></b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">So once again, ties right in together.</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>So, Center for Media and Democracy did a little bit more research.</b> Here’s a<b> Bradley Foundation</b> memo that they’ve published. The Bradley Foundation is reviewing a grant application asking for money for this orchestrated amicus process, and what do they say in the staff recommendation? It is important to orchestrate – their word, not mine – important to orchestrate high-caliber amicus efforts before the Court.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Page 3 of 2015 Bradley Summary Judicial Education Project Proposal 150K</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Contributed to DocumentCloud by Staff 18 of Documented • View document or read text</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">They also note that Bradley has done previous philanthropic investments in the actual underlying legal actions. So Bradley is funding – what do they call – philanthropically investing in, the underlying legal action and then giving money to groups to show up in the orchestrated chorus of amici. That can’t be good.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">And it goes on, because they also found this email. This email comes from an individual at the Bradley Foundation, and it asks our friend, Leonard Leo, who used to run the selection process, is there a 501(c)(3) nonprofit to which Bradley could direct any support of the two Supreme Court amicus projects other than DonorsTrust? I don’t know why they wanted to avoid the reliable identity-scrubber DonorsTrust, but for some reason they did.</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Page 6 of 2014 Bradley Leonard Leo Neil Corkery Carrie Severino Judicial+Education+Project</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Contributed to DocumentCloud by Staff 18 of Documented • View document or read text]</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">So Leonard Leo writes back on Federalist Society address – so don’t tell me that it isn’t Federal Society business – on Federalist Society, on his address, he writes back, yes, send it to the Judicial Education Project, which could take and allocate the money. <b>And guess who works for the Judicial Education Project? Carrie Severino, </b>who also helped select this nominee, running the Trump Federalist Society selection process.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">So the connections abound. In the Washington Post article, they point out that the Judicial Crisis Network’s office is on the same hallway in the same building as the Federalist Society, and when they sent their reporter to talk to somebody at the Judicial Crisis Network, somebody from the Federalist Society came down to let them up.</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>This more and more looks like it’s not three schemes, but it’s one scheme with the same funders selecting judges, funding campaigns for the judges, and then showing up in court in these orchestrated amicus flotillas to tell the judges what to do.</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">On the Judicial Crisis Network, you’ve got the Leonard Leo connection, obviously. She hopped in to take over for him with the Federalist Society. You’ve got the campaigns that I’ve talked about, where they take $17 million contributions. That’s a big check to write, $17 million, to campaign for Supreme Court nominees. No idea who that is or what they got for it. You’ve got briefs that she wrote. <b>The Republican senators filed briefs in that NFIB case signed by Ms. Severino.</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">
</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">The woman who helped choose this nominee has written briefs for Republican senators attacking the ACA.</span> Don’t say the ACA is not an issue here.<b><u> And by the way, the Judicial Crisis Network funds the Republican attorneys general. It funds RAGA</u></b>, the Republican Attorneys General Association, and it funds individual Republican attorneys general. And guess who the plaintiffs are in the Affordable Care Act case? Republican attorneys general.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Trump joined them because he didn’t want to defend, so he’s in with the Republican attorneys general. But here’s the Judicial Crisis Network campaigning for Supreme Court nominees, writing briefs for senators against the Affordable Care Act, supporting the Republicans who are bringing this case, and leading the selection process for this nominee</span>.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Here is the page off the brief. Here is where they are. Mitch McConnell, and on through the list, Senator Collins, Senator Cornyn, Senator Hoeven, Senator — who’s still here? Marco Rubio. It’s a huge assortment of Republican senators who Carrie Severino wrote a brief for against the Affordable Care Act.</span> So this is a, to me, pretty big deal. I’ve never seen this around any court that I’ve ever been involved with, where there’s this much dark money and this much influence being used.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>Here’s how the Washington Post summed it up. This is “a conservative activist behind-the-scenes campaign to remake the nation’s courts,” and it’s a $250 million dark money operation. $250 million is a lot of money to spend if you’re not getting anything for it. So that raises the question, what are they getting for it?</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Well, I showed the slide earlier on the Affordable Care Act. And on Obergefell and on Roe v. Wade, that’s where they lost. But with another judge, that could change. That’s where the contest is. That’s where The Republican Party platform tells us to look at how they want judges to rule, to reverse Roe, to reverse the Obamacare cases, and to <b>reverse Obergefell and take away gay marriage.</b> That is their stated objective and plan. Why not take them at their word?</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">But there is another piece of it, and that is not what’s ahead of us, but what’s behind us. What’s behind us is now 80 cases, <b>Mr. Chairman, 80 cases under Chief Justice Roberts that have these characteristics. One, they were decided five to four by a bare majority. Two, the five-to-four majority was partisan in the sense that not one Democratic appointee joined the five. I refer to that group as the “Roberts Five.”</b></span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">It changes a little bit as–with Justice Scalia’s death, for instance – but there’s been a steady “Roberts Five” that has delivered now 80 of these decisions.<b> And the last characteristic of them is that there is an identifiable Republican donor interest in those cases, and in every single case, that donor interest won. It was an 80 to zero, 5 to 4 partisan rout, ransacking.</b></span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">And it’s important to look at where those cases went, because they’re not about big, public issues like getting rid of the Affordable Care Act, undoing Roe v. Wade, and undoing same sex marriage.<b> They’re about power.</b> <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">And if you look at those 80 decisions, they fall into f<b>our categories over and over and over again. One, unlimited and dark money and politics. </b>Citizens United is the famous one, but it’s continued since with McCutcheon and we’ve got one coming up now. <b>Always the five for unlimited money in politics. Never protecting against money dark money in politics, despite the fact that they said it was going to be transparent.</b></span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">And who wins when you allow unlimited dark money in politics? A very small group. The ones who have unlimited money to spend and a motive to spend it in politics. They win. Everybody else loses. And if you’re looking at who might be behind this, let’s talk about people with unlimited money to spend and a motive to do it. We’ll see how that goes.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>Next, knock the civil jury down.</b> Whittle it down to a nub. The civil jury was in the Constitution, in the Bill of Rights, in our darn Declaration of Independence, but it’s annoying to big corporate powers because you can swagger your way as a big corporate power through Congress. You can go and tell the president you put money into to elect what to do. He will put your stooges at the EPA. It’s all great until you get to the civil jury, because they have an obligation, as you know, Judge Barrett, they have an obligation under the law to be fair to both parties irrespective of their size.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">You can’t bribe them. You’re not allowed to. It’s a crime to tamper with the jury. It’s standard practice to tamper with Congress. And they make decisions based on the law. If you’re used to being the boss and swaggering your way around the political side, you don’t want to be answerable before a jury. And so one after another, these 80 5-to-4 decisions have knocked down, whittled away at, the civil jury, a great American institution.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>Third – first was unlimited dark money, second was demean and diminish the civil jury – third is weaken regulatory agencies.</b> <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">A lot of this money, I’m convinced, is polluter money. The Koch Industries is a polluter, the fossil fuel industry is a polluter. Who else would be putting buckets of money into this and wanting to hide who they are behind DonorsTrust or other schemes?</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">And what are – if you’re a big polluter – what do you want? You want weak regulatory agencies. You want ones that you can box up and run over to Congress and get your friends to fix things for you in Congress. Over and over and over again, these decisions are targeted at regulatory agencies to weaken their independence and weaken their strength. And if you’re a big polluter, a weak regulatory agency is your idea of a good day.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>And the last thing is in politics. In voting.</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> Why on earth the Court made the decision, a factual decision – not something appellate courts are ordinarily supposed to make, as I understand it Judge Barrett – the factual decision that nobody needed to worry about minority voters in preclearance states being discriminated against, or that legislators would try to knock back their ability to vote. These five made that finding in <b>Shelby County a</b>gainst bipartisan legislation from both houses of Congress, hugely passed, on no factual record.</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">They just decided that that was a problem that was over, on no record with no basis, because it got them to the result that we then saw. What followed? State after state after state passed voter suppression laws. One so badly targeting African Americans that two courts said it was surgically, surgically tailored to get after minority voters</span>.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>And gerrymandering, the other great control.</b> <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Bulk gerrymandering where you go into a state, like the Red Map project did in Ohio and Pennsylvania, and you pack Democrats so tightly into a few districts that all the others become Republican majority districts. And in those states, you send a delegation to Congress that has a huge <b>majority of Republican members, like 13 to 5, as I recall, in a state where the five, the party of the five actually won the popular vote.</b></span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">You’ve sent a delegation to Congress that is out of step with the popular vote of that state and court after court figured out how to solve that, and the Supreme Court said nope. 5 to 4 again. Nope. We’re not going to take an interest in that question</span>. In all these areas where it’s about political power for big special interests, and people who want to fund campaigns, and people who want to get their way through politics without actually showing up, doing it behind DonorsTrust and other groups, doing it through these schemes over and over and over again, you see the same thing.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>80 decisions, Judge Barrett. 80 decisions. An 80-to-0 sweep</b>. I don’t think you’ve tried cases, but some cases, the issue is bias and discrimination. And if you’re making a bias case as a trial lawyer – Lindsey Graham is a hell of a good trial lawyer. If he wanted to make a bias case – Dick Durbin is a hell of a good trial lawyer. If they wanted to make a bias case and they could show an 80-to-0 pattern, A, that’s admissible, and B, I’d love to make that argument to the jury. I’d be really hard pressed to be the lawyer saying no, 80-to-0 is just a bunch of flukes.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>All five-four. all partisan, all this way. </b>So something is not right around the Court. And dark money has a lot to do with it. Special interests have a lot to do with it. DonorsTrust and whoever is hiding behind DonorsTrust has a lot to do with it, and the Bradley Foundation orchestrating its amici over at the Court has a lot to do with it.</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">So I thank you, Judge Barrett, for listening to me now a second time and I think this gives you a chance for you and I to tee up an interesting conversation tomorrow. And I thank my colleagues for hearing me out.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"></div></div></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">an 1020</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">...<span style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb">LISA GRAVES:</span><b style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"> It is the case that the Republicans have really politicized the courts in that way, while they claim that the Democrats have. </b><span style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb">The court that they complained so much about, the one historically complained about, was the Warren court.</span><b style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"> That was led by Chief Justice Earl Warren. And that court in my view, really did a tremendously valuable job for the country, because what it actually did was to read the Constitution to apply its terms to ordinary people. So equal protection of the law</b><span style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb">—</span></font></div><div><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">BILL MOYERS: What do you mean?</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">LISA GRAVES: </span><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Using that phrase in our 14th Amendment that people will not be denied equal protection to ensure that Americans could not be segregated in our schools through racial segregation</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> That was attacked vociferously on the right as an inappropriate and outrageous decision</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">. It was following the plain language of the Constitution. The Warren Court ruled that when the Constitution says you have a right to counsel in the case of Gideon v. Wainwright, that you actually have a right to counsel. And so, there were a number of decisions in the '50s and '60s that the right wing, they called themselves conservatives or libertarians, opposed. </span></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">And in the aftermath of those decisions the Republicans really began running on a claim with Richard Nixon of supposed law and order. Part of that law and order campaign was about the courts and trying to pack the courts with people who he thought would reverse those rulings that gave meaning to people's rights that were listed and written in the Constitution.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> </span></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">And then Ronald Reagan went a measure further. He decided to say that he, through his attorney general Edwin Meese, at the time, was going to have a </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">litmus test about abortion,</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> that he would only appoint someone to the Supreme Court who would overturn Roe v. Wade.</span></b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> With Reagan, there was a specific determination, to appoint people basically pretty far to the right at the time. They did manage to get Justice Scalia on the court, and they did manage to put William Rehnquist [as Chief Justice] on the court, who'd been an advisor to President Nixon. </span></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>And then it was 12 years of real court packing by Ronald Reagan and George Herbert Walker Bush. And when Clinton came into office in the early 1990s the path he chose was one to say that litmus test was wrong and that we needed fair judges</b>. And so, the effort was articulated as trying to put people of moderation on the court. I personally think it's important to talk to the American people about the courts and what's at stake. And talk about how people are being put on the courts by the right, by the Republicans, in order to overturn precedent. In order to overturn our rights. I think that that case needs to be made not just to not fight about the courts but to basically tell the American people quite plainly how important the courts are. And this movement that's underway to overturn those rights. I would say to you one of the things that came out in an investigation by THE WASHINGTON POST last May by Robert O'Harrow and Shawn Boburg was that Leonard Leo, who's been working on helping to pack the courts for, almost two decades or more now—</span></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">BILL MOYERS: Leonard Leo, tell me who he is.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">LISA GRAVES: </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>Leonard Leo,</b> for many years served as the vice president of the Federalist Society. And he is still an advisor to the Federalist Society. He has been the architect for the last few decades of this long-term effort to put far right judges on the Supreme Court and the federal courts and other courts in order to change the law by changing what decisions are being issued by those very judges. And he has created basically a big dark money operation that THE WASHINGTON POST tallied at more than $250 million to influence who gets installed on the Supreme Court</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">. And those people are being chosen from his own lists. And they are having an utterly disproportionate influence on who gets confirmed to the U.S. Supreme Court.<b> Leonard Leo gave a speech last year to a group called the Council for National Policy, which is made up of fundraisers on the far right. </b></span></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">People who are funding this effort to capture our courts, as Sheldon Whitehouse has described it. And in that speech, he said that we, America, and the people in that room, were </span><b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">standing on the precipice of what he called the revival of what he described as the quote, "Structural Constitution," that would</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> roll back 100 years of precedents in America. </span></b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">And that the appointments that Trump was making were in design to do just that, to remove the rights of people to organize in <b>labor unions.</b> The rights of people to petition their government for s<b>ocial security and programs that help protect us from the extremes of our economy. To protect our lives. Efforts to protect our environment and protect us from pollution from corporations that aren't restrained or regulated.</b> That was really a shocking speech about the level of judicial activism that the right wing is pushing. And this new nomination by President Trump of Amy Coney Barrett is in that mold to try to use the courts to reverse Americans' rights.</span></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">BILL MOYERS: <b>We learned after Brett Kavanaugh's confirmation that some very rich people had put up millions of dollars to quote, "Sell" his nomination to the public. Will those people do the same thing for the Barrett nomination?</b></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">LISA GRAVES: It's already under way. One of the main groups that Leonard Leo has helped to orchestrate is called the<b> Judicial Crisis Network, JCN</b>. And it's already running ads in swing states, states where senators are facing close election to try to promote this judge. And Leonard Leo is the one who's helping to orchestrate for the campaign to use <b>dark money</b> to put these judges in position to rule on our rights and to remove our rights. I know there are groups on the right and left who spend money on nominations. But this circumstance is really extraordinary, because you have unknown billionaires or multi-millionaires who are secretly giving to a group that gives to a group. During Kavanaugh, it was the <b>Wellspring Committee </b>giving to Judicial Crisis Network.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">BILL MOYERS: Who's in this Judicial Network you're talking about? Can you name some names? Organizations? Individuals? And where's the money coming from?</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">"If this court rules that our federal government cannot pass measures to regulate carbon, it's an existential consequence of who's being put on the court. And we know that people like Charles Koch have been spending big money to try to capture the courts because he wants to have people on the court who will limit our ability to regulate corporations."</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">LISA GRAVES: Yes. So, the <b>Judicial Crisis Network is formally led by Carrie Severino, along with the assistance of Gary Marx</b>, a longtime political ally, of Leonard Leo. Leonard Leo is the former vice president of the Federalist Society. And he now leads a dark money network, along with a guy named Greg Mueller. He and Leo have a group called CRC Advisors that is devoted to capturing both the U.S. Supreme Court and federal courts, as well as state Supreme Courts. Carrie Severino's a former clerk of Justice Thomas. And Gary Marx is someone who has been working on judicial nominations with Leo really for the last two decades through all the fights to try to pack the courts. </font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Their funders are unknown. We do know that there was one huge donation to the <b>Wellspring Committee.</b> That huge donation was almost entirely given to Judicial Crisis Network. Judicial Crisis Network spent some of that money and then gave some money to other groups in the network, like the so-called Independent Women's Forum that was created back around the Clarence Thomas nomination. That's where they got their start was in judicial nominations. But who is that original donor? We don't know. There's no disclosure of who that one donor was who spent these millions and millions of dollars to capture the court. Who was that? Who was that donor? Who were those people? And they were boasting about how successful their efforts were in trying to rally their base, the base of Republicans, to try to come out in the 2018 election. That fight over Brett Kavanaugh actually had the effect of bringing a lot of people out who were progressives and moderates who thought we shouldn't have someone like Brett Kavanaugh on the Supreme Court. </font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>But to JCN and the Independent Women's Forum and their network</b>, they believe judicial nominations help motivate the base because even though they will tell the press and the public that this person is a rule of law judge or a law and order judge or a judge who's going to follow precedent– now they're calling Amy Coney Barrett a so-called Constitutionalist, or original interpretivist in the mold of Justice Scalia. These are all just catchphrases that they try to use. They're not appointing her because they think she'll be fair. She's been chosen because they are convinced she will be unfair. They are convinced that she will decide in their favor to overturn people's rights on a host of issues. That's why they're investing. </font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">They're not investing to get a fair judge. If you are trying to appoint a fair judiciary you may not put a lot of political capital in that because it's not seen as a political appointment. Instead, if one party is trying the pack the courts and seize the courts as pawns in their political war. And so, they're willing to invest enormous funds in order to get those people in place so that they can change the law to advance the agenda of those people who are funding it. On the left or in the middle what you have is a subset of people who believe courts should be fair and they shouldn't be political partisans. And so, you're not going to spend political capital to talk about that very much or to make your case. Because they're not seen as partisan. And then you have some progressives who have said, "No." You've got to stand up to what's happening. </font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">This is a total capture and takeover and it's going to undermine our ability to do almost anything a modern society would do. For example, undermine our ability to have rules that try to mitigate climate change. If this court rules that our federal government cannot pass measures to regulate carbon, it's an existential consequence of who's being put on the court. </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">And we know that people like Charles Koch have been spending big money to try to capture the courts because he wants to have people on the court who will limit our ability to regulate corporations</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">. And we know that Leonard Leo and Carrie Severino and their team are trying to put people on the court for that reason, as well as to limit women's reproductive rights, and more. And so, you have this confluence on the right where they are choosing people and trying to put them in place because they don't think they'll be fair. Because they're convinced that they will rule in their favor, which is the opposite of what you expect from a judge, to be fair and impartial.</span></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>"They're not appointing her because they think she'll be fair. She's been chosen because they are convinced she will be unfair. They are convinced that she will decide in their favor to overturn people's rights on a host of issues.</b>"</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">BILL MOYERS: Let me read you what Josh Marshall wrote about this. He's founder and editor in chief of TalkingPointsMemo.com and a terrific journalistic watchdog when it comes to the judiciary. He says, and I'm quoting, "I don't know a lot about Amy Coney Barrett. But I know she's accepting the nomination from a president actively trying to subvert a national election and threatening to hold onto power by force, an attack on the Constitution unparalleled in American history. Do I need to know more?"</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">LISA GRAVES: I think he's exactly right. It would be an honor to be nominated to be a Supreme Court justice, but under these circumstances, I think it reveals a lack of devotion to the Constitution to be a willing party to what's unfolding. Where you have a president who has said expressly that he wants you on the court in order to rule in his favor in this election to keep him in power, a president who has said expressly that if they can stop the ballots, there we be will be no transition. It will just be a continuation of his power. When you have a president that has made lie after lie about some sort of massive voter fraud in America, when in fact, the statistics and evidence show that that's not the case. So, you have someone who's willing to take that nomination, take that baton from this president, I think that is damning in its own way.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">BILL MOYERS: Is it possible, Lisa, that she doesn't know that the fix is in and that she's the fix?</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">LISA GRAVES: Anything is possible. I don't think it's probable. And the reason I don't think it's probable is because if you look at her decisions as a judge in the very brief time that she's been a judge, as well as her actions before then, you can see someone who has a very agenda-driven view of the law. One in which she has expressly articulated that she doesn't feel bound by precedent. </font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>She doesn't believe the Constitution requires judges to follow precedent. </b>In fact, she thinks it does not require judges to follow precedent, which is the definition of being an activist, that you're someone who wants to impose your own views of the law, regardless of the precedent that people are relying on in this country. I don't think that she is unwitting. In this circumstance, you have this election that is happening as we speak, and litigation around that election that is happening as we speak, and a president who has said quite clearly, he's going to use the courts to try to win a victory in this election no matter what the ballots say, and to try to stop them from being counted. </font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">And you have an attorney general in Bill Barr, who has shown time and again that he's more the president's lawyer than acting in the office of the attorney general, though he's using the office of the attorney general of the United States, advancing the partisan interests of this president and the lies of this president around voting. And has indicated that he's going to aid in those claims by this president. And now you have a judicial nominee who has willingly stepped into this role of potentially being a deciding vote on the Supreme Court in cases that will affect the outcome of this election. And I certainly hope, if she has a hearing, which is slated this month, that she will commit unequivocally to recuse from any such litigation. I don't believe she will, though. I don't believe she'll commit to recuse to anything.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">BILL MOYERS: <b>Are you suggesting that she is fully aware that she is also a political operative and a political force in this scenario you just outlined?</b></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">LISA GRAVES: I believe that she is</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">. There's no doubt that she's smart. There are a lot of smart people out there. They're not all fair. There're a lot of people who are more advocates than judges.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> I think when you look at Amy Coney Barrett's record, what you see is someone who has been groomed for this position. She clerked for one of the very sort of activist right-wing judges on the D.C. circuit. She then clerked for Justice Scalia, who often wrote his opinions more like he was writing an op-ed column than writing an opinion of the United States Supreme Court. He was determined to move the law, to change the law, to advance his original point of view, although he cloaked it in originalism but it really managed to be miraculously aligned, for the most part, with his personal views</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">. </span></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>And she's also been someone who's been an activist in attacking the Affordable Care Act.</b> She has written and spoken about a lot of these issues in ways that show that she has a very specific point of view. And I don't think she's been on the bench long enough to know that she can actually set aside her personal views. In fact, I think it seems pretty clear from her decisions, in the brief time she's been a judge, that she has tried to impose her personal point of view on the law. I don't think she's unwitting in this effort. I think she is embraced by the Judicial Crisis Network, by the Leonard Leo operation, by the president as someone who they think is a sure thing. A sure vote for them and for their right-wing agenda.</span></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">BILL MOYERS: </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">There's been a lotta talk about her hardline ideology in the last few days, that she will be opposed to women's reproductive freedom, to affirmative action, to voting rights for minorities, to environmental regulations. Even worker safety rules. What I've seen of her record suggests also <b>a very strong bias on behalf of corporate power. The last decision or rule she issued was that workers, gig workers, can't file for a class-action lawsuit against their employer. </b>That's going to be a real blow to workers in what is an expanding gig economy.</span></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">LISA GRAVES: I think that decision is very troubling. Jeffrey Toobin pointed out in his piece about the impact of the Federalist Society on our courts and on our law, that</span><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">she is straight from that mold set forth by Lewis Powell before he became a Justice of the Supreme Court. Lewis Powell had been a tobacco lawyer.</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> Before he really was known widely as a tobacco lawyer, he was the main person involved in the Richmond schools, as it was fighting the efforts of Brown v. Board of Education to get those schools integrated.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> So, you have this tobacco lawyer who represents a segregated school district, <b>who is asked by the United States Chamber of Commerce to write a memo about where the law could go</b>. And he wrote a memo which is known now as the Powell Memo. And that memo basically said that in his view, no one in America had less influence on policy than business people. And they needed to dramatically change that through changing the courts and changing the way businesses fund think tanks at the federal and state level. As well as the way businesses support universities.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);"> And so that Powell blueprint from the early 1970s to really push for courts that were going to be <b>pro-corporation</b> and I think she very clearly represents that perspective</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">. Her decisions show that she does, but regardless of her background, I think this would be an illegitimate nomination, and illegitimate to proceed. It's fundamentally unjust for anyone, no matter their background, to be put on the court under these circumstances with this election pending. I think it's really a disaster for our country, for this nomination to be proceeding.</span></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">BILL MOYERS: Do you really think, Lisa, that a Democrat as president would pass up this opportunity to name a Supreme Court justice if he were in the place or she were in the place that Trump is right now?</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">LISA GRAVES: Well, I don't know that a president would not nominate someone under these circumstances. Although typically, you know, there's usually, like, 30-40 days between a vacancy and a nomination to do an F.B.I. background investigation, to do a thorough vetting of a candidate before someone is even named. In this case, it's super accelerated. As you said, there's no Constitutional restriction by time from doing so. But I do think that the president's prerogative in naming someone is not the same as that person that getting confirmed, as we've seen. The Senate's role is to thoroughly examine a nominee's record. And to allow for there to be time for the American people to understand the record of a person who's being chosen for a lifetime job on the court. Is this the best person? Is this the right person? Is this someone who we trust, who we would entrust with our lives, who we believe absolutely without reservation will be fair? This process, where the president's named someone this weekend, the nomination will have arrived in the Senate at the very end of September. The Senate is racing to have a hearing in two weeks. That hasn't happened in the modern era, someone has received a hearing that quickly. And that Mitch McConnell has vowed to use the rules of the Senate to try to get a vote before the end of October. It's extraordinary. And it's a real railroading of not just this nomination but of the American people.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">BILL MOYERS: Trump obviously believes that she will be a wedge to help him win a second term. And that's the issue.
</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">LISA GRAVES: <b>I have never seen a president in my lifetime that has disavowed the results of the election before they've even happened. That has basically vowed to try to stop people from voting. Who's vowed to unleash tens of thousands of people to go to polling places to try to, in my view, intimidate them</b>. Is now doing fundraising to enlist a quote army to defend his results in this election. We've never been in a circumstance where we have had a president so unmoored from the law, so reckless in his disregard of the Constitution. And to have that person choosing his own jury in a case that he's determined to bring to this court is outlandish and outrageous.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">BILL MOYERS: Tell me what's right and what's wrong about this scenario. Trump keeps repeating that vote by mail is rife with fraud. So Republican lawyers will try to get a large number of mailed ballots thrown out after the election as Trump declares himself the winner on the basis of the ballots that had been cast and counted before and on Election Day. He has refused to commit to leaving office if he loses. And he will challenge those ballots that have not been counted to try to get them thrown out. It's there and on other procedural points that he will need the Supreme Court majority to take his side, including the justice he is putting on the court. So, isn't he sending a message to the world that he expects the court and its new nominee to rule for him and nail down a second term? Is that the strategy?</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">LISA GRAVES: </span><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">I believe that's precisely the strategy. This president is trying to secure for himself an illegitimate victory in this election.</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> He has said he is going to win on in-person voting. And that any ballots that come in or that are counted afterward are somehow illegitimate, that they have to be thrown out. And he has said, quite clearly, he's going to take this to the Supreme Court.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> The court is actually problematic in a number of ways. First of all, you have someone like</span><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> Justice Thomas who has expressed personal antipathy toward Joe Biden from his time as the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee presiding over Thomas' nomination. Justice Thomas' wife has been very active in electoral politics and was active during Bush v. Gore and was on the transition team for George W. Bush</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">. As that case was coming through the court, she then became part of the transition team for the victor. You have a </span><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Justice of the Supreme Court in John Roberts who advised on the Bush v. Gore case.</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> You have another recently confirmed justice in Justice </span><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Kavanaugh who was an attorney on one of the original cases that resulted in the decision in Bush v. Gore.</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);"> And now you have a nominee who also worked on the Bush v. Gore case in Amy Coney Barrett.</span></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">BILL MOYERS: </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">So if she's confirmed three members of the nine-member court will have worked to get the Supreme Court to deliver the presidency to George W. Bush.</span></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">LISA GRAVES: That's correct. One third. And you would have a court that has also demonstrably been trying to limit people's voting rights. </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Justice Roberts was part of the decision to really restrict the power of the Voting Rights Act. So, you already have a court that a reasonable person would question whether that court could or would fairly rule in this election, or whether it would again put its thumb on the scale of justice in favor of the party of the president that nominated them, put them on the bench. And this president saying that he's choosing someone specifically to help him win that ninth vote on that Supreme Court, and someone who also participated in the litigation that resulted in that extraordinary decision that installed George W. Bush as president by stopping the counting of ballots. And once the ballots were counted, the actual count showed that Al Gore would have won the electoral college. And would have been president but for that intervention by the U.S. Supreme Court.</span></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">BILL MOYERS:<b> We've had two of the last four presidents elected by minority vote. They got the electoral college, but they lost the popular vote. And they turn around and appoint Supreme Court justices who perpetuate the pattern.</b></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">LISA GRAVES: </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Yes, it's very troubling. John Roberts and Justice Alito arguably might not have been confirmed had Bush not been the incumbent, by virtue of this decision in Bush v. Gore. Justice Sandra Day O'Connor disavowed and regretted enormously that she had participated in that five/four decision in which the only justices who ruled in favor of Bush were justices appointed by presidents of his political party. </span></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Then you had President Obama who had three vacancies, including one in February of 2016 that could've been filled anytime during that entire year. And there would've been plenty of time for people to weigh in and express any reservations they had about Merrick Garland. Almost none were expressed because he'd been a judge for a long time and had a reputation for being a fair judge. And that third nomination of President Obama was blocked. That meant that the Supreme Court was able to have a five/four majority of Republican appointees, rather than a five/four majority of Democratic appointees. </span></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">President Trump, who has appointed two justices. And that's why, right now, you have a court that is five Republican appointees and three Democratic appointees. And they're trying to make it six Republican appointees and three Democratic appointees. </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The Republicans have certainly gamed the system and they're going to come out with a bunch of ads saying how nice Amy Coney Barrett is or how good of a neighbor she is or how nice she is as a colleague or as a teacher. There are a lot of nice people. That doesn't mean they're fair people</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">. That doesn't mean they're people that you would trust to decide impartially in a case involving your rights. And in fact, everything we know about this process, from President Trump, from Leonard Leo, from the Federalist Society, from the Judicial Crisis Network that's backing them, is that she's been chosen with the very hope and belief that she won't be fair, that she will rule in their favor.</span></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">BILL MOYERS: Her very nomination under these circumstances is going to cast another long shadow on the court's integrity and on Amy Coney Barrett's, quite frankly. You wonder why someone who's on the record for being a person of faith and a moral person wouldn't say thank you, Mr. President, but let's wait a week or two or three and then we'll both come out better in the judgment of history.
</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">LISA GRAVES: If you are a person who believes in the integrity of the judiciary, in the independence of the judiciary, if you're someone who believes that the court's core power stems from the public esteem and regard for it as an independent and fair institution, I really can't see how you could be a willing participant in this sort of railroading of a nomination through the court on the eve of an election. I think a person who had such high value of the court and the importance of the courts as an independent tribunal in our country would call herself for this nomination to be delayed until after the people have a chance to say.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">BILL MOYERS: Let me– let me interrupt there if I can. I'm not sure that waiting for the people to speak, so to speak, in an election is an appropriate way to measure the worthiness of a Supreme Court nominee.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">LISA GRAVES: Well, it's a complicated issue. I don't think that we should be in this position in the first place because I think with an election so close that a nomination should probably not have been put forward, because of the very way in which it is being politicized and will be politicized.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">BILL MOYERS: I agree with that.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">LISA GRAVES: –and could affect the outcome of the election, one way or the other.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">BILL MOYERS: Let's take an example. The court is scheduled to hear a big health care case a week after the election. And conservatives are openly counting on Barrett to help throw out the entire Affordable Care Act, once and for all. Pandemic or no pandemic, they want to get rid of the Affordable Care Act. Should the senators interrogating her at the hearings come right out and ask her stance on that vote?</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">LISA GRAVES: <b>I don't think she'll give an answer. But the issue of the Affordable Care Act is one in which this president has campaigned on trying to destroy it, has attempted to stop it legislatively and through a number of machinations, through executive orders, to make it harder for the health care exchanges to work. </b>And while some are now trying to claim that that decision from the 5th Circuit that's coming up to the Supreme Court, people shouldn't worry about it, I would say that's what the right-wing is trying to say to try to minimize that case. The reality is that it's been teed up for this moment, for the ACA to be overruled, and with it, the provisions that protect people with preexisting conditions. And now, we have millions more Americans who have preexisting conditions due to this pandemic. And you also have some serious deceptiveness by this president on this point in particular, where after Justice Ginsberg died and he made the decision to move forward with a nomination immediately knowing that the Affordable Care Act was going to be an issue, he suddenly issued an executive order claiming that it's the policy of the federal government to protect people with preexisting conditions. </font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">That executive order does not replace the actual statute if it's overturned. It's a talking point, that he and his advisors have cooked up to try to use in this Supreme Court battle and in this election to claim that even though he's determined to overturn the Affordable Care Act, that suddenly he now cares about this.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> They're going to be using that talking point to try to defend this nominee about her determination to overrule the Affordable Care Act. And she, both as a judge and before she was a judge, has attacked the Affordable Care Act. And so, I think that, as they say, when people tell you who they are, you should believe them, we should believe very much that she's someone who's hostile to the Affordable Care Act, and that this president's hostile to the Affordable Care Act, and that could affect the lives and health of millions and millions of Americans. And it will.</span></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">BILL MOYERS: What will you be watching for during the confirmation hearings?</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">LISA GRAVES: That's a great question.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">BILL MOYERS: I mean, I, myself, am sick and tired of these hearings that really are charades. The senator asks a question and, on the pretext of not revealing a position or prejudging—</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">LISA GRAVES: Yeah.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">BILL MOYERS: –the nominee says bull. Pleasantly, elegantly, sometimes, but it's bull.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">LISA GRAVES: Yeah.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">BILL MOYERS: And the public moves on.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">LISA GRAVES: It can be very frustrating watching those hearings because these nominees of this president have been so prepared to try to avoid answering any meaningful questions for the American people under this guise that they can't answer or they would be prejudging when, in fact, they've been chosen on some of these issues because they have, in fact, prejudged them. What's been happening with this president's nominees on these questions is so deeply troubling because they have refused to commit to the importance of longstanding precedents, including Brown v. Board of Education, a precedent that's been on the books for nearly 70 years in this country, they will not agree that that's good precedent. </font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>They will only agree that that is, quote, "Precedent," which is meaningless when you have a nominee like Amy Coney Barrett who said that precedent, in her view, violates due process.</b> I'm sure we're going to see what some people call Kabuki theatre or theatrics at that hearing in which she declaims about her fairness and her impartiality and, therefore, she won't discuss any substantive issue about how she might rule, when the reality is that her record about how she favors corporations over individuals, how she favors corporations, including in cases involving discrimination– racial discrimination, LGBTQ discrimination and more how her record shows that she has an agenda and that she is desirous of using that agenda, propelling it forward with the force of law. So, I think that, when you have someone who wants to impose their personal views as law, in essence by judicial fiat (not through the legislative process), but imposed their views and disavows the value of precedent, refuses to say that core, bedrock cases like Brown are good precedent that must be followed, I think you have someone who will be behaving disingenuously in a theatrical way to try to deceive the American people.
</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">BILL MOYERS: Would you concede that she might see this in the context of what she said to the <b>commencement at Notre Dame when she said that there was a larger purpose to being a lawyer than being a lawyer,</b> and I'm paraphrasing, that </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">it was a way to help build the kingdom of God and implying, therefore, that there are times when you do justify the means by the ends, and that she actually thinks as a sincere, faithful Christian that she is helping to build with this man who is anything but virtuous– the kingdom of God by going on that court under these questionable circumstances so that she can accomplish what some of what it takes to build the kingdom of God here on earth?</span></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">LISA GRAVES: Yeah. You know, it is the case that we've seen, from the Falwell world and other worlds, a real willingness to turn a blind eye to the many ways in which this president has transgressed the basic moral code on a daily basis. You know, I'm not even going to get into THE NEW YORK TIMES report about the failing to pay taxes or potential tax fraud and what that means in terms of theft from the public treasury. You have a president who has been more aggressive in violating those moral norms than I think any president, probably since Nixon; maybe much worse than Nixon. And you have him embraced by the religious right. Not all people of faith. There are progressive and moderate evangelicals and people from the Catholic faiths who do not embrace this president as a moral leader. But you do have people in this country like Leonard Leo and William Barr and the Judicial Crisis Network that are willing to advance this president's agenda because it helps them win changes in Supreme Court doctrine, including in particular on Roe v. Wade, but also on gay rights, on the rights of LGBTQ Americans and more. </font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In terms of Amy Coney Barrett, all people are entitled to their faith and to make decisions about their conscience and what their faith means to them and how it enriches their lives. I think the challenge is that the United States Constitution expressly forbids a religious test for office. But the corollary of that is that the United States is not a theocracy. <b>People are not given positions of trust in our government in order to impose their religious views on millions and millions of Americans without their consent.</b> But the fact is we see already in communications by the right-wing about this nomination that they believe that she will rule in their favor on these religious issues. They probably are not wrong, given what we've seen of her statements in the record. But I think the broader issue is I think if you're going to be put on our highest court, you ought to be someone who's not just young and smart and a right-wing advocate but someone who has a lengthy record of a willingness to set aside personal views in order to follow the law, and to administer the law fairly for all people.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">BILL MOYERS: But if you're sitting there with the President of the United States and if you're informed and knowledgeable and aware, you know that this is the man who told the nation that COVID-19 was a hoax, even as he was telling Robert Woodward it was deadly stuff. And if he's giving you the bull about why you should be on the court– I don't want to be unfair to her, but because she has spoken openly and honestly, I think, about her faith she has presented us with questions like this. What's happening in the country is not all Donald Trump. He's being enabled. Look at the people who have surrounded him at the moment to enable her nomination. She's enabling him by accepting it under these circumstances. And so, it raises questions as to how do we stop such things if so many participate in them and benefit from them.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">LISA GRAVES: I don't know if I would call it the conundrum but it's one of the very uncomfortable circumstances of both this administration's approach to the law and the news cycle and public policy where it's so transactional that these two things can coexist.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">BILL MOYERS: By transactional, you mean–</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">LISA GRAVES: Transactional in the sense that they have a meeting at the Rose Garden that's all love about this nomination and its greatness that exists separate from the president's statements in which he said that he wants this nomination in order to basically take the election by legal force, by judicial fiat, which exists in the context of a president who I think it was only two weeks ago that the story broke that he knew exactly how contagious this disease was, how deadly it was, months and months ago, and that he deliberately downplayed it to the American people and deceived them. And so, all these things are happening as if they're separate things. Like, that Rose Garden ceremony of introducing her happens as if there's this normalcy. We're in a normal presidency. This is a normal America. And this is all just business as usual to have this ceremonial embrace of this nominee and this nomination as being something that's about the rule of law in America and is exalting the law. When outside of that Rose Garden, you have a scenario in which you have a president that has thumbed his nose at the law, who has violated the law in a number of ways that have been documented, and who has attacked the integrity of our very democracy, and has impugned the integrity of the Supreme Court by how he has described the judges who've been put on it as "his judges," and has described why he wants this judge confirmed to it, to rule in his favor. </font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">And so, the people who are joining with him in these different endeavors, it's as if they're able to put on blinders and ignore the reality, the full record of what's transpiring before our very eyes, which is an assault on the rule of law, an assault on our actual Constitution, an assault on our very institutions both in the executive branch at the Justice Department and other agencies, the way they've been so distorted (and grotesquely distorted) by partisan, right-wing people who Trump has put in power, who have distorted health policy that has resulted in the death of hundreds of thousands of Americans and the infection of millions of Americans, due to the fundamentally immoral actions by this president and by the people he has put in place to distort public opinion, to distort the record about a deadly disease. </font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">It's extraordinary to have the Senate in Mitch McConnell and these Judicial Crisis Network people supporting her, the ones that are running ads in support of her at that White House ceremony announcing her, to be acting as if this is just a normal transition of the Supreme Court when, in fact,</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);"> it's a capture of the Supreme Court and a further deployment of the Supreme Court as a weapon for the far-right to use to impose its narrow views on the rest of America, and to destroy core regulation of businesses in this country, including businesses that have harmed our climate</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">. It is extraordinary to me that these things all seem to happen in these silos from the standpoint of coverage when, in fact, they're inseparable. And the assault on the Supreme Court, this effort to capture it and move it as far to the right as possible for ten, 20, 30, possibly 40 years. And to do it in defiance of the American people's desire to have a fair say is also grotesque. It's another manifestation of the dysfunction of our democracy. And it's not just the president, it's that he has a number of enablers in the administration, and outside the administration, that are willing to turn a blind eye to almost everything he does in order to advance a very narrow and regressive agenda.</span></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">BILL MOYERS: It's clear that Chief Justice John Roberts wants people to think that the Supreme Court is a nonpolitical institution, that it's not beholden to the Republican party. But with this new nomination and likely confirmation, it's going to become just the opposite. Beholden to the Trump presidency and to the Republican party.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">LISA GRAVES: I think that's right. If Coney Barrett is confirmed to the Supreme Court, it will cast a cloud over every decision that she makes, every decision that this court makes; that this court has been manipulated, has been captured, is designed to be unfair, is designed to put the thumb of the far-right and the corporate right-wing on decisions of this court. And that fundamentally undermines the idea of an independent court, what is happening to it right now....</font></p></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
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</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/the-propaganda-war-against-voting-by-mail/"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/the-propaganda-war-against-voting-by-mail/</font></a></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">no lnx</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> THE FIRST Tuesday in April, as the gravity of the COVID-19 pandemic was becoming all too real, Americans got a scary glimpse of what Election Day in November might look like if the virus were still spreading. We also got a big, loud, ugly preview of the 2020 voting wars.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The state of Wisconsin had no business holding an election on April 7. Sixteen other states had bumped their primary dates back, hoping to give election officials time to adjust to the drastic new conditions and allow more voters to cast their ballots safely by mail. Governor Tony Evers had issued a statewide stay-at-home order. In Milwaukee alone, at least 51 people had already died from the new coronavirus. And so many poll workers were refusing to show up that the city, home to Wisconsin’s largest concentration of voters of color, would be hard-pressed to open even a handful of polling places, never mind the usual 180. “We are over our heads in chaos,” Neil Albrecht, Milwaukee’s election chief, told The Guardian a few days before the voting was slated to start.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Evers, a Democrat, tried to push the election date to May 23 and send mail ballots to all registered Wisconsinites. But he waited too late. By the time Evers called the state legislature into emergency session the week before the polls were to open, asking legislators to approve the delay and green-light an all-mail ballot, President Donald Trump and his right-wing amen chorus had begun to paint voting by mail not as a public-health necessity during a pandemic, but instead as a Democratic plot to “rig” the 2020 elections—“perhaps the worst of all the scams perpetrated through the COVID nightmare,” as Trump fan Laura Ingraham put it to viewers of her Fox News Channel show.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In addition to the Democratic presidential primary that was to take place on that day, there was also an election for a seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“A lot of people cheat with mail-in voting,” the president said on April 4. “In Wisconsin what happened is I, through social media, put out a very strong endorsement of a Republican conservative judge, who’s an excellent brilliant judge, he’s a justice. And I hear what happened is his poll numbers went through the roof, and because of that, I think they delayed the election.”</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>
</b></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>So Wisconsin Republicans forced the show to go on. </b>The Republican leaders of the state Assembly and Senate both gaveled in their special sessions, then gaveled them out within seconds. When the governor responded by issuing an executive order to delay the primary, the majority-Republican state Supreme Court stayed it on the night before the election.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>
</b></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Voting went smoothly enough in the state’s smaller counties and towns, where white Republicans predominate and polling places had no lines. But in the cities, it was an unholy mess. Lines were so long in Green Bay that some people couldn’t vote till after midnight.</b> In Milwaukee, the scene was downright eerie; some poll workers wore makeshift hazmat suits fashioned from plastic bags. National Guard troops, hastily called in to serve as poll workers, dashed around with plastic bottles of disinfectant spray, wiping things down between voters. Local firefighters passed out hand sanitizer to the thousands who waited for hours in lines that stretched for blocks, far past the trail of orange traffic cones that had been set up to keep folks six feet apart. Outside Washington High School, one waiting voter, Jennifer Taft, summed it all up perfectly, holding up a hand-lettered sign reading: “THIS IS RIDICULOUS.”</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“I’m disgusted,” Taft told a local reporter. “I requested an absentee ballot almost three weeks ago and never got it. I have a father dying from lung disease, and I have to risk my life and his just to exercise my right to vote.”</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Statewide, overall turnout was higher than expected. Even in that compressed time period, 1.1 million of Wisconsin’s 3.3 million voters had sent in absentee ballots—five times the number of voters who did so in the  2016 primary</b>.<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> And when the votes were all tallied six days later, the Democratic Supreme Court challenger had won easily, giving the lie to Trump’s theory that Evers wanted to delay the election to prevent a GOP victory.</span></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">But the Republicans’ efforts to sew confusion and long lines in the cities had worked in certain ways: In Milwaukee, which saw historically low Black turnout in 2016 after a strict new Voter ID law went into effect, the primary vote was half what it had been four years earlier. “It was voter suppression on steroids,” said Democratic National Committee Chair Tom Perez. “They tried to steal the election.</span>”</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[I have to risk my life just to exercise my right to vote.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">JENNIFER TAFT, MILWAUKEE VOTER]</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The mail balloting hadn’t gone smoothly, either: Nearly 12,000 voters who’d requested absentee ballots, like Jennifer Taft, never got them. Three tubs full of absentee ballots that never reached voters were found in a mail center outside Milwaukee. And 23,000 absentee ballots sent in by voters—more than Trump’s margin of victory in the state in 2016—had been disqualified for technical problems. Here as elsewhere, Republican lawmakers had made the process as complicated and time-consuming as possible to keep mail voting down, including a requirement that a witness sign every ballot. Voters’ signatures had to match the signatures on file with the state; as in other states, it’s left to election volunteers and staffers, not handwriting experts, to decide whether the signatures match. Thousands of votes were tossed on this subjective basis. (In June, after the delayed New York primary, 30,000 votes from Brooklyn, one-quarter of the total, would be tossed out for similar reasons.)</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>
</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The threat of robust turnout figures posed by mail-in voting had fully stirred the right-wing propaganda machine by now—and it had given them a fresh new story to tell about what they claimed was the looming threat of mass left-wing “voter fraud.</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">” The same day Wisconsin’s primary results were announced, an apparently new group called the</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 51);"> Honest Elections Project</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> aired an Orwellian TV and digital ad across the country—a six-figure buy—casting what happened in Wisconsin as Democrats’ “brazen attempt to manipulate the election system for partisan advantage by exploiting the coronavirus pandemic.”</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> It was, the narrator intoned, a sign of election-rigging to come: “The facts about the Wisconsin election: Record absentee voting. Five times more than 2016. Democrats didn’t think they could win so they tried lawsuits, changing the rules, even canceling the election. They create chaos. It’s wrong.”</span></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>
</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">The Honest Elections Project turned out to be a legal alias for the Judicial Education Project, a powerful dark-money PAC funded by the Donors Trust,</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> a nonprofit donor-advised fund often referred to as the “dark money ATM” of the right, with such heavy-hitting benefactors as billionaire Charles Koch and the (Betsy) DeVos family</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">.<b style=""> It was the brainchild of Leonard Leo,</b> a Trump confidant who was instrumental in the choice and confirmations of the president’s Supreme Court nominees, and it would soon begin filing lawsuits seeking to block the expansion of remote voting, and other pandemic-inspired election reforms—using the same lead attorney, longtime Washington litigator William Consovoy, as the Trump campaign.</span></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Tom Fitton, president of Judicial Watch, a litigious right-wing group that sues to effect voter-roll purges.]</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>At least three other lavishly funded far-right groups—Judicial Watch, the Public Interest Legal Foundation, and True the Vote—are also combining legal challenges with propaganda efforts designed to discredit, and disable, remote voting for November. </b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The Republican National Committee issued a statement this spring promising to devote at least $20 million to such lawsuits as well. </span>The messages they’re all promoting are identical to Trump’s rhetoric about the dangers of mail-in balloting and the Democrats’ purportedly cynical promotion of it to allegedly rig the election. Their combined resources and firepower adds up to the biggest coordinated effort to suppress votes in history. Until this year, battles over voting rules were mostly waged by Republican state lawmakers and right-wing legal firms not quite acceptable to the mainstream, <b>cheered on by talk-radio shouters and extremist websites like The Gateway Pundit and Breitbart.</b></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">“You used to have these small-time, right-wing operations,” Mark Elias, a top Democratic litigator who’s working on several ongoing lawsuits, told The Washington Post in June. “Because Donald Trump has normalized all these crackpot theories about voter fraud, they’ve all now joined forces under the banner of the legitimate Republican establishment.”</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">All they want, they say, are the same old “fair” and “normal” elections that Trump keeps calling for. But the president, characteristically, had already given away the game before the Wisconsin primary lit the right wing on fire. On “Fox & Friends” during the week before that primary from hell, he’d warned the friendly hosts what would happen if voting by mail were allowed to metastasize: “You’d never have a Republican elected in this country again.”</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[Gallows humor from artist Mike Licht regarding Wisconsin’s April 7, during-the-pandemic, in-person Spring election. via Flickr creative commons]</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> </font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">THE CRUSADE TO suppress votes in the 2020 election began long before COVID-19 existed, and long before the pandemic led to a popular clamor for more voting by mail. Three weeks after his razor-thin victory in the Electoral College, still irked at hearing about Hillary Clinton’s edge in the popular vote, President-elect Trump issued a tweetstorm citing right-wing conspiracy theories. His chief claim, often to be repeated: “I won the popular vote if you deduct the millions of people who voted illegally.”</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>
</b></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>On stage at the 2017 Conservative Political Action Committee convention three months later, Tom Fitton, president of Judicial Watch, backed up Trump’s claims. “The left would have you believe that we have about 43 million aliens in this country, both lawful and unlawfully present,” he said. “And none of them vote!</b>” The activists in the audience cheered and chuckled. “You know, under the Obama administration, they opposed Voter ID; they opposed the idea of even asking someone whether they were a citizen before they register to vote,” Fitton went on to say. “Why would you be opposed to that, other than maybe wanting to steal elections when necessary?” Cue applause.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>
</b></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Fitton also seconded Trump’s call for a “federal investigation into voter fraud,” promising that it would be “the most significant civil rights investigation in a generation,” because, he said, “We’re on the side of civil rights.</b> We’re on the side of the civil rights of Americans who potentially are having their votes stolen from them by the thousands, if not millions, by illegal votes.” Getting the findings to back up those assertions would be a breeze, he promised. “It’s easy to figure out where there’s voter fraud,” Fitton said, “and obviously that’s why the leftist voters are screaming, because they’re afraid their gig is up.”</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Not quite, as it transpired. That “investigation” was launched in May 2017, when Trump made appointments to his newly concocted Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity, which included top vote-suppression specialists Kris Kobach, the former Kansas secretary of state and anti-immigration zealot, and Hans von Spakovsky of the Heritage Foundation. But it didn’t prove so easy to find hard proof of the massive fraud they’d long been claiming. <b>After eight months of trying, the commissioners dug up only scattered cases drawn from media reports, and the president disbanded the effort.</b></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[This is a pretext for blocking voices they do not want to hear.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">STACEY ABRAMS, FAIR FIGHT FOUNDER]</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>But voter-suppression is now an industry unto itself, and Judicial Watch and its peers didn’t skip a beat. </b>Ahead of the 2018 midterm elections, Judicial Watch and PILF sent 248 letters to state and local election officials across the country, threatening lawsuits if they didn’t undertake massive, aggressive “purges” of their voter rolls</span>. “Your jurisdiction is in apparent violation of Section 8 of the National Voter Registration Act,” the letters claimed. The NVRA, known as the “Motor Voter Act,” was passed in 1993 to “expand voting opportunities” in various ways, including offering registration at driver’s license offices. It also required local elections offices to undertake “uniform, non-discriminatory maintenance” of their registration rolls, striking those who’d become ineligible—by dying, going to prison, or moving out of state.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Under previous administrations, the Justice Department monitored these purges and sometimes stepped in when they became overzealous and were clearly targeting voters of color. “The rationale of removing voters from the rolls to protect against fraud is nonsensical,” Stacey Abrams, who founded the voting-rights group Fair Fight after narrowly losing the Georgia governor’s race in 2018, told Mother Jones earlier this year. “This is a pretext for blocking voices they do not want to hear.”</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The letters contained legal threats, but their primary purpose was to stoke publicity about voter fraud—and to raise the profiles of Fitton and<b> J. Christian Adams, a former Department of Justice official who heads PILF and served on the ill-fated Election Integrity Commission. Adams is best known as the DOJ attorney who promoted a 2008 “voter intimidation” case against two members of a group that dubbed itself the New Black Panthers.</b></span><b> On Election Day 2008, the two stationed themselves outside a predominantly white polling place in Philadelphia, one of them holding a nightstick.<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> </span></b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">When Obama’s Justice Department declined to press charges, Adams loudly resigned and wrote a book called “Injustice: Exposing the Racial Agenda of the Obama Justice Department.</span>” In lawsuits and legal threats targeting jurisdictions with large numbers of non-white voters, Adams first launched suits via the <b>American Civil Rights Union (a right-wing group</b> that fancies itself to be the analog to the American Civil Liberties Union), and then with PILF.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[“The rationale of removing voters from the rolls to protect against fraud is nonsensical,” says Stacey Abrams. “This is a pretext for blocking voices they do not want to hear.” (Photo of Abrams on election night 2018 from Abrams’ Facebook page.)]</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Judicial Watch and PILF got a few big victories out of their threats and lawsuits, in 2018 and again last year. In 2018, the Supreme Court upheld a Judicial Watch settlement agreement with <b>Ohio and allowed a massive voter purge</b>—a decision that opened the floodgates for more of the same, permitting states to strike voters who haven’t voted in recent elections.</span> </font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">As 2020 began, counties in California and Kentucky were busy removing close to 2 million voters; ditto, Allegheny County, one of the largest Pennsylvania counties carried by Hillary Clinton in 2016. In three other large<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> Clinton-voting <b>Pennsylvania </b>counties Judicial Watch dragged into court this year, the group claimed an almost comically high number of “ineligible” voters—800,000 in all, which would amount to more than 65 percent of all registered voters in the counties. “We 100-percent dispute the claims,” Secretary of the Commonwealth Kathy Boockvar, who was also sued, told state senators.</span></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">Most of this year’s election lawsuits are related to COVID-19—or, more precisely, they target attempts by states and municipalities to make voting easier and safer during the pandemic.</span> <b>The number of these cases is staggering: More than 200 </b>were still percolating through the courts in mid-August. Many have been brought by the Trump campaign, the<b> Republican National Committee, Judicial Watch, PILF, and the Honest Elections Project,</b> all of whom have the same agenda: Keep voting restrictions in place. Three more states have switched to all-mail elections this year: California, Nevada, and Vermont. When lawmakers in Nevada, where Trump lost by just 27,000 votes in 2016, approved all-mail voting in a special session on the first Sunday of August, Trump called it “an illegal late-night coup” on Twitter, with the promise, “See you in court!” Two days later, still fuming, he posted a tweet falsely stating that voting by mail would mean a “Rigged Election.” It became the first tweet flagged by Twitter as untrue. The same day, the Republican National Committee, the Trump campaign, and Nevada Republican Party all filed suit against Nevada.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In most states, election officials and lawmakers have simply tried to ease restrictions that can make absentee voting difficult or confusing: early deadlines for requesting ballots, Election Day deadlines for having them returned or postmarked, requirements that witnesses or notaries sign the ballots, strictly limited forms of acceptable ID. In some cases, the<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> question is whether vulnerability to COVID-19 counts as an “excuse” for needing a mail ballot</span>. <b>(Most states already allow no-excuse absentee voting, but a few—like emerging battleground Texas—do not.)</b></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Graphic from the National Conference of State Legislatures.]</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Justin Levitt, a Loyola University law professor who tracks all these cases, has not detected a pattern in the decisions. <b>But as he’s noted, it’s already a win for right-wing organizations and the Republicans to keep elections officials tied up in courts—and election rules in a state of suspended uncertainty as states try, with chronically inadequate funding, to manage an election during a pandemic</b>. “My usual election-cycle comment is that we’re trying to find enough duct tape to cover the holes in the bucket,” Levitt said recently. “This time, we’re trying to make the bucket out of duct tape.”</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>
</b></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>The uncertainty created by the lawsuits, combined with the disinformation about voting that will be plastered all over social media this fall, creates an indirect but powerful form of voter suppression in itself. </b>“Voter suppression is a combination of things,” says Georgia state Rep. and voting-rights advocate Renitta Shannon. “It’s a chipping away of people either not being able to vote, or thinking it will be a major hassle. When people have a question about whether their vote is going to be counted, that [becomes] a reason not to vote.”</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">ON JUNE 5, Tom Fitton and J. Christian Adams were both invited to testify at a U.S. House hearing on “Protecting the Right to Vote During the COVID-19 Crisis.” It was another sign of how formerly fringe right-wing conspiracies had become thoroughly mainstreamed in Trump’s GOP. </span>And it provided another platform to spread the falsehood that Democrats were using the pandemic to make real their fraudulent dreams. <b>“It is now about five months until Election Day,” Fitton testified, “and the pandemic’s infection curve has flattened. Insisting now on all-mail-ballot elections seems less like a response to a health crisis and more like a partisan application of the immortal words of Rahm Emanuel: ‘Never let a good crisis go to waste.’</b>”</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Fitton’s coronavirus predictions would soon be disproved, but the notion of Democrats using mail ballots to commit grand theft in 2020—“using COVID to defraud the American people,” as Trump expressed it on the first night of the Republican National Convention—remains the central deceit of the right’s propaganda campaign. “The Democrats have cooked this thing up,” Rush Limbaugh bellowed in August, “because they don’t feel confident that they can win in a traditionally fair and normal election.”</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[J. Christian Adams, president and general counsel of the Public Interest Legal Foundation in 2019 screencap.]</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>In many places, the relative unfamiliarity of mail voting is a boon to the fear-mongering.</b> And with folks on the right having been treated to years’ worth of “voter fraud” talk, they’d been conditioned to take it seriously. “When they talk about voter fraud,” says Tomas Lopez, executive director of the progressive group Democracy North Carolina, “they’re talking about race, of course. They’re lamenting the fact that those people get a vote.”</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Across platforms—Fox News, talk radio, social media, presidential briefings—the narrative being served up about mail voting has been remarkably consistent in all its main plot points. It’s almost as if Judicial Watch teamed with the Trump campaign and sent out a bullet-point memo, which kicks off with “stealing and rigging” and proceeds, from there, to the following talking points:</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>Even more “illegals” get to vote. </b>“Here’s a shocking things for your audience to consider,” senior Trump advise<b>r Stephen Miller,</b> architect of the immigration policy that caged children at the U.S.-Mexico border, said in August on “Fox & Friends.” “Nobody who mails in a ballot has their identity confirmed; nobody checks to see if they’re even a U.S. citizen. Think about that. Any foreign national—talk about foreign election interference—can mail in a ballot, and nobody even verifies if they’re a citizen of the United States of America.” (In reality, every state verifies the identity of the person requesting the mail-in ballot.)</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>This summer, Judicial Watch bought at least 263 ads on Facebook (cost: $210,000) to drive home the same spurious claim delivered by Miller on Fox News.</b>According to a tally from Media Matters for America, 144 of the ads, which were full of disinformation about “voter fraud,” claimed that “illegal aliens are voting,” while 119 got more specific, claiming that “25% of noncitizens are registered to vote.”</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Ballots Are On the Loose.</b> </font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">On May 1, Trump retweeted<b> Mollie Hemingway, a writer for The Federalist,</b> a right-wing publication, who had some “news” that sounded startling: “Nearly one in five of all absentee and mail-in-ballots between 2012 and 2018 remain unaccounted for, according to data from the federal Election Assistance Commission,” she wrote. Hemingway drew her figures from a new and scholarly looking report by PILF—J. Christian Adams’ organization—which claimed that 28 million absentee ballots had “gone missing” in recent election cycles. Those ballots represent a golden opportunity for mass-scale fraud, Adams said in a statement accompanying the PILF report—“28 million opportunties for someone to cheat.”</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The “missing ballots” meme spread like wildfire. But as voting-rights advocates (and logical thinkers) pointed out, the ballots aren’t just floating around, waiting for noncitizens and Democrats to scoop them up and send them in; they simply hadn’t been returned by the voters who got them. Twelve million of the “loose” ballots, as they’re also called, had been sent by election officials in Colorado, Oregon, and Washington state, where everyone who registers automatically receives one. About 30 percent of voters in those states typically don’t return their ballots in a given election. “Where are they now?” said Paul Gronke, a Reed College professor who runs the Early Voting Information Center, of the so-called “missing” ballots. “Most likely, in landfills.”</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>
</b></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Democrats Are Harvesting Those Loose Ballots.</b> </font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Expect to hear several earfuls about “ballot harvesting” between now and November. It’s the hip, scary-sounding new catchphrase for voter-fraudsters, though the practice it describes is a routine feature of absentee voting in more than half the states: Basically, it just means that a third party can collect someone’s vote in its sealed envelope and hand-deliver it to an election office. The laws are meant to help people who live at great distances from polling places without transportation, or who are sick or shut in, to cast a vote. In March, Trump’s own ballot in the Florida primary was “harvested”—he gave it to an (unknown) third party, who delivered it directly to an elections office in Palm Beach. Nonetheless, as he tweeted on April 14, we must “GET RID OF BALLOT HARVESTING, IT IS RAMPANT WITH FRAUD.”</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Democratic workers sometimes organize “community collections,” leading right-wing pundits to peddle fantastical visions of thugs pounding on doors and demanding people’s blank ballots for harvesting. The proof? Well, in Paterson, N.J., this spring, a postal employee noticed something odd in a local post office five days before an all-mail primary: 347 completed ballots bundled together. They were part of a scheme for which four perpetrators, including one city council member, have all been charged with fraud. Amid the controversy, Paterson’s election board disqualified 19 percent of the ballots in the primary—which, trickling up from Gateway Pundit, a conspiracy theory website, to the West Wing, served as  evidence of the fraudulent potential of “harvesting.” “Look at Patterson[sic], N.J.,” Trump tweeted. “20% of vote was corrupted!” In fact, election officials said that most of the uncounted ballots were tossed out for the usual technical reasons—mainly for signatures that didn’t appear to match those on file. <b>The only example of large-scale ballot harvesting occurred in a North Carolina congressional race in the 2018 midterms. It was organized by a paid GOP operative who’s facing both state and federal charges.</b></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“THIS IS GOING TO BE the greatest election disaster in history,” Trump promised reporters in the middle of yet another rant against vote-by-mail in August. He failed to mention how hard he and his right-wing allies were fighting to make his apocalyptic predictions about the election come true—or how much his prospects for victory may hinge on it.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The right’s doomsaying about chaos and fraud at the polls have definitely penetrated the national consciousness. In August, a Pew poll found that nearly half of registered U.S. voters expect to “have difficulties casting a ballot” this year. That might not sound surprising—but it’s a sea change from 2018, when 85 percent expected voting to be “easy.”</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">When it comes to mail voting in particular, however, it’s only Republicans who are moved by the propaganda. When Pew asked Trump supporters how they planned to vote, 80 percent said they’d do it in person, while just 17 percent would vote by mail. By contrast, most Biden supporters—58 percent—said they’d be voting remotely.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Given those results, it’s no surprise that, in the 2020 battleground states,  Democrats are outpacing Republicans in  absentee ballot requests.</b> Far more, in fact. Four years ago in Florida, Democrats requested 6,000 more absentee ballots than Republicans; by the end of August this year, ballot requests by Democrats had surpassed those from  Republicans by 600,000. In North Carolina, where absentee voting has always been sparse, 177,000 Democrats had asked for ballots compared to 50,000 Republicans. “Everybody’s up,” said Michael Bitzer, a politics professor at Catawba College. “It’s just that Democrats and unaffiliated are through the roof, and Republicans are not even on the second floor.”</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">This disparity, which is consistent in other battleground states, has saner Republican officials and activists deeply worried. What if the anti-mail campaign ends up backfiring, and suppressing their votes? And with the virus likely to still be raging come November, will GOP voters—seniors, in particular—actually take the risk to show up in person to vote? “What the president is doing when he keeps saying that this mail-in balloting thing is fraudulent, he’s scaring our own voters from using a legit way to cast your ballot,” Rohn Bishop, chair of the Fond du Lac County GOP in Wisconsin, told USA Today. “We’re kind of hurting ourselves.” When he tries to talk up absentee voting to fellow Republicans, Bishop said, he gets a lot of flak that he’s “ignoring voter fraud.” It’s not easy to argue when the Republican president keeps calling vote-by-mail “the greatest scam in history.”</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>The weird thing, said Bishop and other Republican state leaders, is that while the president continues to slam mail voting on a daily basis, the Trump campaign and RNC have told them to promote it.</b> “I’m out there pushing it at the request of the campaign, because they asked me [to] do that,” said Lawrence Tabas, chair of the Republican Party in Pennsylvania, which Trump carried by less than 1 percent in 2016—and where Democrats have made 68 percent of all mail-ballot requests, while Republicans requested just 24 percent. “And then the president is publicly opposed to it,” Tabas added. “Let’s put it this way; it’s made my job more challenging.” The Pennsylvania GOP website urges Republicans to “Vote Safe: By mail. From home.”</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">GOP voters in California also heard that “safe, from home” message before they voted in this spring’s primary—from two of Trump’s family members, no less. Both daughter-in-law Lara Trump and Donald Jr. recorded robocalls</span> in April urging mail votes for a Republican congressional candidate in a special election. “Nancy Pelosi and liberal Democrats are counting on you to sit on the sidelines this election, but you can prove them wrong,” Lara Trump said in one call. “You can safely and securely vote for Mike Garcia by returning your mail-in ballot by May 12.”</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Both Lara Trump and Donald Jr. recorded robocalls in April urging mail votes for a Republican congressional candidate in a special election.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">One major group on the right, Americans for Prosperity, is flexing its considerable muscle to counter the president’s message and urge right-wing voters to take advantage of either early or absentee voting this fall. Tim Phillips, president of the “grasstops” group, which underwrote the Tea Party movement, told Politico this spring that AFP “is absolutely going to up the percentage of dollars that go into absentee and early voting.” The group, which raked in $83 million in donations in 2018, has plenty to spend. It plans to target conservative voters in dozens of competitive congressional districts.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But Judicial Watch, PILF, the Honest Elections Project, and allied groups like True the Vote—which is recruiting ex-Navy SEALs to serve as GOP poll-watchers on Nov. 3—are delivering a contrary message: It’s perfectly safe to vote in person. “Don’t let the left scare you from voting on Election Day,” Tom Fitton said on a Judicial Watch podcast on July 31. The same message continues to blast out on conservative media. “If people can go to Home Depot and distance six feet,” Fox host Jeanine Pirro said this summer, “why can’t they go to the voting booth and distance six feet?”</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Is there a coherent strategy here, somehow? Do the clashing messages make any strategic sense? Perhaps not. But some political observers suspect that Trump is setting up a way to delegitimize the results in November. If more Republicans do turn out in person, their votes will be among those tallied first—creating a chance that Trump may lead on election night, even if only half of the total vote, or less, is counted by then. In that event, Jamelle Bouie wrote this summer in his New York Times column, “There’s no mystery about what Donald Trump intends to do… . First, he’ll claim victory. Then, having spent most of the year denouncing vote-by-mail as corrupt, he’ll demand that authorities stop counting mail-in and absentee ballots. He’ll have a team of lawyers challenging courts and ballots across the country.”</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">It’s certainly plausible. Just as in 2016, Trump has refused to say he’ll accept the results—unless, that is, they show him winning. “You don’t know until you see,” he said this summer on Fox News. “It depends. I think mail-in voting is going to rig the election, I really do.”</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In November 2018, when the Republican candidates for governor and senator in Florida held leads on election night that began to dissipate as the vote-counting continued, Trump telegraphed what he might say this November: “The Florida election should be called in favor of Rick Scott and Ron DeSantis in that large numbers of new ballots showed up out of nowhere, and many ballots are missing or forged,” he tweeted. “<b>An honest vote count is no longer possible—ballots massively infected. Must go with Election Night!”</b></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Attorney General William Barr has indicated that the Department of Justice would have Trump’s back if he tries to shut down the count.</b> “I think the people who want to experiment with different ways of voting right now … are playing with fire and are grossly irresponsible,” Barr told Fox News’ Mark Levin in August. Sounding more like a Judicial Watch attorney than the attorney general of the United States, Barr called it “scary” that “most of those mailings go to a lot of addresses where the people no longer live. They’re misdirected. And I think they will create a situation—they could easily create a situation where there’s going to be a contested election.”</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">That is chilling to hear. It stirs up nightmare visions of Florida 2000 but on a national scale—and in a year that’s already been full of unrest. Realistically, though, it’s also a far-fetched strategy born of desperation. And there’s a much rosier scenario that is just as plausible as Bouie’s, if not more so.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Say this election proves to be less apocalyptic than Trump and the right are hoping—and say Trump is clearly a loser on election night. The president’s defeat, and the pandemic-inspired rise of mail voting, could begin to unravel the elaborate system of barriers to voting that Republicans have been erecting over the past decade. If Democrats retake a majority in the U.S. Senate, the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Act will surely be one of the first measures to pass, restoring protections and federal oversight to elections. And if Republicans lose control of state houses they captured (which they are poised to do in several battleground states), Democratic majorities can begin to reverse the race-based voting restrictions that the GOP has been cooking up with relentless creativity since the Tea Party insurrection lifted them to unprecedented power in Congress and the states.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“What we’ve had is the 21st century equivalent of the Mississippi Plan of 1890,” says Carol Anderson, the Emory University historian and best-selling author of One Person, One Vote. That “plan” was the template for other states to “redeem” white supremacy after Reconstruction by disenfranchising Black men all over again, through tactics like poll taxes, literacy tests, and violent intimidation. The 2010s were eerily similar. “It’s been legislative evil genius,” Anderson says. “And so Jim Crow.”</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Anderson is a serious historian, so she’ll make no predictions. But there is at least a fair chance that the latest manifestation of the Republicans’ long and fraudulent voter-fraud campaign—the demonizing of remote-voting during a pandemic—will backfire on them in a lasting way. The hollering won’t die down, of course; Trump himself will make sure of that. The voter-suppression industry—the Judicial Watches, the PILFs, the Honest Elections Projects—won’t disappear. Chief Justice John Roberts won’t suddenly start deciding in favor of voting rights. But the more Americans grow accustomed to voting by mail, and the more they keep demanding that it be made easier and more reliable, the harder their votes will be to suppress or toss out. Trump is right, after all, about one thing: Wherever remote voting becomes routine, turnout soars. And we all know who loses then.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Tags: Carol AndersonDonald J. TrumpJ Christian AdamsJamelle BouieJennifer TaftJustice John RobertsJustin LevittLaura IngrahamLawrence TabasLeonard LeoMark EliasMichael BitzerRohn BishopRon DeSantisStacey AbramsTim PhillipsTom FittonTony EversWilliam BarrWilliam Consovoy</font></div></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">=</font></div></div><div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span dir="auto"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span dir="auto"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span dir="auto"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">voter felon suppression 2020, pal of ginni and jok?</font></span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span dir="auto"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span dir="auto"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span dir="auto"><p times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" letter-spacing="letter-spacing" px="px" text-rendering="text-rendering" optimizelegibility="optimizelegibility" max-width="max-width" width="width" style="margin: 20px 20px 20px 252.078px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Cash matters, but O’Keefe’s personal connections </b>are where the depth and seamlessness of this coordination with the Republican Party become truly apparent. They also offer a glimpse into the vast network that has formed to suppress the vote this fall—a network years in the making, of which Project Veritas is but a humble node.</font></p><p times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" letter-spacing="letter-spacing" px="px" text-rendering="text-rendering" optimizelegibility="optimizelegibility" max-width="max-width" width="width" style="margin: 20px 20px 20px 252.078px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Take<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);"> litigator <a href="https://consovoymccarthy.com/team/william-s-consovoy/" target="blank" rel="nofollow" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none;"><span class="Hyperlink0">William Consovoy</span></a>, the legal point man on many of the conservative-funded election integrity cases pursued during the Trump era.</span></b> He is, like O’Keefe, a New Jersey native with <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/15/us/elections/voting-william-consovoy-trump.html" target="blank" rel="nofollow" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;"><span class="Hyperlink0">a long history in local Republican politics</span></a><b>. A former law clerk for Clarence Thomas,</b> Consovoy is also <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/as-trump-attacks-voting-by-mail-gop-builds-2020-strategy-around-limiting-its-expansion/2020/05/31/a17ccfa0-a00d-11ea-b5c9-570a91917d8d_story.html" target="blank" rel="nofollow" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;"><span class="Hyperlink0">reportedly</span></a> a friend of Federalist Society Executive Vice President <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/investigations/leonard-leo-federalists-society-courts/" target="blank" rel="nofollow" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;"><span class="Hyperlink0">Leonard Leo</span></a>, whose <b>nephew David Maxham has been a friend of O’Keefe’s since their undergraduate years at Rutgers</b>. </span>(Maxham, naturally, was also invited to O’Keefe’s wedding.)</font></p><p times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" letter-spacing="letter-spacing" px="px" text-rendering="text-rendering" optimizelegibility="optimizelegibility" max-width="max-width" width="width" style="margin: 20px 20px 20px 252.078px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">This year</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 0, 0);">, Leonard Leo</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);"> has stepped aside from day-to-day management of the Federalist Society <a href="https://www.axios.com/leonard-leo-crc-advisors-federalist-society-50d4d844-19a3-4eab-af2b-7b74f1617d1c.html" target="blank" rel="nofollow" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;"><span class="Hyperlink0">to run</span></a> a new conservative donor group, <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6889355-The-85-Fund-Fictious-Name-Certificate-Honest.html" target="blank" rel="nofollow" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;"><span class="Hyperlink0">CRC Advisors</span></a>, that is pouring money into Consovoy’s legal challenges in key battleground states across the country</span>. CRC has been steering money into something called the “<b>Honest Elections Project,</b>” a <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6889355-The-85-Fund-Fictious-Name-Certificate-Honest.html" target="blank" rel="nofollow" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;"><span class="Hyperlink0">fictitious name</span></a> filed in Virginia for <b>Leo’s old group the Judicial Education Project, </b>now officially called the 85 Fund. As <i>The Guardian</i> reported, 99 percent of the Judicial Education Project’s funding in 2018 was <span class="Hyperlink0">a single $7.8 million donation funneled through Donors Trust</span>.guk?</font></p><p times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" letter-spacing="letter-spacing" px="px" text-rendering="text-rendering" optimizelegibility="optimizelegibility" max-width="max-width" width="width" style="margin: 20px 20px 20px 252.078px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>With generous assistance from the Honest Elections Project and the RNC, Consovoy’s firm Consovoy McCarthy PLLC has recently<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);"> brought cases against the re-enfranchising of felons in Florida and <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/mailing-of-ballots-to-all-voters-in-las-vegas-area-puts-sharp-focus-on-election-safeguards/2020/05/28/912c099a-9f63-11ea-b5c9-570a91917d8d_story.html?itid=lk_inline_manual_44" target="blank" rel="nofollow" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none;"><span class="Hyperlink0">sued</span></a> to block California’s plans to deliver absentee ballots to all of the state’s registered voters.</span> </b><b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Consovoy has contributed to related motions filed in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Nevada, Michigan, and </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">Texas, where Ken Paxton’s</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> victory against mail-in voting in May </span><a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1265827032707072000" target="blank" rel="nofollow" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><span class="Hyperlink0">earned praise from President Trump on Twitter</span></a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">. </span></b></font></p></span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span dir="auto"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></span></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></span></div><div><span dir="auto" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://www.axios.com/leonard-leo-crc-advisors-federalist-society-50d4d844-19a3-4eab-af2b-7b74f1617d1c.html"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">https://www.axios.com/leonard-leo-crc-advisors-federalist-society-50d4d844-19a3-4eab-af2b-7b74f1617d1c.html</font></a></span></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><p style="margin-top: 3rem; margin-bottom: 3rem;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>conservative powerhouse Leonard Leo tells Axios that he'll step aside from the daily running of the Federalist Society to focus on a new venture — inspired by Arabella Advisers on the left — that will funnel big money and expertise across the conservative movement</b>.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 3rem; margin-bottom: 3rem;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-weight: 600;">Why it matters:</span> Leo is considered one of the most powerful conservatives in the country, playing a key role in shaping President Trump's selections for the Supreme Court and raising hundreds of millions of dollars <a class="gtm-content-click" data-vars-link-text="to fill the nation’s courts with conservative judges" data-vars-click-url="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/04/17/the-conservative-pipeline-to-the-supreme-court" data-vars-content-id="50d4d844-19a3-4eab-af2b-7b74f1617d1c" data-vars-headline="Leonard Leo to shape new conservative network" data-vars-event-category="story" data-vars-sub-category="story" data-vars-item="in_content_link" href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/04/17/the-conservative-pipeline-to-the-supreme-court" target="blank">to fill the nation’s courts with conservative judges</a>.</font></p><ul style="margin-top: 3rem; margin-bottom: 3rem; list-style-image: url(" https="https" static.axios.com="static.axios.com" img="img" axios-site="axios-site" bullet-filled.svg="bullet-filled.svg" padding="padding" px="px" rem="rem"><li style="padding-left: 1rem; margin-top: 3rem; margin-bottom: 1.5rem;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">One of the <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">first projects will be a "minimum of $10 million issue advocacy campaign focusing on judges in the 2020 cycle," Leo told Axios.</span></font></li><li style="padding-left: 1rem; margin-top: 3rem;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">new venture will be called <a class="gtm-content-click" data-vars-link-text="CRC Advisors" data-vars-click-url="http://crcadvisors.com/" data-vars-content-id="50d4d844-19a3-4eab-af2b-7b74f1617d1c" data-vars-headline="Leonard Leo to shape new conservative network" data-vars-event-category="story" data-vars-sub-category="story" data-vars-item="in_content_link" href="http://crcadvisors.com/" target="blank">CRC Advisors</a>. Leo will remain co-chair of the <a class="gtm-content-click" data-vars-link-text="Federalist Society's board" data-vars-click-url="https://fedsoc.org/staff" data-vars-content-id="50d4d844-19a3-4eab-af2b-7b74f1617d1c" data-vars-headline="Leonard Leo to shape new conservative network" data-vars-event-category="story" data-vars-sub-category="story" data-vars-item="in_content_link" href="https://fedsoc.org/staff" target="blank">Federalist Society's board</a>.</span></font></li></ul><p style="margin-top: 3rem; margin-bottom: 3rem;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><span style="font-weight: 600;">Behind the scenes:</span> Leo told Axios that he and his business partner, conservative communications executive Greg Mueller, studied tax filings that led them to Arabella, a little-known yet powerful consulting firm that advises liberal donors and nonprofits about where to spend their money.</font></p><ul style="margin-top: 3rem; margin-bottom: 3rem; list-style-image: url(" https="https" static.axios.com="static.axios.com" img="img" axios-site="axios-site" bullet-filled.svg="bullet-filled.svg" padding="padding" px="px" rem="rem"><li style="padding-left: 1rem; margin-top: 3rem; margin-bottom: 1.5rem;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Politico <a class="gtm-content-click" data-vars-link-text="recently detailed" data-vars-click-url="https://www.politico.com/news/2019/11/19/dark-money-democrats-midterm-071725" data-vars-content-id="50d4d844-19a3-4eab-af2b-7b74f1617d1c" data-vars-headline="Leonard Leo to shape new conservative network" data-vars-event-category="story" data-vars-sub-category="story" data-vars-item="in_content_link" href="https://www.politico.com/news/2019/11/19/dark-money-democrats-midterm-071725" target="blank">recently detailed</a> its stunning reach and influence as part of "an unprecedented gusher of secret money" that "boosted Democrats and liberal causes in 2018."</font></li><li style="padding-left: 1rem; margin-top: 3rem; margin-bottom: 1.5rem;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The liberal network involves an organization called "<a class="gtm-content-click" data-vars-link-text="the Hub Project" data-vars-click-url="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/31/us/politics/democrats-dark-money-midterms.html" data-vars-content-id="50d4d844-19a3-4eab-af2b-7b74f1617d1c" data-vars-headline="Leonard Leo to shape new conservative network" data-vars-event-category="story" data-vars-sub-category="story" data-vars-item="in_content_link" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/31/us/politics/democrats-dark-money-midterms.html" target="blank">the Hub Project</a>," first covered in depth by the New York Times, and a non-profit called the Sixteen Thirty Fund, which Politico reported "spent $141 million on more than 100 left-leaning causes" in the 2018 midterms. That spending was fueled by "massive anonymous donations, including one gift totaling $51.7 million."</font></li><li style="padding-left: 1rem; margin-top: 3rem;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The network was tied to at least four dozen different trade names in 2018, "many of which have benign-sounding local titles like Arizonans United for Health Care and <a class="gtm-content-click" data-vars-link-text="Floridians for a Fair Shake" data-vars-click-url="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/31/us/politics/democrats-dark-money-midterms.html" data-vars-content-id="50d4d844-19a3-4eab-af2b-7b74f1617d1c" data-vars-headline="Leonard Leo to shape new conservative network" data-vars-event-category="story" data-vars-sub-category="story" data-vars-item="in_content_link" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/31/us/politics/democrats-dark-money-midterms.html" target="blank">Floridians for a Fair Shake</a>," per Politico.</font></li></ul><p style="margin-top: 3rem; margin-bottom: 3rem;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);"><span style="font-weight: 600;">Leo and Mueller told Axios </span>that after studying Arabella's structure they were impressed — and saw the opportunity to build a replica on the right.</font></p><ul style="margin-top: 3rem; margin-bottom: 3rem; list-style-image: url(" https="https" static.axios.com="static.axios.com" img="img" axios-site="axios-site" bullet-filled.svg="bullet-filled.svg" padding="padding" px="px" rem="rem"><li style="padding-left: 1rem; margin-top: 3rem;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A spokesperson for Arabella Advisors took issue with Leo’s comments characterizing Arabella as a partisan organization aligned only with causes on the left, telling Axios: "Arabella Advisors is a consulting business that supports philanthropy. It provides advice and implementation support to clients with very different ideological and political viewpoints and many clients for whom politics and policy are not areas of interest."</font></li></ul><p style="margin-top: 3rem; margin-bottom: 3rem;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-weight: 600;">Between the lines: </span>The new venture will go beyond the anonymous money networks they've already <a class="gtm-content-click" data-vars-link-text="built and weaponized" data-vars-click-url="https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/investigations/leonard-leo-federalists-society-courts/" data-vars-content-id="50d4d844-19a3-4eab-af2b-7b74f1617d1c" data-vars-headline="Leonard Leo to shape new conservative network" data-vars-event-category="story" data-vars-sub-category="story" data-vars-item="in_content_link" href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/investigations/leonard-leo-federalists-society-courts/" target="blank">built and weaponized</a> in the conservative legal movement movement.</font></p><ul style="margin-top: 3rem; margin-bottom: 3rem; list-style-image: url(" https="https" static.axios.com="static.axios.com" img="img" axios-site="axios-site" bullet-filled.svg="bullet-filled.svg" padding="padding" px="px" rem="rem"><li style="padding-left: 1rem; margin-top: 3rem; margin-bottom: 1.5rem;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">CRC Advisors will evolve out of Mueller’s existing conservative communications firm, <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">CRC Strategies.</span></font></li><li style="padding-left: 1rem; margin-top: 3rem; margin-bottom: 1.5rem;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Mueller and Leo say they plan to work with<b> two existing non-profit groups, which will be rebranded as the Concord Fund and the 85 Fund,</b> to funnel tens of millions of dollars into conservative fights around the country.</font></li><li style="padding-left: 1rem; margin-top: 3rem;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The two men and their teams have plenty of experience raising and spending millions for judicial battles — including the recent fight to confirm Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court — but they want to expand this to other issues like deregulation at the state and federal level.</font></li></ul><p style="margin-top: 3rem; margin-bottom: 3rem;"><span style="font-weight: 600;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Go deeper:</font></span></p><ul style="margin-top: 3rem; margin-bottom: 3rem; list-style-image: url(" https="https" static.axios.com="static.axios.com" img="img" axios-site="axios-site" bullet-filled.svg="bullet-filled.svg" padding="padding" px="px" rem="rem"><li style="padding-left: 1rem; margin-top: 3rem; margin-bottom: 1.5rem;"><a class="gtm-content-click" data-vars-link-text="Leonard Leo attacks George Conway's " checks="Checks" and="and" balances="Balances" group="group" data-vars-click-url="https://www.axios.com/newsletters/axios-sneak-peek-5d299a4a-778b-48d6-b193-e06dce3cf43e.html?chunk=3#story3" data-vars-content-id="50d4d844-19a3-4eab-af2b-7b74f1617d1c" data-vars-headline="Leonard Leo to shape new conservative network" data-vars-event-category="story" data-vars-sub-category="story" data-vars-item="in_content_link" href="https://www.axios.com/newsletters/axios-sneak-peek-5d299a4a-778b-48d6-b193-e06dce3cf43e.html?chunk=3#story3" target="self"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">Leonard Leo attacks George Conway's "Checks and Balances" group</font></a></li><li style="padding-left: 1rem; margin-top: 3rem;"><a class="gtm-content-click" data-vars-link-text="How the Supreme Court will upend 2020" data-vars-click-url="https://www.axios.com/supreme-court-trump-2020-immigration-guns-abortion-health-care-81954901-33d4-4dfc-bb74-096ae279f3c7.html" data-vars-content-id="50d4d844-19a3-4eab-af2b-7b74f1617d1c" data-vars-headline="Leonard Leo to shape new conservative network" data-vars-event-category="story" data-vars-sub-category="story" data-vars-item="in_content_link" href="https://www.axios.com/supreme-court-trump-2020-immigration-guns-abortion-health-care-81954901-33d4-4dfc-bb74-096ae279f3c7.html" target="self"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">How the Supreme Court will upend 2020</font></a></li></ul><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div></div></div><div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">alec bigtime</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="word-spacing: 3.6px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) held an “exclusive call” for members on mail-in voting with </span><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Honest_Elections_Project" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer external" data-wpel-link="external" style="box-sizing: inherit; background: 0px 0px rgb(255, 255, 255); transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; word-spacing: 3.6px;">Honest Elections Project</a><span style="word-spacing: 3.6px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> and a “former FEC official” on June 9, 2020. Honest Elections Project is a a dark money voter suppression group formed in February 2020 that is a project of Leonard Leo’s </span><a class="new" title="85 Fund (page does not exist)" href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=85_Fund&action=edit&redlink=1" data-wpel-link="external" target="blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: inherit; background: 0px 0px rgb(255, 255, 255); transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; word-spacing: 3.6px;">85 Fund</a><span style="word-spacing: 3.6px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">. The invitation was obtained by the Center for Media and Democracy.</span></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div></div><div><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://lawandcrime.com/judiciary/senate-dems-investigating-former-federalist-society-leaders-influence-over-trump-admins-judicial-nominees/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://lawandcrime.com/judiciary/senate-dems-investigating-former-federalist-society-leaders-influence-over-trump-admins-judicial-nominees/</font></a></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 28.672px; vertical-align: top;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Senate Judiciary Committee Democrats are seeking information on the role former Federalist Society leader <strong style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">Leonard Leo</strong> played in in choosing the jurists President <strong style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">Donald Trump</strong> has nominated to lifetime appointments as federal judges</span><span style="background-color: rgb(254, 254, 254);">. In letters sent to Attorney General </span><strong style="background-color: rgb(254, 254, 254); margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">William Barr</strong><span style="background-color: rgb(254, 254, 254);"> and White House counsel </span><strong style="background-color: rgb(254, 254, 254); margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">Pat Cipollone</strong><span style="background-color: rgb(254, 254, 254);"> on Wednesday, the senators said they were specifically looking into the potential conflicts of interest presented by Leo’s advising the president on judicial selections while leading a group that is anonymously funded, “likely from entities that have interests before the federal courts.”</span></font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 28.672px; vertical-align: top; background-color: rgb(254, 254, 254);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Mr. Leo’s prominent role in the Trump Administration’s judicial selection and nominations process while maintaining a financial interest in advocacy efforts related to this process has raised questions regarding his potential status as a federal employee and compliance with accompanying laws and regulations,” the letter to Barr stated.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 28.672px; vertical-align: top; background-color: rgb(254, 254, 254);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The senators emphasized that by advising the Trump administration on its selection of federal judges, Leo’s conduct raised significant questions as to whether he was performing the duties of a federal government employee without proper authority, thereby violating federal ethics law.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 28.672px; vertical-align: top; background-color: rgb(254, 254, 254);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“By outward appearances, Mr. Leo may have engaged in the performance of a federal function that must be conducted by government employees authorized to act on behalf of the United States by leading the Administration’s efforts to identify and select judicial nominees, and press for their confirmation,” they wrote. “As a federal employee, Mr. Leo would have been responsible for complying with federal records retention and financial disclosure requirements, as well as the criminal financial conflict of interest statute.”</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 28.672px; vertical-align: top;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Led by Sen. <strong style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">Sheldon Whitehouse</strong> (D-RI), the Democratic senators who signed the letters were attempting to shed light on the process that has allowed the Trump White House and GOP-led Senate to confirm an unprecedented number of judges (nearly 200) in just over three years.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 28.672px; vertical-align: top; background-color: rgb(254, 254, 254);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The senators assert that knowing the specifics of Leo’s involvement in the selection process is vital to ensuring the process remains untainted.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 28.672px; vertical-align: top; background-color: rgb(254, 254, 254);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Mr. Leo’s personal financial interest in advocacy efforts related to the judicial selection and nominations process raises serious concerns regarding potential conflicts of interest and the independence of the federal judiciary, given Mr. Leo’s leadership role in the Trump Administration’s work on the issue,” they wrote, before listing a number of questions relating to Leo’s role in the selection process.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 28.672px; vertical-align: top;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">As <a href="https://lawandcrime.com/high-profile/federalist-society-leader-will-head-pro-trump-dark-money-group-in-2020/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: inherit; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">previously reported</a> by Law&Crime, <b>Leo stepped away from the Federalist Society earlier this year to helm a massive effort aimed at securing Trump’s re-election by highlighting the 45th president’s record on appointing conservative judges.</b></font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 28.672px; vertical-align: top; background-color: rgb(254, 254, 254);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">See below for the full letter sent to AG Barr:</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> <span times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">=</span></font></p></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">new 519</font></div><div><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1rem; box-sizing: inherit; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"></font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1rem; box-sizing: inherit; padding: 0px;"><a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2019/05/an-influential-dark-money-group-turns-off-the-lights-for-the-last-time/"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2019/05/an-influential-dark-money-group-turns-off-the-lights-for-the-last-time/</font></a></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 20px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">One of the most influential “dark money” groups you’ve probably never heard of has officially shut its doors.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 20px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>The Wellspring Committee’s existence has come to an apparent end, according to state incorporation records showing the dark money group’s termination. Wellspring was just shy of eleven years old.</b></font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 20px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The group died as it lived, surreptitiously. Officially shutting down in December 2018, its fate was not <a href="https://twitter.com/andrewperezdc/status/1130156764446494721" style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">discovered</a> until May 19, 2019.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 20px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The name Wellspring Committee may already be forgotten — or entirely unknown — to most, but its life’s efforts were certainly not in vain.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 20px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Many of the facets of modern-day society that we now take for granted, such as the multi-million dollar price tag on each Supreme Court confirmation fight, can be traced back to Wellspring’s efforts. What Wellspring lacked in name recognition, it made up in largesse. Operating behind the scenes, Wellspring leaves behind countless dark money groups it helped sire and judges now on the bench thanks in part to its anonymous financiers’ generosity.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 20px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Wellspring is survived by Judicial Crisis Network (JCN), another <b>501(c)(4)</b> nonprofit that has established itself the <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2019/05/dark-money-group-funded-by-17million-mystery-donor-before-kavanaugh/" style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">preeminent vehicle for deep-pocketed donors to funnel millions of dollars behind or against judicial nominees</a> in Supreme Court confirmation fights, largely bankrolled by Wellspring.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 20px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Since Wellspring’s birth from a short-lived union of the Koch network and GOP political operatives leading up to the 2008 election, it has accounted for more than 90 percent of JCN’s total funding.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 20px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Wellspring’s delivery into the world came at the hands of Republican operative Ann Corkery while her husband Neil took the <a href="https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/03/right-wing-groups-gearing-up-onslaught-merrick-garland-supreme-court/" style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">reigns</a> of the more publicly visible JCN and an allied 501(c)(3) “charitable” nonprofit, Judicial Education Project. Like JCN, it’s sister “charity” has received considerable funding from Wellspring and other closely-tied dark money groups like DonorsTrust, a pass-through vessel managing the money flow from wealthy donors to conservative and libertarian groups — including <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2018/11/one-donor-accounts-for-all-dark-money-funding-whitakers-nonprofit/" style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">other groups</a> in <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2018/11/trump-inauguration-money-links-secretive-dark-money/" style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">Corkery’s network</a> — while allowing the donors to remain anonymous that has earned it the reputation of being a Koch-linked “<a href="https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/12/donors-trust-franklin-center-alec-mercatus-center-dark-money/" style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">dark money ATM</a>.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 20px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Wearing multiple hats for various groups in the network, Neil Corkery worked impossibly hard. At one point tax returns <a href="https://www.draw.io/?state=%7B%22ids%22:%5B%221RMNvJFCA_CbAL3EfD_TWFaDIZQQscYFb%22%5D,%22action%22:%22open%22,%22userId%22:%22106201961196436599495%22%7D#G1Ea2j3VrDXtDHG71l8IGPcfZGQoyZetc9" style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">showed</a> him working a combined 100 hours a week between his various nonprofits.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 20px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">JCN’s existence has not always hinged entirely on Wellspring. For its first three years in operation under the Judicial Confirmation Network moniker before rebranding following Obama’s <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">2008 election, JCN received initial support from California “foreclosure king” <a href="http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/03/right-wing-groups-gearing-up-onslaught-merrick-garland-supreme-court" style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">Robin Arkley II</a> and raked in seed money from the <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB111629602487135425" style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">American Center for Law and Justice</a> under Jay Sekulow, President Donald Trump’s personal attorney and a member of the Federalist Society, the influential conservative and libertarian lawyers network that does disclose its donors in annual reports.</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 20px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Since then, the organizations had been inseparable. Sitting at the crux a powerful <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2018/11/trump-inauguration-money-links-secretive-dark-money/" style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">network of dark money groups</a>, Wellspring and JCN have existed in this symbiotic relationship for over a decade, with JCN operating as the operation’s public-facing mouthpiece and Wellspring as its money bag.</b></font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 20px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">After all that, years of investigations and speculation about the identity of donors bankrolling the operation have yet to produce a definitive answer about the ultimate source of the operations funds.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 20px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Tax returns have revealed the groups behind a <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2013/11/wellsprings-flow/" style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">few hundred thousand in grants</a> from other dark money groups like American Democracy Alliance and Rosebush. But that accounts for a drop in the bucket — less than a percent — of Wellspring’s overall earnings and, even then, the ultimate financier behind those groups remains a secret.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 20px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>A <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/news/category/outside-money/" style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">central player</a> in orchestrating Wellspring’s <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2018/11/trump-inauguration-money-links-secretive-dark-money/" style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">dark money network</a> has been Leonard Leo, Trump’s judicial adviser and a longtime executive at the Federalist Society.</b></font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 20px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">While the identity of their donors remains a secret, dark money groups like JCN and Wellspring are required to disclose the amount received from different donors. In their most recent tax returns, JCN received most of its funds from two multi-million dollar donors, with roughly 90 percent of that accounted for by Wellspring and the remainder for a mystery donor. <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Most of Wellspring’s funds came from three multi-million dollar secret donors, a shift from prior years in which the biggest amount the group received from a single mystery donor increased with each passing year. Wellspring’s largest donor in their most recent tax return accounted for $8.9 million, another gave $5.5 million and a third provided $2 million. All of their identities remain hidden.</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 20px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Financial information for Wellspring’s final year of operation is not required to be reported until months following the end of their final fiscal year, long after the group’s official termination.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 20px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">While much of its money has ended up in the judicial advocacy space, Wellspring helped seed a number of other politically active nonprofits that took on a life other their own and went on to have other significant impacts. A <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">few that gained particular notoriety in recent years include <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2013/11/wellsprings-flow/" style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">American Job Security</a>, the pro-Trump <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2017/03/wellsprings-dark-money-crucial-to-trump-orbit/" style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">45Committee</a> and the American Dream Initiative, which was later <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2017/05/nonprofits-backing-trump-have-deep-swampy-ties/" style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">rebranded</a> as the pro-Trump Great America Alliance.</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 20px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[<a href="https://cdn1.opensecrets.org/news/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/23113231/WellspringsWeb1-1024x670.png">https://cdn1.opensecrets.org/news/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/23113231/WellspringsWeb1-1024x670.png</a>  </font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 20px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><img src="https://cdn1.opensecrets.org/news/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/23113231/WellspringsWeb1-1024x670.png" /></font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 20px;"><span times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> map graf]</font></span></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 20px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Conservative activists have continued honoring the memory of the recently deceased group by doing what it loved best: creating opaque vehicles to secretly funnel millions of dollars into groups aiming to reshape the legal system.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 20px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>At least one new group has already risen from Wellspring’s ashes: the Article III Project (A3P).</b></font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 20px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Formed to “fight to confirm President Trump’s judicial nominees” and defend sitting judges, A3P was launched as a 501(c)(4) nonprofit May 18, indicating it will not disclose its donors. Any money funneled to A3P through another nonprofit organization is not required to be disclosed until tax returns are due months after the end of the fiscal year when that payment took place, and other funding from individuals or opaque entities like limited-liability companies may remain hidden from the public.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 20px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A3P was sculpted in the mold of its predecessors and plans to work closely with JCN. “Excited to work hand-in-glove with @JCN<b>Severino, </b>my other longtime friends at JCN, and many others on the outside who understand the critical importance of the judicial fight,” A3P president Mike Davis tweeted.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 20px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Davis was chief counsel for Senate Judiciary Committee during the most recent Supreme Court confirmation battles and Justice Neil Gorsuch’s former law clerk. His talks at Federalist Society events have earned the distinction of being included in the congressional record at the request of his former employer, Sen. <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/members-of-congress/summary?cid=N00001758" style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">Chuck Grassley</a> (R-Iowa). During Davis’ time at the Senate, he played a pivotal role in securing votes for Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 20px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Dubbed the Kavanaugh confirmation fight’s “warrior” and the “general” of the Gorsuch confirmation battle, Davis has differentiated A3P from other groups with a more militant approach, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/18/us/politics/conservatives-judicial-nominees.html" style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">promising</a> to “punch back” with a “brass knuckles approach.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 20px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">According to Davis, these punches are warranted. A3P was launched partly in response to <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2018/10/only-a-fraction-of-dark-money-spending-on-kavanaugh-disclosed/" style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">Demand Justice</a>, a liberal dark money group <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2018/06/kennedys-resignation-sparks-seven-figure-ad-campaigns-from-conservative-liberal-groups/" style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">launched</a> in 2018 as the left’s <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2018/10/facebook-ads-kavanaugh-confirmation-swing-states/" style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">counterweight</a> to Wellspring and JCN</span>. Demand Justice’s arrival on the scene brought with it a significant shift to the judicial money race, which has traditionally been one-sided with the vast majority of funds from the right, most of which can be traced to JCN and Wellspring.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 20px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Indeed, Wellspring’s legacy lives on not only in the conservative dark money infrastructure it helped build but also in the inspiration it provided to their equivalent on the left.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 20px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Wellspring may be gone, but its indelible impact on the American legal landscape will long be remembered.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 20px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In addition to its enduring judicial legacy through attempts to reshape the legal system, Wellspring and the operatives behind it have reshaped the way the game is played. By helping shepherd in their chosen judges onto the Supreme court and across the federal judiciary, Wellspring and its operatives ushered in a new era of increasingly expensive judicial battles largely fueled by deep-pocketed donors whose identities remain secret.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 20px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">As groups on the left put the same clandestine tactics and big money traditionally characteristic of more conservative judicial advocacy groups into play, those battles across the country may have given way to a full-blown war for the future of the judiciary.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 20px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But conservative judicial activists are not just building a covert network anymore, they’re building an army. </font></p></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><p style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 20px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">conservative “dark money” organization that spearheaded controversial Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s contentious confirmation received $22 million in anonymous donations in the year before the 2018 court fight, newly released tax records show.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 20px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Judicial Crisis Network (JCN), a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit, <a href="https://www.apnews.com/91c58df540884d698ceb35a529c34b08" style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">pledged to spend</a> as much as $10 million to ensure Kavanaugh’s confirmation — the same amount that it <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20170705003230/https://judicialnetwork.com/judicial-crisis-network-launches-10-million-campaign-preserve-justice-scalias-legacy-support-president-elect-trump-nominee/" style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">spent</a> to help confirm Justice Neil Gorsuch in 2017. JCN has <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-secrets-of-leonard-leo-the-man-behind-trumps-supreme-court-pick?ref=scroll" style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">close ties</a> to Trump’s judicial adviser Leonard Leo, a longtime executive at the Federalist Society, the influential conservative and libertarian lawyers network based in Washington, D.C.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 20px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">More than three-quarters of the funds JCN raised between July 2017 and June 2018 came in the form of a $17 million contribution from a single anonymous donor, according to its <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6007244-JCN-2017-990.html" style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">latest tax return</a>, which was obtained by MapLight and OpenSecrets. Former Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2018/06/kennedys-resignation-sparks-seven-figure-ad-campaigns-from-conservative-liberal-groups/" style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">announced</a> his retirement in June 2018, paving the way for Kavanaugh’s nomination.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 20px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">JCN’s filing lists nine other anonymous contributions, none smaller than six figures.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 20px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The bulk of JCN’s funding has typically come from the Wellspring Committee, another secretive nonprofit run by operatives who wear multiple hats in a <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2018/11/trump-inauguration-money-links-secretive-dark-money/" style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">larger network of opaque groups</a>. Neil Corkery, Wellspring’s current <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/5299936-Wellspring-Committee-2017-990.html" style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">president</a>, previously served as JCN’s <a href="http://990s.foundationcenter.org/990_pdf_archive/202/202303252/202303252_201506_990O.pdf" style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">treasurer</a>; his wife, Ann, was <a href="http://990s.foundationcenter.org/990_pdf_archive/262/262046485/262046485_201512_990O.pdf" style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">leading</a> Wellspring at the time.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 20px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Wellspring has continued to send <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2017/03/wellsprings-dark-money-crucial-to-trump-orbit/" style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">massive annual endowments</a> to JCN <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2018/09/kavanaugh-confirmation-dark-money/" style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">since the group launched</a> in 2005. JCN, in turn, has continued to pour <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2018/10/only-a-fraction-of-dark-money-spending-on-kavanaugh-disclosed/" style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">tens of millions of dollars</a> into every subsequent Supreme Court nomination fight and working to reshape the judiciary. Wellspring reported donating <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/5299936-Wellspring-Committee-2017-990.html" style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">almost $15 million</a> to JCN in 2017, on top of <a href="https://maplight.org/story/tax-returns-identify-dark-money-organization-as-source-of-gop-supreme-court-attacks/" style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">$23.5 million</a> in 2016. Neither organization discloses the sources of its funds.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 20px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The 2017-18 tax return also reveals JCN paid $241,000 to BH Group — a Virginia limited-liability company <a href="https://maplight.org/story/new-dark-money-group-led-by-trump-judicial-adviser-tied-to-network-promoting-his-court-picks/" style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">tied to Leo</a>, the Trump judicial adviser — after paying the company <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/4463990-Judicial-Crisis-Network-990-2016-2017.html" style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">$947,000</a> the previous year. BH Group was responsible for a <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2018/11/trump-inauguration-money-links-secretive-dark-money/" style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">mysterious $1 million donation</a> to Trump’s inaugural committee in 2017. BH Group received at least <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/5299936-Wellspring-Committee-2017-990.html" style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">$919,000</a> from Wellspring and <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/5188744-Judicial-Education-Project-2017-990.html" style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">$1.4 million</a> from the Judicial Education Project, a nonprofit affiliated with JCN, through the end of 2017.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 20px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">JCN contributed $250,000 to the National Rifle Association (NRA), after giving the gun rights group $1 million from 2016-17. America Engaged, another nonprofit tied to Leo, also <a href="https://maplight.org/story/conservative-legal-interests-funneled-2-7-million-to-nra-freedom-partners-around-gorsuch-fight/" style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">gave $950,000</a> to the NRA in 2017. The NRA ran ads <a href="https://www.nraila.org/articles/20170328/nra-launches-ad-buy-urging-swift-confirmation-of-judge-neil-gorsuch" style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">boosting</a> <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/onpolitics/2018/08/07/national-rifle-association-ad-brett-kavanaugh-confirmation/923026002/" style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">both</a> Gorsuch and Kavanaugh.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 20px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">JCN gave almost $3.6 million to the <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/527s/527cmtedetail.php?ein=464501717&cycle=2016" style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">Republican Attorneys General Association</a> (RAGA) and $450,000 to the Rule of Law Defense Fund. RAGA <a href="https://maplight.org/story/conservative-group-led-by-epa-chief-pruitt-received-dark-money-to-battle-environmental-regulations/" style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">launched</a> the dark money policy fund while then-Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt was on the association’s board of directors. Pruitt later chaired the fund before Trump hired him to lead the Environmental Protection Agency.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 20px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">One of the many controversies Pruitt dealt with during his 17-month EPA tenure involved the revelation his wife <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/epa-chief-scott-pruitt-tapped-aide-donors-to-help-wife-land-job-at-conservative-group/2018/06/13/f54c87fa-6db1-11e8-afd5-778aca903bbe_story.html" style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">had secured</a> a position with JCN as a temporary contractor. JCN reportedly received her resume from Leo, who has helped raise much of the Wellspring Committee’s cash, according to <a href="https://www.mcclatchydc.com/latest-news/article210176219.html" style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">McClatchy</a>.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 20px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">From 2017-18, JCN continued quietly bankrolling a small but expanding circle of conservative groups aimed at attracting women, with $75,000 to the Susan B. Anthony List; $35,000 to the American Women’s Alliance; and $250,000 to Winning for Women, which was <a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2017/10/25/republican-women-congress-donors-244172" style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">launched</a> in 2017 as a conservative counterweight to EMILY’s List.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 20px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Susan B. Anthony List boosted Kavanaugh’s nomination and <a href="https://www.sba-list.org/newsroom/press-releases/media-advisory-sba-list-stands-strong-judge-kavanaugh" style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">continued</a> to support him after he was accused of sexual assault by Christine Blasey Ford, a Stanford University professor who knew the justice when he was in prep school. Winning for Women also threw their support behind Kavanaugh, spending on hundreds of videos and <a href="https://www.facebook.com/ads/library/?active_status=all&ad_type=political_and_issue_ads&country=US&page_ids[0]=456966364681704&q=Winning%20For%20Women%20kavanaugh" style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">Facebook ad buys</a> targeting women.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 20px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">JCN also donated $500,000 to A New Missouri, a dark money organization established to support the state’s former Republican governor, Eric Greitens. He <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2018/05/29/615295346/missouri-gov-eric-greitens-resigns" style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">resigned</a> last year amid an investigation into the organization.</font></p></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">capt 11/18</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">inaugural slush fund (find foreign money? russians?)</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2012/06/rich-rewards-one-mans-shadow-money-network/</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">howard rich 2012</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> is the eighth story in an exclusive series about the funding behind politically active tax-exempt organizations that don’t disclose their donors. You can read the other stories in the series here.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Long ago, Earth Day rooted itself in the minds of many Americans as a regular annual event — not bad for what started 42 years ago as a “teach-in” about the dangers of an industrial economy running amok.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But there have always been opponents to the environmentalist agenda, and on Earth Day 2012, they found that they had their own, modern-day “teach-in” — a four-and-a-half minute video posted on YouTube. The slick production, titled “If I Wanted America To Fail,” is a laundry list of libertarian grievances against big government billed as a response to the “economic suicide pact” of environmentalism.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“If I wanted America to fail, I would create countless new regulations and seldom cancel old ones,” says the narrator, black background and foreboding music adding to an apocalyptic tone. “They would be so complicated that only bureaucrats, lawyers and lobbyists could understand them. That way, small businesses with big ideas wouldn’t stand a chance.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">He goes on to mock alternative energy, the public education system and other standards of the left. “If I wanted America to fail, I would prey on the goodness and decency of ordinary Americans,” he concludes. “I would only need to convince them that all of this is for the greater good. If I wanted America to fail, I…I suppose I wouldn’t change a thing.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Heavily promoted by Michelle Malkin, Rush Limbaugh and other right-wing commentators, the video went viral, racking up 2.3 million views since it debuted.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But few, if any, of those millions of viewers understand the complicated web of secretive, densely interwoven political groups from which the video emerged.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">While the network is built around nonprofits with vague names and grassroots slogans that imply the participation of many ordinary Americans, it’s primarily the handiwork of one man: Howard Rich.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Rich, 72, made his fortune in Manhattan real estate, but since at least the early 1970s, his passion has been libertarian politics. He decamped from the Libertarian Party in the 1980s to establish his own network of like-minded think-tanks and publishing companies.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Rich is also prominently attached to leading national libertarian groups — he sits on the boards of directors of the Club for Growth and the Cato Institute. Yet he remains a mysterious figure, rarely interviewed and almost always several steps removed from any direct action.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Still, an examination of the publicity-shy mogul’s efforts makes several things clear. He is deeply committed to his ideological values — willing to spend massive amounts of money to push projects even in places where he has little apparent personal or business connection. He is single-minded in his approach, willing to lash out at conservatives as quickly and as viciously as he will go after liberals. And all indications are that he believes the ends justify the means, sometimes using money as a blunt force object to get his way.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">His involvement in electoral politics usually consists of transferring money — though it’s often difficult to say exactly whose money — into nonprofit groups that don’t disclose their donors. When he funds causes — or candidates — directly, Rich frequently camouflages his donations under any of dozens of nearly anonymous shell corporations. In that way, he’s the antithesis of a Sheldon Adelson, an ultra-rich Republicans who has openly given tens of millions to GOP presidential super PACs. On those occasions when Rich is revealed as the source of contributions, though, he’s been unapologetic about his role.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">According to Internal Revenue Service records analyzed by the Center for Responsive Politics, from the early 2000s at least through 2010 Rich was the linchpin holding together a confusing, swirling array of political organizations — all of them nondisclosing nonprofit groups — that spent heavily to influence state and federal politics around the country. The constellation of organizations that operate out of a handful of Rich-related addresses is constantly changing, but some of them are well-known: Rich, in his role as chairman of U.S. Term Limits, a 501(c)(4) group under tax rules, has for years been the driving force of the movement to curtail how long  elected officials can stay in office. He’s also the chairman of a 501(c)(4) group called Americans for Limited Government, which spent $1.02 million in 2010 targeting Democrats running for Congress and distributed millions more to other groups.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“If I Wanted America to Fail” is a textbook example of Rich’s tangled web. It was produced by a group called Free Market America, which, according to its website, is a joint project of Rich’s Americans for Limited Government and another group, Citizens for Limited Taxes and a Stronger Economy, Inc. Florida state records show that Citizens for Limited Taxes is registered at a Tampa address that also is home to at least 30 political action committees; the group’s only listed officers are two political operatives and the head of the Florida Chamber of Commerce. State campaign finance records show that in 2010, the group collected and spent more than $12 million helping defeat a proposition that would have slowed development in Florida. Its relationship with Rich? Like so much about his empire, that’s not entirely clear.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">OpenSecrets.org made multiple attempts to interview Rich and other individuals involved with his groups, including several board members. But Ray Wotring, Americans for Limited Government’s treasurer, said the group would not allow any representative to comment.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“You can keep pushing, but we’re not going to talk to you,” Wotring said, complaining that OpenSecrets.org published a “hatchet job on Howie in 2006.” For the record, OpenSecrets.org did not publish any articles about Rich in 2006, and has never written specifically about him.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Eric O’Keefe, who co-founded U.S. Term Limits with Rich and is currently the CEO of the Sam Adams Alliance, a tea party group, and board member of the Wisconsin Club for Growth, was the only individual close to Rich who would comment for this story. O’Keefe, who is no longer part of Rich’s organizations but said he follows them and counts Rich as a friend, said it is Rich’s deep commitment to libertarian ideals, not an expectation of payback, that drives his donations to political groups and candidates.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Howie has given millions of dollars to these causes,” O’Keefe said. “All of us benefit from a functioning democracy and a functioning market economy, but he has never expected to have a tangible return on his investments.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">O’Keefe said Rich is careful to obey laws as they are written, but opposes limits on campaign contributions.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“I can’t speak for him, but I know he pays a lot of money to attorneys to follow the rules,” O’Keefe said. “I know he doesn’t favor the system for limits on contributions” because he believes it favors incumbents.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Occasionally, Rich grants an interview or offers his opinion more directly — posting columns on his own website, for instance. In 2010, he penned one about the Rod Blagojevich scandal in Chicago, in which the former governor of Illinois was accused of selling political favors for campaign contributions. Rich, dripping with cynicism, portrayed the world of politics as a grimy, corrupt place.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“First of all, if you think this sort of pay-to-play scamming doesn’t go on every single day in Washington D.C. and state capitals all across America, I’ve got a bridge in Brooklyn I’d like to sell you,” Rich wrote, continuing:</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">It may not always be so mindlessly overt (and the tape recorder may not always be on), but in the post-Jack Abramoff world we live in – a world of “free home renovations” for U.S. Senators and cash hidden away in Representatives’ freezers – let’s not delude ourselves.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The network</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">One way to begin tracing Rich’s network is to follow the numbers — for example, 9900. At least six of the groups affiliated with Rich are based out of an office at 9900 Main Street in Fairfax, VA.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Suite 303 of that four-story office building is home to Americans for Limited Government Inc., Americans for Limited Government Foundation, U.S. Term Limits, Inc., U.S.Term Limits Foundation, Legislative Education Action Drive and Parents In Charge Foundation. Some are 501(c)(3) charities under the tax code, and some are 501(c)(4)s.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Rich is the chairman or president of all of them, with a tight circle of trusted lieutenants in key positions. Bill Wilson, a libertarian political operative who has worked with Rich since the 1990s, is a paid employee of all of the groups. And their various boards of directors are strikingly similar — and dominated by other prominent libertarians, like Ed Crane, the president of the Cato Institute, who in 2010 was a board member of four of Rich’s groups. Frayda Levy, who sits on the board of Club for Growth, is listed as a director of two of Rich’s groups.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Together, these six groups listed $11.6 million in revenues in 2010, the most recent year for which a report is available, and $12.8 million spent on things like political consultants, mass mailings and grants to other politically-oriented nonprofits. There tax status prevents them from having to publicly disclose their funders, so almost none of the $11.6 million these groups reported in revenue can be traced to a specific source.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">One exception: A recent OpenSecrets.org investigation into a previously unreported group called the Center to Protect Patient Rights found that the group gave tens of millions to major conservative 501(c)(4) organizations — including $5.6 million to Americans For Limited Government, Inc., in 2010. But that trail dead-ends at a post office box in Arizona, with no indication of who is providing the Center’s funds. And there’s very little indication where the rest of Rich’s network gets its money — although Rich’s own pocket is a possibility.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">O’Keefe declined to say whether Rich’s own money drives his organizations.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But O’Keefe said that he and Rich share the belief that donors have a constitutionally protected right to contribute to political causes (though not candidates) without having to reveal their names.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Our position was always that we were always happy to have people brag about their money, but it’s not our business to brag about their donations,” O’Keefe said.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Repeating an argument often made by those who oppose disclosure, O’Keefe said that when donors’ names are made public, they become targets for solicitations from other people seeking money, and it opens them up to retribution from powerful interests.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“That’s a real and ongoing concern,” he said. “We viewed it as our role to protect [donors] from that.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The churn</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Trying to trace the cashflow between Rich’s groups is a little like watching a Rube Goldberg contraption: there are a lot of moving parts. For instance, in 2010, Americans for Limited Government Foundation gave the Parents In Charge Foundation a grant of $225,000, and the U.S. Term Limits Foundation a grant of $234,000. But it also owed $1 million to its 501(c)(4) sibling, Americans for Limited Government, Inc.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Americans for Limited Government, Inc., in turn, gave a grant of $125,000 to U.S. Term Limits Inc. — and then lent it $346,000 more.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Yet the same year, U.S. Term Limits Foundation lent $85,000 back to Americans for Limited Government, Inc.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Confused yet? This may well be the point, or, according to tax attorney and former top IRS official Marcus Owens, it may be a clever system to skirt restrictions on how the organizations can operate. Because of the similarities between the various groups — their staffs, board members, missions and organizations they fund — the churn of cash back and forth raises questions, Owens said.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“It’s the same group, at the same address, with occasionally some new faces and they all seem to act on the same set of principles — limited government and term limits — so it seems kind of implausible that there is some sort of benefit from these internal financial relationships other than to disguise and modify the character of the money,” he said.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">For example, grants from a 501(c)(3) organization, such as U.S. Term Limits Foundation, couldn’t be used by a 501(c)(4), such as Americans for Limited Government, Inc., for political activity. Loans from the same group, structured as ordinary business transactions, would have no such restrictions, Owens noted.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Also, tax law requires 501(c)(4)s like Americans for Limited Government, Inc., to spend the majority of their resources on “social welfare” activities. Spending too much on politics can lead to a challenge of their tax-exempt status.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“If you have a 501(c)(4) that’s heavily engaged in political activity, it needs to somehow establish that 51 percent of what it does, isn’t political — how do you do that quickly? Make a grant,” Owens said. “You could have a sort of circular cycling of dollars that attempts to support the tax status of all the (c)(4)s in the network.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">And moving money between groups may help Rich’s organizations appear to be funded by multiple sources. Receiving all its donations from a single source can be problematic for an organization trying to maintain its favorable tax status, according to Owens, as it suggests the group’s purpose is to benefit that single donor.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The fact that Rich lends money to the groups in his network is unusual, Owens noted.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In 2010 Rich lent $772,000 to U.S. Term Limits, Inc., through Rich Lending Corporation. In previous years he lent money to Americans for Limited Government, Inc., and sometimes the group lent money back to Rich Lending Corporation, as well.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">According to Owens, this may be a way to gain a tax benefit for funding a politically active nonprofit. Simply donating money to the group money might not be tax deductible as a business expense — particularly if the group engages in lobbying or political activity, which Americans for Limited Government does. But if the money is loaned by a for-profit company it can be used for any purpose by the recipient and the source of the funds would avoid limitations on business deductions.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“If they loan money, then it’s not an expenditure, it’s a business transaction and any related expenses would likely be deductible,” Owens said.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The spread</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Rich’s network, though, isn’t entirely a closed system. The groups also spend money on political campaigns directly. OpenSecrets.org data shows Americans for Limited Government spent $1.02 million on mailers attacking Democrats in 2010 — the biggest target being Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) Another $6 million was spent hiring political consultants and direct-mailing firms in Utah, California and Arizona, according to the group’s tax form.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">And Rich’s groups also distribute to an array of other nondisclosing nonprofits in the form of grants.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In 2010, Americans for Limited Government sent $250,000 to Americans for Job Security, a nonprofit closely linked to several of George W. Bush’s top political advisers. Americans for Job Security spent almost $9 million in 2010, targeting mostly Democratic congressional candidates. It also stepped into an Alaskan state ballot initiative fight, spending $1.6 million supporting a local 501(c)(4) in an effort to try to defeat a referendum limiting mining. In response to complaints filed about the local group and its claims to be a grassroots organization, the Alaska Public Offices Commission opened an investigation to determine the group’s funding sources.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Americans for Job Security has no purpose other than to cover various money trails all over the country,” the commission’s report concluded.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">AJS, whose executive director shared office space with the Karl Rove-linked organization American Crossroads, was also accused in the report of being an improper conduit for money from the mine’s owner. Though AJS never admitted wrongdoing, it paid a $20,000 settlement.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Most of the grants Americans for Limited Government gave in 2010 seemed to follow a similar playbook: at least $1.1 million went to other 501(c)(4)s in three states — Colorado, South Carolina and Alaska. Those groups, in turn, passed much of the money on to other groups, which then intervened directly in local and state elections. Rich’s other groups made similar donations to many of the same local groups.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In Alaska, Americans for Limited Government sent $66,000 to a 501(c)(4) called Alaskans for Open Government — which in turn sent most of the money to another group called Clean Team Alaska. That group spent heavily to promote a ballot measure that would have banned virtually anyone who received public money — government contractors, municipalities, public employee unions (a regular hobgoblin in Rich’s writings) — from lobbying the government or contributing money to political campaigns. The effort was abruptly abandoned just before the Alaskan Public Offices Commission required the Alaskan groups to disclose their funders.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Rich is fond of ballot initiatives for a very simple reason, U.S. Term Limits co-founder O’Keefe says.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“They don’t change their mind after the election,” he said. “They don’t renege on campaign promises. It’s a policy, not a candidate. You don’t actually know what you’re getting back from a candidate.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[dyn graph] cf</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Rich’s Network: This interactive graphic displays some of the groups that are either part of Rich’s network of non-disclosing 501(c) organizations, or have received money from them, based on 990 forms filed with the Internal Revenue Service. You can zoom in or out, reduce the number of organizations to see only the larger ones, or reshape the network. To see the data behind this visualization — including the value and type of transaction between each group — click here to download an Excel (.xlsx) spreadsheet. </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Palmetto State Politics</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Rich may have made his biggest mark in South Carolina — a state where he appears to have no personal connections or obvious business interests. But since 2006, Rich has spent large sums in the state, largely to pursue one of his favored causes: School vouchers to allow parents to send their children to educational institutions other than their local neighborhood schools.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In 2010 alone, Rich’s organizations gave more than $1.7 million to a handful of South Carolina non-profits — groups like South Carolinians for Responsible Government and Conservatives In Action. South Carolinians for Responsible Government is actually two separate nonprofits, one a 501(c)(3) and another a 501(c)(4). Both groups are based at the same address and have the same president and identical boards of directors. Combined, they listed having more than $1.6 million in revenue in 2010.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“South Carolinians for Responsible Government is a statewide grassroots non-profit organization,” the group claims on its website. “Unlike our opponents, who use tax dollars to fund their operations, we depend entirely on the generosity of citizens like you.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But that’s true only if “citizens like you” includes four of Rich’s groups, which, according to their tax filings, made five grants to the two South Carolina organizations totaling $1.5 million — about 90 percent of the recipient groups’ revenues. It’s a classic Rich maneuver, indirect and complicated.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">As is Rich’s sidestepping of South Carolina’s campaign finance laws: A recent investigation by The State newspaper found that since 2008, Rich had contributed at least $188,000 to 38 members of the South Carolina House of Representatives. An OpenSecrets Blog review of South Carolina’s campaign finance disclosures indicate that since that article was published, Rich has given at least another $19,000 to three state Senate candidates facing primary fights.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But since South Carolina caps individual donations at $2,000, Rich had to be creative. Instead he made his gifts through shell companies with names like Stillrich LLC, Coolcal LLC, 188 Claremont LLC, 123 LaSalle, Inc., and 51 First Avenue, LLC. The companies, many of which appear to linger from Rich’s time in real estate – a realm in which it’s common for each property to exist as its own LLC — all list 1420 Walnut Street, Suite 1011, Philadelphia, PA, as their address.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">That’s the address of the Center for Independent Thought, the libertarian think tank run by Rich’s wife, Andrea Millen Rich.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Dick Harpootlian, the chairman of the South Carolina Democratic Party, is blunt in his assessment of Rich.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“He owns the whole fing state,” Harpootlian said recently in an interview with OpenSecrets Blog.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Phil Noble, a Democratic party activist who in 2010 traveled the state confronting candidates for taking Rich’s campaign contributions, is almost as blunt.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“He’s basically bought the Republican Party and virtually all the state House candidates is what it boils down to,” Noble told OpenSecrets Blog. “God knows how many millions he has spent here.” According to Noble, Rich first came to the state to back former governor Mark Sanford, who was a prominent school voucher proponent.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Noble said that Rich has targeted candidates, often moderate Republicans, in primary contests, usually shortly before an election. One left-wing South Carolina blog found that in 2008, LLCs and individuals affiliated with Rich contributed $40,000 to a conservative state Senate candidate, Lee Bright, in the final two weeks before he faced off against an incumbent Republican. The contributions, which were not made public until after the vote, accounted for 20 percent of Bright’s funds in that election.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Simultaneously, the South Carolina Club For Growth — a group affiliated with the national Club For Growth, where Rich is a board member — dropped an attack ad on the incumbent, blasting him for taking money from trial lawyers.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Bright narrowly won the race.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Noble blames Rich for corrupting South Carolina’s political culture by encouraging the development and use of secretive non-profits to attack political enemies.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“He was sort of the impetus for the the creation of a whole (c)(4) support network for Sanford and his agenda,” Noble said. “He brought that whole culture with him.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Furthermore, said Noble, Rich and his network “don’t care at all” about bad publicity. “They just spend what they have to, and they keep spending big.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Continuing to Spend</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">There are indications that increasingly Rich is aiming his operation at federal politics. For the past two years, OpenSecrets.org data shows, Americans For Limited Government, Inc., has employed a federal lobbyist. So far this year, the group has lobbied in support of two anti- union bills, including one sponsored by Rep. Jeff Duncan (R-S.C.), to whose campaign Rich personally gave $2,500. NetRightDaily.com, an online publication sponsored by Americans for Limited Government, has trumpeted the role the group played helping Duncan develop the legislation.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In March, Rich gave $50,000 to the Club For Growth Action Fund, a super PAC affiliated with the libertarian Club For Growth where Rich is on the board. Characteristically, Rich shrouded the donation under cover of a shell corporation, Ashborough Investors LLC, which lists his wife as the manager.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">He has given another $48,500 directly to candidates like Richard Mourdock, the Indiana Tea Party challenger who successfully upset long-time incumbent Republican Sen. Dick Lugar, as well as to PACs — including Club for Growth and the Term Limits America PAC.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">If Rich is gearing up his operation for a big effort at the federal level, there will likely be a liberal pushback — his name is often mentioned on liberal blogs in the same breath as the Koch brothers (although CRP found no direct connection between Rich and the Kochs).</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But if Rich is pushed on his campaign finance activities, expect him to push back.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In 2008, when a liberal group took it upon itself to notify conservative donors with ties to non-disclosing outside spending groups that they were being watched for possible election and tax law violations, Howard Rich — despite his own extensive involvement with political groups that hide their funding sources — sent a similar letter to liberal donors.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“As a donor to one or more of these organizations and efforts, you have been able to engage in these activities without notice, operating in relative obscurity. I am writing to inform you that this will no longer be the case,” Rich wrote in his letter. “Your name has been put in our database. We are monitoring all reports of a wide variety of leftist organizations. As your name appears in subsequent reports, it is our intent to publicize your involvement in your local community.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Center for Responsive Politics researcher Robert Maguire contributed to this story.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">https://truthout.org/articles/one-six-figure-donor-funds-whitaker-nonprofit-with-dark-money/</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A single six-figure donor accounted for 100 percent of funding raised by a nonprofit run by acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker before he became Jeff Sessions’ chief of staff last year, new tax documents obtained by the Center for Responsive Politics reveal.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">President Trump tapped Whitaker to become acting Attorney General earlier in November after Jeff Sessions was asked to resign.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Foundation for Accountability and Civic Trust (FACT) is a self-proclaimed 501(c)(3) “watchdog” nonprofit.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">This is not the first year a single big donor has accounted for the entirety of FACT’s funding, according to an exclusive new analysis by CRP. Nearly 100 percent of FACT’s funding — all but a few dollars in interest accrued on money left-over from prior years — came from a single anonymous donor again in 2015, 2016 and again last year.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">CRP discovered FACT’s first tax return back in 2016, revealing its funding — $600,000 for 2014, its first year of operation — came entirely from a donor-advised fund called DonorsTrust, which acts as a pass-through vessel managing the money flow from wealthy individuals and foundations to nonprofit organizations while allowing the donors to remain anonymous. Beneficiaries of DonorsTrust include a breadth of conservative and libertarian initiatives. Due to DonorsTrust’s design, although CRP is able to reveal the direct funder of FACT by piecing together grants from different tax returns, the ultimate donor remains hidden.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">New tax returns obtained by CRP show that wasn’t the only time DonorsTrust was FACT’s main funder. In fact, DonorsTrust accounted for 100 percent of FACT’s income from donations again in 2015, in 2016 and its most recent tax return — meaning Whitaker’s organization that claimed to be “dedicated to promoting accountability, ethics, and transparency” has gotten all of its funds from a group that exists mainly as a vehicle for donors to elude transparency every year since its inception.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">deep Ties to Dark Money Networks</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In their application for tax-exempt status, FACT — then called the Free Market America Educational Foundation — told the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) that its purpose was to “conduct research and provide informational studies on free market concepts in relation to environmental regulations and policy.” The IRS approved the group’s application for tax-exempt charity status on July 21, 2014, according to its determination letter.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Tax-exempt status in hand, the nonprofit changed its address to a UPS store and its name just weeks later, according to Virginia incorporation records. The nonprofit changed its name again that October, first to the Working for Rights to Express & Communication before finally landing on its current name — ultimately changing its name three times in the months following IRS approval for tax-exempt status, twice in just one day. That month, Whitaker, took control of the organization after losing his bid for a U.S. Senate seat in Iowa. </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">As the Free Market America Educational Foundation, the group was started by Ray Wotring, an operative who had long ago been tied to another shadowy network of politically active nonprofits. Wotring also served on another conservative nonprofit, Americans for Limited Government, which has close financial ties to the network and shared the same UPS story mailing address as FACT’s first iteration as the Free Market America Educational Foundation as well as Free Market America’s 501(c)(4) nonprofit arm.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Free Market America’s nonprofit arm has remained active and began to spend on lobbying in 2018, reporting six-figure spending.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">FACT’s dark money ties don’t end there.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The treasurer and a member of the board of directors at FACT is Neil Corkery. Corkery, along with his wife Ann, sit at the helm of a network of conservative “dark money” groups organized to influence public policy and has become a key player promoting Trump’s agenda.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The network has become well-known for the Judicial Crisis Network(JCN), a nondisclosing group that emerged as the predominant dark money spender in Supreme Court confirmation fights since its launch in 2005, allowing deep-pocketed donors to funnel millions of dollars opposing or supporting judicial nominees, including a pledge to spent $10 million on the confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. JCN’s primary benefactor over the years has been the Wellspring Committee, an even more opaque nonprofit run by the Corkerys that accounted for over 80 percent of its total revenue in 2016.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Many of the groups tied to the network list the same address as their office, with different “suite” numbers. In reality, the address is also a UPS store and the suite numbers are PO boxes.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Links to Trump’s Mysterious Inaugural Donor</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In addition to its ostensible political spending fueled by secret donors, disclosures by groups in the Corkery’s network have also raised question about other vehicles of influence behind the scenes, most notably in ties to a $1 million gift to President Donald Trump’s inaugural committee from a mysterious Northern Virginia company called BH Group, LLC.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Little is known about the LLC other than the seven-figure check on Dec. 22, 2016, almost a month before President Trump was sworn in, and a trail of clues pieced together from tax documents and other disclosures.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">These clues have also led to Leonard Leo, the executive vice president at the Federalist Society, who listed “BH Group” as his employer in a filingwith the Federal Election Commission.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Tax documents previously obtained by CRP show that the Wellspring Committee made a $750,000 payment to BH Group for “public relations” and that JCN made an additional cash infusion of $947,000to the BH Group around when the LLC made its inaugural donation.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">New tax documents first obtained by Maplight and reviewed by CRP reveal that Judicial Education Project, JCN’s sister 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, paid an additional $1.3 million to BH Group LLC last year.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">As a 501(c)(3) organization, Judicial Education Fund is not required to reveal its donors and chooses to keep them secret. However, CRP has been able to trace the source of the bulk of the group’s 2017 funding. Like FACT, Judicial Education Fund received millions of dollars coming from DonorsTrust accounting for more than 99 percent of the group’s funding.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">That newly revealed payment from Judicial Education Fund brings the total known income for the BH Group to more than $3 million, according to CRP’s analysis — over three times the $1 million it gave to President Trump’s inaugural committee and raising more questions about its other activities that have yet to be reported.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Whitaker’s Watchdog</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">FACT’s own activities since 2014 have largely revolved around legal and ethics complaints, mostly targeting Democrats and with a particularly aggressive focus on Hillary Clinton during the 2016 presidential election.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">FACT has paid more than half-a-million dollars to Republican opposition research firm America Rising LLC, according to its most recent three tax returns.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">FACT raised just over $3.4 million since it was conceived in 2014, according to tax filings obtained by CRP. Whitaker’s salary accounts for more than a third of FACT’s entire revenue since its exception, making him its single largest expense.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Whitaker received more than $1.2 million from FACT over the three years he led the organization, according to CRP’s analysis of the group’s tax returns, with the salary he drew from FACT rising precipitously — in some cases increasing by more than six-figures with each passing year.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Whitaker made $502,000 in 2017 — around half of FACT’s spending — despite having left the organization to take a position at the Justice Department as then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ chief of staff in September of that year.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[graph]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">FACT provided the vast majority of Whitaker’s income for the entire span of time covered by his financial disclosures on file with the Office of Government Ethics and released by the Justice Department the Tuesday before Thanksgiving, following weeks of scrutiny and multiple requests.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Whitaker’s selection as acting Attorney General has been contested on multiple fronts, and the release of his financial disclosures has only fueled the dumpster fire.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Disclosures revealed that Whitaker’s unsuccessful 2014 campaign received four donations totaling $8,800 this year — years after he lost the election and just months after he joined the Justice Department. The donations were the only money the campaign has received in over two years, raising questions about the potential implications of the donations under the Hatch Act, a federal law that generally prohibits federal officials from knowingly soliciting or accepting campaign donations and a separate Justice Department memo further restricting political activity by its personnel in the hopes of keeping the agency as apolitical as possible.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A provision of the Hatch Act allows officials to raise money to retire campaign debt, but the campaign’s only reported spending was 2018 were $228 to reimburse “data services” and $500 to Whitaker’s old law firm for renting office space, according to the New York Times.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Whitaker’s law partner of eight years, William Gustoff, who was treasurer for Whitaker’s unsuccessful 2014 Senate campaign and also serves on the board of FACT, signed off on the FEC filings.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“The checks came in. I, as the treasurer, deposited the checks, and I retired the debt that I knew I could without talking to Matt,” Gustoff told the New York Times, “I don’t talk to Matt about the campaign.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Gustoff did say that FACT had been “well received” by Republican donors.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">2017 Form 990 tax returns for DonorsTrust and Judicial Education Project were first obtained by Maplight’s Andrew Perez and reviewed by the Center for Responsive Politics.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">wsj</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">...</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Federal ethics regulations governing the Justice Department are more generally focused on financial or legal conflicts of interest, rather than past commentary. Justice Department ethics lawyers offer advice, but not strict orders, about whether an official should recuse, though other officials have typically followed their guidance.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Mr. Whitaker has sometimes had a difficult relationship with other department officials, people familiar with the department’s leadership said. He was tapped to replace Jody Hunt, Mr. Sessions’ former chief of staff, who was a longtime Justice Department employee with a more relaxed management style than Mr. Whitaker’s more aggressive approach, people who know both men said.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">He had no relationship with Mr. Sessions or the rest of the department brass before arriving. He was installed at the suggestion of Leonard Leo, head of the influential Federalist Society, upon whom Mr. Trump relies when it comes to picking judges, who admired his style and connections to the conservative legal world, people familiar with the matter said. He has allies in the White House. When Mr. Rosenstein’s departure seemed imminent last month, White House and Justice Department officials crafted a plan to have Mr. Whitaker replace him, people familiar with it said.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Outward signs of the leadership shift were already evident Thursday. Mr. Whitaker attended a formal investiture for new Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh in Mr. Sessions’ stead, reciting the lines from the lectern before the sitting justices. When a court clerk read aloud Justice Kavanaugh’s commission, the text concluded with the name of the signatory, Mr. Sessions.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">...</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">https://www.thenation.com/article/the-anti-catholic-playbook/ no lnx</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">CAMPAIGNS AND ELECTIONS</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">CORRUPTIONPODCASTS OPP-ART: DISPATCHES FROM THE RESISTANCE</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Nation</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">SUPREME COURT  The ‘Anti-Catholic’ Playbook</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">SUPREME COURTRELIGIONBRETT KAVANAUGH</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The ‘Anti-Catholic’ Playbook</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Does Brett Kavanaugh think abortion should be illegal? A secret network of right-wing activists has spent millions attacking such questions as anti-religious bigotry.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">By Sarah PosnerTwitter SEPTEMBER 5, 2018</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Confirmation hearings for President Donald Trump’s Supreme Court pick, Brett Kavanaugh, began yesterday with a sustained uproar from Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee, who protested Republican efforts to barrel through the process. From the opening moments, Democrats prevailed on committee chair Charles Grassley to postpone the hearings—or entertain their motion to adjourn—because so many of Kavanaugh’s records as associate White House counsel, and all of his records as staff secretary to President George W. Bush, have yet to be released.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">This article was reported in partnership with The Investigative Fund at The Nation Institute, where Sarah Posner is a reporting fellow. Additional research by Eli Clifton, Richard Salame and Maia Hibbett.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Committee Republicans, undaunted by this breach of transparency, turned to laying the groundwork for the questioning of Kavanaugh, set to begin this morning, by sowing fear in the Republican base about what Democrats would do if he were not confirmed and they gained more control of the confirmation process after the midterms. Senator Ted Cruz reminded the public of litigation brought by religious groups, including Catholic nuns, against the Obama administration, claiming that employer-provided contraception coverage under the Affordable Care Act violated their religious freedom. Democrats, Cruz charged, “want justices who will further that assault on religious liberty.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The hearings were fast-tracked by Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell, who is pressing the Senate to confirm Kavanaugh by October 1. The rushed timeline is just the latest maneuver in an aggressive Republican campaign to make sweeping, long-lasting changes to the federal judiciary by packing it with judges hostile to civil rights, reproductive freedom, LGBTQ equality, and church-state separation—while at the same time taking extreme measures to block Democratic nominees. If he is confirmed, the 53-year-old Kavanaugh could tip the balance of the high court for decades, potentially overturning the right to an abortion and dramatically expanding religious exemptions to civil-rights laws and reproductive-health services. He could play a pivotal role in matters that could decide the future of the Trump presidency, from the scope of executive power, which Kavanaugh has argued is vast, to whether or not a sitting president may be subpoenaed or charged with a crime. On a wide range of issues with a profound impact on the daily lives of Americans, a Justice Kavanaugh could prove the decisive vote that cements conservative gains, while wiping out past civil-rights advances.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In the coming days, the 21 senators on the judiciary committee will have an opportunity to ask Kavanaugh tough questions about his legal philosophy on abortion, LGBTQ rights, executive power, and, as the point person on government faith-based initiatives while in the White House counsel’s office of George W. Bush, the proper role of government in the face of faith-based discrimination. Civil-rights advocates say these are precisely the questions that must be posed, given the stakes in choosing a successor to Anthony Kennedy, long the Court’s crucial swing vote on many of these issues. But if a tight-knit network of conservative activists has its way, these senators will instead pull their punches, fearing ferocious, well-funded attacks that deliberately misrepresent such scrutiny as signs of anti-religious bias.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Conservatives, including Kavanaugh himself, have long awaited and carefully prepared for this moment. In the wake of the crushing defeat of conservative legal hero Robert Bork, nominated to the Supreme Court in 1987, and deep disappointment that subsequent, more-moderate Republican appointees Kennedy and David Souter failed to adjudicate as conservative ideologues, right-wing political operatives began building a new strategy for the courts. The Federalist Society continued to build a pipeline of conservative nominees, but strategists bruised from the Bork fight knew they also would need a hard-hitting public-relations campaign to press for their confirmation. They would have to successfully portray rigid ideologues as mainstream, while intimidating lawmakers from grilling them on their more extreme views.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A key tactic would be to shut down questioning on how the nominee would approach cases on abortion or LGBTQ rights by accusing Democratic senators probing these issues of being anti-religious—even anti-Catholic—bigots.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">That campaign, honed over more than a decade, has been fueled by tens of millions of dollars in dark-money donations, designed by conservative political consultants and PR firms, disseminated by advocacy groups such as the Catholic League and the Judicial Crisis Network, and validated by GOP senators such as Orrin Hatch, who in past confirmation battles has accused “the left” of “trying to enforce an anti-religious litmus test.” The network also includes Federalist Society executive Leonard Leo, who famously delivered a list of judicial nominees to then-candidate Trump, and has continued to closely advise him on his picks as president.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In his East Room speech accepting Trump’s nomination in July, Kavanaugh spoke often about his faith. He recalled his Jesuit education at Georgetown Preparatory School, in the suburbs of Washington, DC, which taught him the motto “men for others,” a creed Kavanaugh said had inspired a lifelong dedication to public service. He highlighted his standing in “the vibrant Catholic community” in Washington, noting that “the members of that community disagree about many things, but we are united by a commitment to serve.” He hit the same notes yesterday in his opening remarks, referencing his Jesuit education and his volunteer work with Catholic Charities.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In emphasizing his Catholic faith, Kavanaugh had perfectly teed up conservative activists to launch a preemptive attack on anyone who might question his views on abortion, LGBTQ issues, and religious liberty. Within hours of his nomination, one conservative Catholic advocacy organization, Catholic Vote, which claims nearly half a million lay Catholics as members, declared Catholic voters to be “thrilled” with the pick, but warned that they would be vigilant for “any whiff of anti-Catholic bigotry” in the confirmation process. “The experience of past judicial confirmation battles suggest attacks on a nominee’s personal religious views are inevitable,” the group’s president, Brian Burch, said. Op-eds warned of “another explosion of public anti-Catholicism” and predicted the “ugly insinuation” of “the same ‘dual loyalties’ chestnut that bigots have smeared Catholic candidates for public office for going on 200 years in this country.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Kavanaugh’s nomination was not even a day old, yet Burch was already issuing a warning: “CatholicVote.org is prepared to defend Judge Kavanaugh from any such personal smear campaign by anti-Catholic zealots. We intend to hold every Senator, of both parties, accountable. Any whiff of anti-Catholic bigotry must be met with universal condemnation by every senator. This is especially true for those senators seeking re-election in states won by President Trump.” These senators include North Dakota’s Heidi Heitkamp, Indiana’s Joe Donnelly, and West Virginia’s Joe Manchin—all Democrats in close races. All three are Catholic, and all three have been targeted with ads over the Kavanaugh nomination by Catholic Vote and the Judicial Crisis Network.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">It’s unlikely that anyone on the Senate Judiciary Committee missed Burch’s meaning. The network had bludgeoned Dianne Feinstein of California, the committee’s ranking Democrat, for a year over a single sentence she uttered during confirmation hearings last September for Amy Coney Barrett, a Notre Dame Law School professor and conservative Catholic whom Trump had nominated to serve on the US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. After Barrett insisted that as a judge she would follow Supreme Court precedent, Feinstein asked how Barrett would resolve conflicts between her religious beliefs and the law as a judge. “Dogma and law are two different things,” Feinstein told Barrett. “I think whatever a religion is, it has its own dogma. The law is totally different. And I think in your case, professor, when you read your speeches, the conclusion one draws is that the dogma lives loudly within you. And that’s of concern when you come to big issues that large numbers of people have fought for for years in this country.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The clip caused an immediate uproar among conservatives. Catholic Vote published a piece on its website, “Dear Anti-Catholic Left: Bigotry Lives Loudly Within You.” The Judicial Crisis Network, the dark-money group at the center of the conservative march to stack the courts, leapt to Barrett’s defense with an inflammatory, six-figure ad campaign, titled “Catholics Need Not Apply.” It accused Feinstein and fellow Judiciary Committee Democrat Dick Durbin of Illinois, himself a Catholic, of having “mocked” Barrett’s faith. “Their hypocrisy knows no limits,” the ad charged. “They attack a woman for her Catholic faith, make it a religious test, while they are afraid to call radical Islam, radical Islam.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Senate confirmed Barrett, who became an instant celebrity to Trump’s Christian-right base, a standing that soon landed her on Trump’s short list for the Supreme Court. Meanwhile a variation on Feinstein’s phrase—“the dogma lives loudly within me”—became a right-wing meme, appearing on T-shirts and coffee mugs sold on conservative websites, and her quote continues to provide fodder for right-wing pundits.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But while conservative Catholic activists have succeeded in claiming loudly that they have been oppressed, many liberal Catholic leaders argue that their views don’t represent all Catholics. “The religious right, including ultraconservative Catholic special-interest groups, are the squeaky wheel in American politics,” said Jon O’Brien, President of Catholics for Choice. “They get heard and privileged above the majority of Americans of faith or no faith. We are incredibly concerned that Kavanaugh and the special interests he is backed by will radically redefine religious freedom in America to mean religious privilege for a few at the expense of everyone else, including women and LGBT individuals.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Indeed, yesterday, as Kavanaugh’s hearings got underway, 1,550 Catholic nuns, priests, deacons, and other leaders wrote to the Senate raising concerns about Kavanaugh’s views on health care, immigration, workers’ rights, voting rights, and the death penalty. “As Catholics,” they wrote, “we believe that any government official—including a Supreme Court Justice—must be concerned with the needs of people who are marginalized, not just the rich and powerful or a member of one’s own political party.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Kavanaugh, it turns out, is deeply familiar with this playbook built around allegations of bias, as it dates back to his days as a top adviser in the George W. Bush White House during the religion wars over Bush’s judicial nominees, some of whom had out-of-the-mainstream views on abortion, gender, and LGBTQ rights.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">From 2001 through the middle of 2003, Kavanaugh served as associate White House counsel, helping Bush shepherd his judicial nominations through the Senate. In mid-2003, Bush named Kavanaugh his special adviser and staff secretary; shortly afterward, he nominated Kavanaugh to be a judge on the powerful US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Throughout this period, Bush’s judicial nominees—many of whom, like Trump’s nominees, had been cultivated and vetted by the Federalist Society—provoked pitched confrontations in a narrowly divided Senate.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In 2003, while Kavanaugh was still in the White House counsel’s office, conservatives accused Democrats of anti-Catholic bias during confirmation hearings for James Leon Holmes, whom Bush had nominated to be a federal trial judge in Arkansas. Holmes had a history of misogynist writing in which he had argued, with his wife, that “the woman is to place herself under the authority of the man” and insisted that an abortion ban would not violate the rights of women who had been sexually assaulted. “Concern for rape victims is a red herring,” he wrote in a letter to a local newspaper, “because conceptions from rape occur with approximately the same frequency as snowfall in Miami.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The “controversy around Leon Holmes,” according to an account by conservative Catholic political operative Deal Hudson, provided a “perfect opening” for Republicans to accuse Democrats of being anti-Catholic. According to documents related to Kavanaugh’s White House tenure released by the George W. Bush Presidential Library, Manuel Miranda, at the time counsel to Senate majority leader Bill Frist, circulated an e-mail blast to White House staff, including Kavanaugh, from the arch-conservative Catholic League. “catholicism on trial: religious test applied to judicial nominee,” it read, going on to describe Holmes as “a man of deep religious conviction” and accuse Democrats of having “unfairly tagged him a misogynist, misunderstanding what the pope, the U.S. bishops and Holmes have said regarding this matter.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“It does not get better than this,” Miranda enthused in his cover note. Miranda later left his post over a scandal in which he was implicated in secretly accessing and leaking Democratic computer files about judicial nominations. Holmes was confirmed.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The religion wars only intensified when Bush nominated William Pryor to serve on the US Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit. Because he was up for an appellate seat, Pryor generated more adamant Democratic opposition than had Holmes. Senators probed his hard-line beliefs on abortion, church-state separation, and LGBTQ rights, including questioning him about his rescheduling of a family vacation to Disney World because it coincided with “Gay Day,”and an amicus brief he authored as Alabama attorney general in the landmark Supreme Court case Lawrence v. Texas, in which he argued that gay sex should remain criminalized because the Court had “never recognized a fundamental right to engage in sexual activity outside of monogamous heterosexual marriage, let alone to engage in homosexual sodomy.” Pryor supporters, again, portrayed legitimate questions about a nominee’s position on abortion—a constitutional right that enjoys majority support among not only Americans as a whole but also among Catholics—as a de facto litmus test against Catholics.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Their intention is smearing senators as anti-religious for asking questions,” said Peter Montgomery, senior fellow at People for the American Way, which has been in the thick of judicial nominations for decades. “In doing that they’re hoping to intimidate the senator somehow. They raise these questions when senators are asking the nominees about important issues like Roe v. Wade.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Throughout this entire period, Kavanaugh was specifically enlisted by the Bush White House to engage the Catholic community, including about judges. He was asked, along with Karl Rove, to address supporters of the Catholic magazine Crisis. He also spoke about judicial nominations to a Pro-Life Pilgrimage from Legatus, a conservative Catholic network created by Domino’s Pizza founder Thomas Monaghan, for Catholic business leaders who have “committed themselves to study, live and spread the Catholic faith in their business and personal lives.” And he volunteered to be the office’s specialist on faith-based initiatives, “given my general interest and my previous religious liberty work in my pre-WH days.” Kavanaugh had served on the Religious Liberty Practice Group at the Federalist Society; in private practice he authored an amicus brief in a school-prayer case, arguing that student-delivered prayers at football games were constitutional (the Supreme Court held that they were not).</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">It was during the Pryor nomination fight that conservative advocacy groups first aggressively advanced the claim that Catholics were being excluded from the bench by the left. The Committee for Justice, led by former George H.W. Bush White House Counsel C. Boyden Gray, and the Ave Maria List, a political-action committee funded by Monaghan, ran newspaper ads in support of Pryor that targeted moderate and swing-state Democratic senators. The ads featured a picture of a closed courtroom door with a sign over it reading, “Catholics Need Not Apply”—the first of the phrase’s many appearances in confirmation campaigns.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Senate Republicans helped press the charge that Democrats were anti-religion. Hatch, then the chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, told reporters, “It appears that nominees who openly adhere to Catholic and Baptist doctrines, as a matter of personal faith, are unqualified for the federal bench in the eyes of the liberal Washington interest groups. Period.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But the Committee for Justice ads drew condemnation from other quarters, including from the Anti-Defamation League, which protested that they were “misleading and inflammatory.” A Washington Post editorial described them as “beyond the pale.” Senate Democrats mounted a filibuster, consigning Pryor to a recess appointment, but he was eventually confirmed in 2005 in a bipartisan deal.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The political battle, however, turned out to be far more damaging to the senators who had opposed Pryor’s confirmation. As the 2004 election season got underway, it became clear that an attack machine sounding the alarm about anti-Catholic bias was perfectly comfortable with harsh assaults on Catholic Democrats. Then–Senate minority leader Tom Daschle of South Dakota and Patrick Leahy of Vermont, both Catholics themselves, had denounced the Committee for Justice ads on the Senate floor. Daschle, declaring himself “proud of my Catholic faith,” said, “I know about the bias against immigrants and against Catholics. That was real discrimination. What is being spread this week is a falsehood uttered for partisan political purposes.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Despite his public declaration of pride in his Catholic faith, Daschle would become a target of conservatives—including conservative Catholics—who sought to oust him from the Senate in order to pave a clear path for confirmation of Bush’s judicial picks. The 2004 elections, with John Kerry, another liberal Catholic at the top of the presidential ticket, featured brutal attacks on both men’s faith.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Republican National Committee attacked Kerry’s Catholicism, launching a website, KerryWrongforCatholics.com, critical of his positions on abortion, same-sex marriage, and judicial nominations, noting that as senator he had pledged to “filibuster any Supreme Court nominee who would turn back the clock on the right to choose, on civil rights and individual liberties, on the laws protecting workers and the environment.” Kerry was also being Swift Boated, a campaign conceived in part by a PR firm, Creative Response Concepts, that would go on to become a player in the Catholic judicial-nominations network. The Committee for Justice launched a website and ad campaign called “Kerry’s Scary” to attack his views on abortion, same-sex marriage and the pope, as well as his judicial philosophy, calling the latter issue urgent because “Court watchers believe as many as four Justices might retire in the next four years.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Conservatives also raised questions about Daschle’s Catholicism during his 2004 reelection bid, attacking him in ads over his stance on the judiciary, abortion, and LGBTQ rights. The stakes were high for those who dreamed of a conservative takeover of the courts: If Democrats reversed Republicans’ razor-thin margin in the Senate, they would control the chamber, giving them the ability to block Bush’s nominees, including for anticipated Supreme Court vacancies, or push through those nominated by a potential president Kerry.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Even before the campaign got underway, conservative magazines spread stories that Daschle’s bishop was denying him communion because he was divorced. Then the ads started. The Ave Maria List PAC spent $100,000 running ads accusing Daschle of misinforming South Dakota voters that he was against abortion. One ad said Daschle had once called abortion “an abhorrent practice,” but had later supported pro-choice groups as senator. “Tom Daschle tries to claim he’s pro-life even though his voting record and actions in Washington prove he’s not,” the ad charged. “Tom Daschle has changed and it’s time for South Dakota voters to make a change of their own.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Another anti-Daschle ad campaign, titled “You’re Fired”—modeled on Trump’s reality-television show The Apprentice—was produced by the You’re Fired PAC and funded by Robin P. Arkley II, a California real-estate magnate. Arkley donated over half a million dollars to the effort.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“The people of South Dakota want to protect traditional marriage,” an affiliated website declared. “You’re Fired Inc. believes the Federal Marriage Amendment is the only way to prevent liberal, activist judges from imposing same sex marriage as they have in Massachusetts—on the rest of American society.” The site depicted a boardroom meeting, during which an executive concluded, “We have one too many Democrats around here and that’s not a good thing,” punctuating his statement with the trademark “You’re fired.” Another Arkley ad charged that Daschle “refused to protect marriage” and “would let liberal, activist judges redefine it.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Daschle lost his reelection bid, the Republicans retained control of the Senate, and Bush beat Kerry, winning reelection to a second term during which he put John Roberts and Samuel Alito on the Supreme Court.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">With the White House and Senate in Republican hands, and with the GOP riding high on passing same-sex marriage bans at the ballot box in 11 states, conservative activists set to work on getting Bush’s conservative judicial nominees confirmed. After the 2004 election, one of Arkley’s top aides, Ann Corkery, who had directed philanthropy at his loan-servicing firm, founded the Judicial Confirmation Network. The group blandly described itself as “an organization of citizens joined together to support the confirmation of highly qualified individuals to the Supreme Court of the United States.” Yet Corkery and her husband Neil would soon become pivotal figures in a broadening coalition of conservatives as they prepared for the confirmation battles ahead.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">That coalition, according to a 2006 account in Crisis magazine, was directed by a “war room” of activists “acquainted with each other through Catholic and conservative public causes.” Among them were major players from the Bush reelection campaign, including Gary Marx, who had led the campaign’s outreach to social conservatives, and Greg Mueller, described by Crisis as “the group’s public-relations maestro,” whose public relations firm, Creative Response Concepts, had advised Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. Today, CRC represents the Judicial Crisis Network as well as the Catholic Association, another advocacy group the Corkerys helped launch in 2007, to influence policy-makers on issues concerning “the family, Catholic institutions, religious liberty, and cultural values.” CRC did not respond to repeated requests to interview representatives of JCN and the Catholic Association.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">According to Crisis, “Mueller, Leo, and their colleagues would provide the main talking points, media training, rapid response to any attacks on the nominees, assistance with ad buys, and ongoing legal analysis.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Our most important goals were to support the idea of judicial restraint, to define the character of the nominee within the first 24 hours, and to continue to provide support as the process wended its way,” Leo told Crisis, reflecting on the war room’s role in the successful confirmation of both Roberts and Alito. “To accomplish this, we engaged in a variety of approaches—an aggressive paid media effort, rapid response activity, and positive messages.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Mueller described the war room in far more political terms. “We tried to take the approach of corporate crisis management, along with the daily political communications that go on in a political campaign.” It fell to Marx, fresh off the Bush-Cheney campaign and newly appointed as JCN’s first executive director, as Crisis wrote, to develop “a state-based strategy that would target the political pressure points—an organization that would make Democratic senators in Republican states feel the political heat.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">During Bush’s second term—as Kavanaugh’s nomination to the DC Circuit was held up over a period of years, with Democrats arguing that his role in drafting the Starr Report and in the investigation of the suicide of Clinton aide Vince Foster had marked him as too partisan to warrant his confirmation as a judge—the war room kicked in. JCN openly threatened Democratic senators with the Daschle treatment. If lawmakers filibuster Kavanaugh, JCN warned in 2006, a midterm-election year, “Americans in key states will react just as they did when former Senate Democrat leader Tom Daschle did the same thing. Americans care about judges and the role of the courts in our society.” The Senate confirmed Kavanaugh two weeks later, by a vote of 57-36.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Today, the president of JCN is not a public figure like Marx but a player so behind-the-scenes as to barely leave a public trace. But Daniel Casey, a public-relations, political, and “crisis” consultant, is a veteran of the Bork confirmation battle—a fight that conservatives painfully lost, triggering the scorched-earth organizing JCN spearheads today.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Then the executive director of the American Conservative Union, Casey was “a crucial player” in the Bork fight, said Patrick McGuigan, who worked then for the Free Congress Foundation, a political advocacy group founded by religious-right architect Paul Weyrich that helped push the GOP to the right. The dust jacket of Ninth Justice, a book McGuigan wrote with Weyrich’s daughter Dawn, detailing each move and countermove in the Bork fight, describes McGuigan and Casey as “intensely Republican, devout Catholics, ardent admirers of the nominee—who understood from the first moment of the battle that they were involved in the most significant political confrontation of their lives.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">McGuigan, who now works as a journalist in Oklahoma, described his relationship with Casey as “co-captains” in the Bork battle, in which conservatives were heavily outspent and outmaneuvered by the liberal opposition. He said that at the time, there was “insufficient organization of ideas and messaging on the conservative side of things compared to the left side.” Casey’s forte, said McGuigan, was “neighborhood by neighborhood, precinct by precinct, household by household organization patterned after the labor unions, but on the conservative end of the spectrum instead. I think that’s what Dan was good at.” (Casey declined to be interviewed for this article, referring interview requests to Peter Robbio at CRC, who did not respond.) In the years after the failure of the Bork nomination, conservatives saw the appointment of Kennedy, and then of Bill Clinton’s nominees Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer. Although Kennedy was nominated by a Republican, he proved a bitter disappointment to conservatives, particularly for his majority opinion in Lawrence in 2003, ruling anti-sodomy laws unconstitutional—a ruling that led, 12 years later, to the legalization of same-sex marriage nationwide.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">During the Bork hearings, Casey argued that “the American people should be outraged that the liberals are spending millions of dollars to try to buy a Supreme Court seat.” Three decades later, Casey is the president of the moneyed advocacy organizations JCN and the related Judicial Education Project, as well as of Catholic Voices. He is also treasurer and director of the Catholic Association Foundation and the Catholic Association. Together, they are part of a multimillion-dollar dark-money campaign backing a relentless drive by Trump and his Republican allies in the Senate to reshape the federal judiciary for generations, from federal trial courts all the way to the Supreme Court, and to shape public opinion about Catholicism and religious liberty.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">JCN does not disclose the identity of its donors. But the group has said it anticipates spending at least $10 million advocating for Kavanaugh’s nomination. While many of the early ads focused on promoting Kavanaugh as a mainstream, impartial jurist admired by former clerks of all political stripes, the most recent ads touted him a “grand slam for conservatives” and warned Democrats against succumbing to “pressure from East Coast liberals.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">After 2008, the Judicial Confirmation Network changed tacks, from battering the opponents of Bush’s court nominees to blocking President Barack Obama’s. JCN, now renamed the Judicial Crisis Network, was the first conservative organization to blast Obama’s selection of Sonia Sotomayor—a Catholic—as “a liberal judicial activist of the first order who thinks her own personal political agenda is more important that the law as written.” Although JCN had repeatedly claimed that liberal Democrats had unfairly attacked conservative Catholics, it again did not hesitate to attack a liberal Catholic.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">John Gehring, Catholic program director at Faith in Public Life, a liberal group that advocates for progressive expressions of faith in politics, said that for conservative Catholics, Obama’s presidency “was very formative to the idea that Catholic identity was under siege by an administration that had elitist contempt for what the church believes.” The University of Notre Dame’s invitation to the pro-choice Obama to deliver a commencement speech in 2009, said Gehring, triggered “a huge divide” and “an earthquake in Catholic political conversation.” The Obama administration’s policies, particularly the contraception benefit written into the Affordable Care Act, which became the core target of conservatives’ legal strategy on religious freedom, further inflamed the world of conservative Catholicism.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But Gehring argues that this “well-funded, deep network” has “had disproportionate influence on what Catholic identity is in the public square and in politics.” He said the network has helped to create the distorted impression that Catholic priorities are limited to opposing abortion and LGBTQ rights, when traditional Catholic social-justice teaching includes a range of issues such as immigration, poverty, and the environment. Gehring pointed out, as an example, that conservative Catholics ignore the 1891 papal encyclical, “Rights and Duties of Capital and Labor,” written in support of workers rights, including the right to unionize.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">What’s more, the conservative network’s position on abortion doesn’t represent the majority of Catholics. According to the Pew Research Center, 53 percent of Catholics say abortion should be legal in all or most cases. O’Brien, of Catholics for Choice, also points out that “Catholic women have abortions at the same rate as women of other faiths or no faith.” Kavanaugh’s decisions as an appellate judge on reproductive rights and the role of religion in politics, O’Brien added, “underscore just how out of touch he is with the majority of Catholics who are pro-choice and who support a healthy separation between church and state.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">During the Obama era, the dark money ramped up. The Wellspring Committee, a nonprofit formed in 2008 where both Corkerys have served as president, became the chief funder of JCN, bankrolling its campaigns to block Merrick Garland’s confirmation, and, under Trump, to support the nomination of Neil Gorsuch and other nominees to federal courts. According to an investigation last year by the Center for Responsive Politics, “most of Wellspring’s funds, in turn, came from a single mysterious donor who gave the organization almost $28.5 million—nearly 90 percent of its $32.2 million in revenues” in 2016. According to this report, Wellspring gave more than $23 million to JCN in 2016, quadrupling its 2015 donation to the group of $5.8 million.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Wellspring also donated money to the Catholic Association, another nonprofit the Corkerys helped found, this one to advocate on behalf of “religious liberty,” and to the Federalist Society. In yet another sign of the intimacy of this network, the association paid Leo, known as Trump’s Supreme Court whisperer, $120,000 for “management consulting.” (Leo also earned $435,000 from the Federalist Society that year, according to its tax return.) Neither Leo nor the Corkerys responded to requests for comment.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Another mysterious Corkery-linked company, BH Group LLC, created in 2016, donated $1 million to Trump’s inaugural committee. Not much is known about what BH Group does, or who its principals are, but in 2016, the Corkerys’ Wellspring Committee paid BH Group $750,000 for “public relations,” according to its tax return, and JCN paid the firm $947,000 for “consulting services.” And Leo later identified BH Group as his employer in an FEC filing.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In early May 2017, about a month after Gorsuch was confirmed to the Supreme Court, Leo was awarded the prestigious Canterbury Medal from the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, billed by the organization as “religious liberty’s highest honor.” A major Christian-right legal firm, the Becket Fund is best known for its victory in 2014’s landmark Hobby Lobby case, in which the Supreme Court ruled that the Affordable Care Act’s requirement of contraceptive coverage violated the company’s religious freedom. In his acceptance speech at a gala held at The Pierre, a New York luxury hotel overlooking Central Park, Leo, in white tie, could barely conceal his elation that Trump had beaten the odds to win the White House. Looking back on the campaign, Leo recalled the “fear that permeated every day in that countdown to November 8” and rejoiced at the “amazing turn of events, thanks to our 45th president.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">With Trump as president, Leo is, for all practical purposes, on the inside, as a handsomely compensated guide to judicial nominees who will satisfy religious conservatives. JCN runs the outside game, spending its mounds of dark money to promote the president’s—or rather, Leo’s—judicial nominees.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But even as the Trump administration was already well on its way to stacking the judiciary, including the Supreme Court, with judges inclined to expand the reach of Hobby Lobby, Leo had not quite let go of the urgency of the Obama years—or what he’d seen as the threat of a potential Hillary Clinton presidency suppressing religious freedom. “As government policy becomes more grudging toward religious freedom, that attitude spreads in the broader culture. A hostile stance in Washington creates space for groups with kindred ideological designs,” Leo said, going on to warn of even more dire consequences. “A government that suffocates something so elemental as freedom of religion is not likely to be respectful of any other right.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">At one point, he released the tension with a joke at Clinton’s expense. “Of course everyone thought they knew how the election was going to go,” Leo said. “The Democratic nominee looked so confident, so relaxed, so content. With just days remaining, what could possibly go wrong?” And then, “Well, not everyone had access to Rebekah Mercer’s crystal ball.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">At the time Leo spoke, Mercer’s family’s data-analytics firm, Cambridge Analytica, was not yet under federal investigation for harvesting private Facebook data and potentially violating US election laws. But even so, it was striking that he referenced the Mercer family—whose political giving is led by Rebekah and her father Robert, the reclusive, Trump-supporting, Republican financier—at a celebration of religious freedom, given that one of the family’s pet projects, Breitbart News, has long been a hotbed of Islamophobia and anti-Semitism. It turns out that Mercer had also long been a generous funder of an array of organizations in Leo’s orbit—the conservative legal and Christian organizations that claim to represent ordinary citizens fed up with Democrat-appointed “judicial activists” and Democratic “gridlock” in holding up Republican nominees.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Charity filings show that between 2013 and 2016, the Mercer Family Foundation gave a million dollars to the Becket Fund, on whose board Leo has served since 2014. Between 2013 and 2015, the foundation donated nearly $6 million to the Federalist Society. In fact, Rebekah Mercer’s ties with Leo go even deeper.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In 2014, Leo joined the board of a new group called Reclaim New York, led by Mercer and Steve Bannon, then ensconced at Breitbart. The group claims to provide citizen trainings to “empower citizens to engage their state and local government,” but critics call it an astroturf organization dedicated instead to sowing distrust in state and local government and laying the groundwork for far-right Republican candidates to win elections. In 2015, Reclaim New York shared office space with Cambridge Analytica in midtown Manhattan and paid the firm for data-analytic services. (Reclaim New York did not respond to a request for comment about Leo’s role.) In 2016, Leo, along with Mercer and Kellyanne Conway, now a top adviser to President Trump, incorporated a related lobbying organization, the Reclaim New York Initiative.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A core element of Leo’s strategy, throughout the Bush and Obama years, was to portray religious freedom, a treasured American virtue, as under siege by supposed government overreach and disdainful, elite liberal culture. In another May 2017 speech, this one before the Acton Institute, a conservative think tank, Leo placed the blame on the left for making confirmation battles “so intense.” Liberals, he said, want to invest the Supreme Court with “something close to absolute power,” including the“creation of rights found nowhere in the text or structure of the Constitution,” citing Griswold v. Connecticut, from 1965, which struck down laws criminalizing the sale of contraception; Roe v. Wade, from 1973, which legalized abortion; and Obergefell v. Hodges, from 2015, which legalized same-sex marriage.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But now, he said, thanks to Trump, liberals were finally losing control of the courts. “For constitutionalists,” Leo told the Acton Institute, “our improbable 45th president has turned out to be, to borrow a phrase from his predecessor, the change we’ve been waiting for.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Sarah PosnerTWITTERSarah Posner is a Reporting Fellow with the Investigative Fund and expert on the intersection of religion and politics.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">https://maplight.org/story/trump-judicial-adviser-linked-to-1-million-anonymous-inaugural-donation/</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">This story was produced by MapLight in partnership with Fast Company.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A conservative lawyer who advises President Donald Trump on judicial nominations appears to be linked to an anonymous limited liability company that donated $1 million to the Trump inaugural committee, according to campaign finance records.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In December 2016, the Trump committee received a seven-figure check from BH Group, LLC. Journalists have tried for the past year to locate anyone who works for the company. The limited liability company only lists a paralegal at Holtzman Vogel, a conservative law firm, as its organizer in Virginia incorporation records.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A recent New Jersey congressional campaign filing may have helped unravel the mystery. The report lists Leonard Leo, an executive vice president at the Federalist Society, the conservative lawyers network, as an attorney for BH Group. Leo has served as an adviser to Trump on judicial nominations, and he helped leadSupreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch through his Senate confirmation process last year.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Leo and the White House did not respond to questions from MapLight about his role with BH Group. Holtzman Vogel did not respond to MapLight’s request for comment.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The campaign report, filed by Jay Webber’s congressional campaign, was first highlighted by journalist Wendy Siegelman. Leo has been identified as the president of the BH Fund, a nonprofit that was given influence over hiring and admissions at George Mason University's law school as part of an anonymous $20 million donation.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The only previous public reference to BH Group was in a tax return filed last year by the Wellspring Committee, a secretive conservative nonprofit. The dark money organization reported paying $750,000 to BH Group in 2016 for public relations.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Wellspring served as the primary financier of the Judicial Crisis Network (JCN), another dark money organization. The network spent $7 million on advertisements to persuade Republicans to block President Barack Obama’s 2016 Supreme Court pick, Merrick Garland. JCN then spent $10 million to support Gorsuch’s confirmation last year. The network is currently pushing the Senate to confirm dozens of other Trump judicial nominees.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">According to the Daily Beast, Leo was instrumental in starting both JCN and Wellspring. The organizations provided almost 80 percent of the money raised by the Rule of Law Project, a conservative nonprofit that Leo helped lead.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Federalist Society, where Leo has worked since 1991, has members throughout the senior levels of the Trump administration. Its annual convention last year in Washington, D.C., featured speeches from Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt, Attorney General Jeff Sessions, Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta, and White House Counsel Don McGahn. </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Federalist Society’s top donors have included billionaire libertarian brothers Charles and David Koch; Koch Industries, their energy and chemical conglomerate; the Mercer Family Foundation, funded by hedge fund magnate Robert Mercer; and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the powerful business lobby.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Leo appears to be especially close with Pruitt, who previously served as Oklahoma’s attorney general. Records from Pruitt’s Oklahoma office show he frequently spoke at the Federalist Society events, and the organization paid for Pruitt to fly from Tulsa to Washington, D.C., for only a few hours to meet with Leo in 2016.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">An unnamed EPA official recently told the New York Times that when Leo called his office “and asked for something, we did it, it doesn’t matter what it was." Agency records show Leo helped arrange Pruitt’s agenda during his trip to Rome last year. The Washington Post found that Leo originally paid for one of the administrator’s dinners before Pruitt reimbursed him.    </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">FOLLOWING THE DARK MONEY</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Because of RLDF’s status as a 501(c)(4) nonprofit, it’s impossible to document all of the group’s donors. But tax records show hundreds of thousands in donations can be traced to theJudicial Crisis Network (JCN), a conservative legal group.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The network has financed nonprofits boosting Republicans in state judicial and attorneys general races, and advocates for the appointment of conservative judges. The group recently spent more than $10 million on television ads to ensure Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch’s confirmation. The network reported donating $435,000 to RLDF between July 2014 and June 2015.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Rule of Law Project (RLP), another dark money organization, gave $145,000 to RLDF in 2014, according to tax records. JCN also has given RLP at least $350,000–or 70% of the funding the organization reported receiving between 2014 and 2015.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Leonard Leo, a top official at the conservative lawyers’ organization known as the Federalist Society, is listed in RLP’s filings as a director. Pruitt has been a frequent participant in Federalist Society events, and was a featured speaker at a Washington, D.C., luncheon in March. Leo was reportedly “instrumental” in starting both JCN and the Wellspring Committee, a dark money group that funneled $13.9 million to JCN between 2013 and 2015.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">There is only one publicly disclosed donor to Wellspring, which is closely tied to JCN–Wellspring’s president is married to JCN’s treasurer. Tax records show Wellspring gave RLP $40,000 in 2014 and 2015, and also donated $310,000 to the Federalist Society.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/04/17/the-conservative-pipeline-to-the-supreme-court</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Annals of Law</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">April 17, 2017 Issue</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Conservative Pipeline to the Supreme Court</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">With the Federalist Society, Leonard Leo has reared a generation of originalist élites. The selection of Neil Gorsuch is just his latest achievement.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">By Jeffrey Toobin</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">chinks gone?</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Supreme Court confirmation hearings for Neil Gorsuch, which were held last month, in Washington, D.C., quickly fell into a pattern. Democratic senators unsuccessfully sought to pin down Gorsuch’s views on issues such as campaign finance, while Republicans made gentle inquiries that seemed designed to run out the clock. In this vein, toward the end of Gorsuch’s testimony, Ben Sasse, a Republican from Nebraska, asked Gorsuch his opinion about the Declaration of Independence. Gorsuch took the opportunity to deliver a patriotic lecture about the heroism of the Founders. “No one remembers who John Hancock was,” Gorsuch said. “But they know that that’s a signature because he wrote his name so bigly . . .” Gorsuch’s invocation of one of Donald Trump’s trademark utterances, apparently accidental, prompted an explosion of laughter from the audience.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Seated toward the back of the hearing room, Leonard Leo smiled. “There’s one sound bite,” he whispered to me, then added, “You know, the hearings matter so much less than they once did. We have the tools now to do all the research. We know everything they’ve written. We know what they’ve said. There are no surprises.” Gorsuch had committed no real gaffes, caused no blowups, and barely made any news—which was just how Leo had hoped the hearings would unfold.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Leo has for many years been the executive vice-president of the Federalist Society, a nationwide organization of conservative lawyers, based in Washington. Leo served, in effect, as Trump’s subcontractor on the selection of Gorsuch, who was confirmed by a vote of 54–45, last week, after Republicans changed the Senate rules to forbid the use of filibusters. Leo’s role in the nomination capped a period of extraordinary influence for him and for the Federalist Society. During the Administration of George W. Bush, Leo also played a crucial part in the nominations of John Roberts and Samuel Alito. Now that Gorsuch has been confirmed, Leo is responsible, to a considerable extent, for a third of the Supreme Court.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Leo, who is fifty-one, has neither held government office nor taught in a law school. He has written little and has given few speeches. He is not, technically speaking, even a lobbyist. Leo is, rather, a convener and a networker, and he has met and cultivated almost every important Republican lawyer in more than a generation. At the Gorsuch hearings, which took place in the Hart Senate Office Building, Leo acted as the unofficial mayor of the room. Sometimes he sat in the back, so that he could kibbitz with reporters, and sometimes he sat up front, behind Trump Administration officials. (Leo has been on leave from the Federalist Society to work full time on Gorsuch’s confirmation.) “When Leonard walks in that room, everyone knows who he is,” Carrie Severino, the chief counsel of the Judicial Crisis Network, another conservative organization that worked on Gorsuch’s behalf, said. “If you care about the conservative legal movement, you always take note of Leonard.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Leo is at ease in the role of impresario. His grandfather was a vice-president of Brooks Brothers, and he instilled in young Leonard a taste for the bella figura. Leo wears tailored suits, often with contrasting waistcoats, and a double-length gold fob attached to a 1935 train conductor’s pocket watch. (“The most accurate watch in the United States until the fifties,” he said.) In lieu of office meetings, Leo prefers to chat over breakfast (just bacon, no eggs) at the Hay-Adams Hotel, across from the White House. As his friend Boyden Gray, the White House counsel under George H. W. Bush, puts it, “He knows the best restaurants in every major city in the world, and the best wines. He has a wide-ranging, inquiring mind, and he can and will talk about any subject under the sun.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Leo’s role in the judicial nominations has drawn fierce criticism from liberals. Nan Aron, who is the longtime president of the Alliance for Justice, which advocates for a progressive judiciary, told me, “The Federalist Society has for years been singularly focussed on building a farm team of judicial nominees who subscribe to a philosophy that is hostile to the advancement of social and economic progress in the country. Behind the scenes, during Republican Administrations, they are very engaged in identifying and recruiting for judges candidates who are ultra-conservatives—who are opposed to our rights and liberties across the board, whether it’s women, the environment, consumer protections, worker protections.” Gorsuch is likely to be only the first of Leo’s Trump Administration appointees: he is preparing for yet more vacancies on the Supreme Court, and also finding candidates for some of the hundred-plus vacancies on the lower courts, deepening his imprint on the judiciary.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Leo’s life has been shaped as much by Catholicism as by conservatism. He was born on Long Island, and his father died, of cancer, when he was a preschooler. When Leo was five, his mother got remarried, to an engineer, and the family moved to central New Jersey, where Leo spent most of his childhood. His grandfather emigrated to the United States from Italy when he was fourteen and became a tailor before working his way up at Brooks Brothers. “He understood America as being a land of opportunity, understood the value of capitalism, the value of hard work, personal responsibility,” Leo told me. “My grandparents were deeply religious people, they were daily Mass attendees. So I got all of that.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Leo went to college at Cornell, where he studied with a group of conservative professors in the government department. That led to internships in Washington during Ronald Reagan’s Presidency—notably for Senator Orrin Hatch, who was then, as now, a member of the Judiciary Committee. Leo went on to law school, also at Cornell, after which he returned to Washington and clerked for a federal appellate judge, A. Raymond Randolph, on the D.C. Circuit.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In the meantime, he had married his high-school sweetheart, Sally Schroeder. In 1992, they had their first child, Margaret, who was born with spina bifida, which confined her to a wheelchair and led to other medical complications. “She was a real miracle, despite having a really serious handicap, and many other issues, too,” Leo said. “She was extraordinarily vivacious, talented, simple. She had a great way with people.” Clarence Thomas, Leo said, still keeps her drawings under glass on his desk.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Margaret’s example deepened Leo’s Catholic faith. She encouraged him to go to daily Mass, though he found keeping up attendance difficult. During a family vacation in 2007, when Margaret was fourteen, Leonard promised her that he would resume the practice. On the morning after they returned, Leo got up early to go to Mass. He looked in on Margaret. Then, as he was walking down the hall, she started gasping for breath. She died shortly afterward. “I will always think that she did her job,” Leo told me. “She did her job.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Leos have six other children, including an eight-year-old son who also has spina bifida. A friend of Leo’s said, “Leonard comes to his pro-life views out of a place of incredible sincerity. They always treated Margaret throughout her life like any other child.” According to Leo, the vast majority of abortions are a consequence of voluntary, consensual sexual encounters, an opinion that influences his view of the procedure.“We can have a debate about abortion,” he told me. “It’s a very simple one for me. It’s an act of force. It’s a threat to human life. It’s just that simple.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In the light of Leo’s perspective, the possibility that he would put forward a Supreme Court nominee who would turn out to support abortion rights seems nonexistent. Roberts and Alito have voted against reproductive rights; so, in all likelihood, will Gorsuch. As Edward Whelan, a prominent conservative legal activist and blogger, wrote recently, “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.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Leo was a close friend of Antonin Scalia, who instilled in him an affinity for the judicial philosophies known as originalism and textualism. In rough terms, these approaches hold that judges should interpret the Constitution according to its original meaning. If the Framers did not think they were establishing, say, a right to abortion, then contemporary judges should not recognize one, either. “What’s the best way to preserve the dignity and worth of the human person?” Leo asked me one day over breakfast. He answered, “You assure all that freedom by establishing limitations on the power of the state.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Freedoms are best protected, Leo believes, not by the assertion of rights but by the structure of separation of powers. “I was drawn to the Federalist Society because it, in my view, understood that ‘it’s the structure, stupid,’ ” Leo told me. “Scalia used to say this all the time. Scalia said tyrannies had long lists of rights. What they didn’t have was structural restraints on the power of government. I was smitten by that.” Of course, Leo wants to see the power of government restrained in some ways but not in others. As he put it, “If you look at the areas where a true conservative is willing to tolerate restrictions on the individual, by dint of government power, it’s generally fraud, force, and threats to human life and security.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Translated from the language of abstraction, Leo has an even broader conservative agenda than simply limiting rights unknown to the Framers, such as gay rights. “What people in the Federalist Society mean when they talk about ‘structure’ is limiting the regulatory power of the state,” Samuel Issacharoff, a professor at New York University School of Law, said. “They believe that the text of the Constitution strictly limits what Congress and judges can do. So they embrace a whole series of doctrines that say Congress can’t do anything unless it’s specifically authorized in the Constitution. And then administrative agencies can’t do anything unless Congress has specifically authorized it by law. For decades, judges thought it was permissible to fill in the gaps left by the ambiguities in the Constitution and laws. But the current conservatives have an activist agenda to peel back the power of government.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">On November 15, 2007, nearly two thousand people filled the great hall of Washington’s cavernous Union Station for a black-tie celebration of the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Federalist Society. President George W. Bush attended, Chief Justice John Roberts sent a video salute, and three other sitting Justices—Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, and Samuel Alito—appeared in person to pay tribute. Scalia and Thomas spoke about the group’s origins, a story that is critical to its mythology.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Federalist Society was founded in 1982 by three law students, at the University of Chicago and at Yale. Scalia was the group’s first faculty adviser at Chicago, where he was then a professor; the adviser at Yale was Robert Bork, who was later nominated to the Supreme Court by Ronald Reagan. As the Federalists see it, the society’s founders were scrappy outsiders who were waging a lonely struggle against the pervasive liberalism of America’s law schools. Scalia said at the anniversary party, “We thought we were just planting a wildflower among the weeds of academic liberalism, and it turned out to be an oak.” Elaborating on this point, Thomas said, “I look at this huge audience . . . and I can only imagine the courage of a few young people who came up with yet one more idea: let’s start something. Let’s start an organization where we can actually talk about ideas, where we can actually talk about the Constitution and its structure, and how that structure is to protect our liberty. . . . Can you imagine the courage that these young people had?”[went on to show it?]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The students did start the Federalist Society from scratch, but it is less clear that tremendous courage was required. Within just a few years, the group was embraced and funded by a number of powerful, wealthy conservative organizations, which eventually included foundations associated with John Olin, Lynde and Harry Bradley, Richard Scaife, and the Koch brothers. “The funders all got the idea right away—that you can win elections, you can have mass mobilizations, but unless you can change élites and the institutions that are by and large controlled by the élites, like the courts, there are limits to what you can do,” Amanda Hollis-Brusky, a professor of politics at Pomona College and the author of “Ideas with Consequences,” a study of the Federalist Society, said. “The idea was to train, credential, and socialize a generation of alternative élites.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In the late eighties, the Federalist Society was known primarily as an organization for law students, with few opportunities for members to stay involved after they left school. Leo founded the Federalist chapter at Cornell Law School before he graduated, in 1989, but then decamped for D.C. “When I was in the midst of my clerkship, the society came to me and said, ‘Hey, we’re not sure the lawyers’ division of the Federalist Society is working,’ ” Leo told me. “ ‘And so would you be interested in coming to work for us?’ ” Leo started at the society in 1991.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">From the beginning, there were limits on how the society could attempt to change the legal and political environment. As a nonprofit organization, it had to raise its own money and could not endorse candidates. Nevertheless, Leo set himself a clear goal. “The key was to figure out how to develop what I call a ‘pipeline’—basically, where you recruit students in law school, you get them through law school, they come out of law school, and then you find ways of continuing to involve them in legal policy,” he said. “So you have these chapters, you have practice groups, you have a pro-bono network, you have a media program—you find ways of engaging these lawyers so that they can still be involved.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“It’s a network, not a hierarchy, with Leonard Leo at the center,” Steven Teles, a professor of political science at Johns Hopkins University and the author of “The Rise of the Conservative Legal Movement,” said. “The formal activities of the society are important—the chapter meetings at law schools, the national conferences in Washington—but the most important thing they do is give conservatives a chance to meet one another and check one another out. All that activity lets people bubble up. It creates a chance for people to develop reputations. And the one thing all the lawyers have in common is that they all know Leonard, and he knows all of them.” Non-members also attend and speak at Federalist Society events, so the group’s web of influence (and the scope of Leo’s contacts) extends well beyond the members and affiliates, who currently number about seventy thousand.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The annual convention of the Federalist Society, held every November at the Mayflower Hotel, in Washington, has become an important event on the political calendar. “The primary reason people go to the convention is not for the panels. The main action at the convention is always in the grand hallway of the Mayflower,” Josh Blackman, a professor at South Texas College of Law, in Houston, and a well-known blogger, said. “Everyone is talking and meeting in that big hallway.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In 2008, after the election of Barack Obama, the convention was a downbeat affair, not least because Michael Mukasey, the outgoing Attorney General, passed out while he was giving a speech. (He recovered.) The following November, as Obama was going through a difficult patch as President, there was more optimism in the air. That year, Blackman was chatting with his friend Todd Gaziano, who worked at the Heritage Foundation, when they were approached by Randy Barnett, a professor at Georgetown University Law Center and a leading libertarian theorist. A version of the Affordable Care Act had passed in the House a few days earlier. “Todd asked me what I thought about the constitutionality of the individual mandate,” Barnett told me, referring to the part of the law that required individuals to buy health insurance. “I said that I wasn’t really sure, that I hadn’t really looked into it yet. He said, ‘Do you want to do something about it?’ I said, ‘Yes.’ He said, ‘Whatever we do, we have to do it quickly.’ ” Blackman later wrote, with only some hyperbole, that “this conversation, though it started out innocently enough, would change the fate of the constitutional challenge to Obamacare.” Gaziano and Barnett collaborated with another colleague on one of the first articles challenging the constitutionality of Obamacare, and remained at the center of the fight over the law for the next three years. Blackman would refer to their fateful meeting as the “Mayflower compact.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The compact illustrates the strength and the potential of the society’s network: the society can exercise enormous influence without playing a direct role. The nature of the legal claims against the health-care law also reflected precisely the kind of “structural” arguments that Leo puts at the heart of his legal philosophy. In the first case, National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius, the plaintiffs asserted that the law was unconstitutional because the Commerce Clause of the Constitution does not authorize Congress to impose the individual mandate. In the second case, King v. Burwell, the plaintiffs argued that the text of the act did not permit the operation of insurance marketplaces. Ultimately, the Obama Administration won both cases. But it seems more than likely that Gorsuch, or any other Justice supported by Leo, would have voted for the losing side.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">It can take a while even for Republicans to understand the breadth of the Federalist Society’s influence in Washington. Alberto Gonzales, George W. Bush’s first White House counsel, told me, “When I came to Washington, being an outsider from Texas, I knew that I would have to have some weapons in my arsenal to reassure conservative groups that I wasn’t some crazy guy from Texas. I was familiar with the Federalist Society, but I’d never been active with it.” Gonzales’s lack of connection with the group drew suspicion from the conservative legal community in Washington. “Truth be told, maybe some of the more influential members, I think they were concerned about me going on to the Supreme Court,” Gonzales said.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Tim Flanigan, who was Gonzales’s deputy in the White House, told me, “The talk started to irritate Al, who was very proud of being a conservative. He comes to Washington, and suddenly he feels like this group that he’s never heard of is attacking him, and he’s told that this group is very important to his judicial nominations. We used to have a staff meeting of about a dozen lawyers, and at one of the early meetings Al started to vent a little bit about the Federalist Society, saying, ‘Who is this Federalist Society?’ And, finally, he’s getting frustrated, and he says, ‘How many of you here are members of the Federalist Society?’ And every hand in the room went up, except for Al’s and mine.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Gonzales was never nominated to the Supreme Court; in 2005, Bush chose Harriet Miers, Gonzales’s successor as White House counsel, and another Texan, to replace Sandra Day O’Connor. Like Gonzales, Miers had a nonexistent profile in Federalist Society circles. “By the time of the Miers nomination, the Federalist Society had created a signalling mechanism within the conservative movement,” Hollis-Brusky said. “The message Leonard and others had sent was: If you want to rise through the ranks, we need to know you. And that’s what they were all saying about Miers—‘We don’t know her. She is not one of us.’ ”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">It’s long been difficult to separate Leo’s conservative political activism from his role in the putatively nonpartisan Federalist Society, and the Miers nomination put those positions into conflict. Leo had taken a leave from the society to help the White House fill the Court vacancy, so he was obligated, at least initially, to support the Miers choice. “I made it clear to people in the White House that I thought her nomination was going to be a heavy lift,” Leo said. “My feeling was that the conservative community was not going to probably weigh in in favor of her until after the hearings, because they wouldn’t have enough information about her, so that there would be a wait-and-see approach. And I was somewhat mistaken about that—they ended up coming after her a lot sooner. As opposed to simply being skeptical or agnostic, they became very hostile to the idea soon after the nomination.” The criticism from conservatives of Miers’s lack of a clear ideological stance grew so intense so quickly that she withdrew less than a month after Bush nominated her. Samuel Alito, one of Leo’s judicial darlings, was nominated and confirmed instead. “I had always been a big Alito fan,” Leo told me.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">One day last spring, Leo received an invitation to join Donald Trump for lunch at a law firm’s offices in Washington. Trump was getting closer to clinching the Republican nomination, but his political history still provoked wariness among Party ideologists. Trump, it turned out, wanted Leo to compile a list, which the campaign would make public, of Trump’s likely nominees to the Supreme Court, in the event that he won the election. As Leo recounted their conversation, Trump said, “People don’t know who I am on these issues, and I want to give people a sense of that.” No campaign in history had put out such a list. Leo recalled, “I said, ‘That’s a great idea—you’re creating a brand.’ ”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The question, then, became on what basis Leo should select the candidates. What was Trump looking for in his nominees? Throughout the campaign, Trump had said that he would appoint pro-life Justices to the Supreme Court. But Leo told me that his conversations with Trump focussed elsewhere. “The President was very clear about what he wanted,” Leo said. “What he said in very explicit terms was he wanted people who were exceptionally well qualified, quote, ‘respected by all, not weak’—those are his words, ‘not weak’—and somebody who was going to, quote, ‘interpret the Constitution the way the Framers meant it to be.’ ” The statement was, in effect, a call for an originalist.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The distinction between Trump’s blunt campaign promise on abortion and his cagier instructions to Leo (if Leo’s account is complete) illustrates one of the political calculations of modern Supreme Court selection. Candidates can be frank about their litmus tests, but Presidents, and their judicial nominees, are supposed to be more circumspect—though everyone knows the likely result is the same. Leo told me that abortion, for example, “never came up in conversations with me, and that’s maybe because of the way I ask questions and the way I provide answers.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Leo, in other words, knew how to play the game—how to find a nominee who met Trump’s ideological requirements as well as his own, while observing the proprieties expected for judicial nominees. And finding potential candidates, Leo told me, “is easy, in the sense that when you’ve been working in this vineyard for twenty-five years you know everybody.” On May 18th, Trump released Leo’s list of eleven judges as his possible nominees. In September, Trump put out another ten names, in a group that included Gorsuch.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The winnowing process began the week after Trump’s unexpected victory. “The questions in our interviews were very different from the questions from the senators at the confirmation hearing,” Leo said. “They’re always trying to get at the results a judge is going to reach, and I pay more attention to their methodology, approach, and understanding of a well-defined judicial role.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Gorsuch has long had close ties to the Federalist network. He acknowledged as much in his Senate questionnaire, writing, “I have attended and spoken at some of the organization’s gatherings. I have also sometimes spoken to individual Federalist Society chapters at various law schools.” This understates the depth of the connection. Theodore B. Olson, the prominent Washington lawyer and former Solicitor General in the George W. Bush Administration, supports an annual lecture at the Federalist Society, to honor his late wife, Barbara, who died in the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Gorsuch gave the Olson lecture in 2013, delivering a politically anodyne plea for civility in the legal profession. “No doubt we have to look hard in the mirror when our profession’s reflected image in popular culture is no longer Atticus Finch but Saul Goodman,” he said, referring to a character on the TV show “Breaking Bad.” But, as is frequently the case with the Federalist Society, the social dimension of the Olson lecture is as important as the official program. “The lecture is always at the Mayflower, but we often have a dinner afterward, always at a good restaurant, and usually a couple of the Justices come, and it’s a good time,” Olson told me. “Leonard is always responsible for selecting the wines.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Democrats finally noticed the rise of the Federalist Society after the Supreme Court’s decision handing the Presidency to George W. Bush. “Bush v. Gore was the ‘Aha!’ moment,” Caroline Fredrickson, a liberal attorney, said. “We had let conservative forces come to dominance on the Court. They had had success in seeding the federal courts with people who shared their ideological views, as well as in propagating an approach to understanding the Constitution that conveniently always led to conservative outcomes.” A group of liberal-leaning lawyers and funders soon created the American Constitution Society as an explicit counterpart, and counterweight, to the Federalist Society. Fredrickson is the group’s current president.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Like the Federalists, A.C.S. has chapters in law schools and holds a big annual meeting in Washington at which favored judges speak. (Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor have spoken at A.C.S. conventions.) Just as the Federalists often invite a liberal to fill out their panel discussions, A.C.S. events sometimes feature conservatives. But the budget of the Federalist Society is about twenty million dollars; A.C.S.’s is about six million. That difference doesn’t just reflect the greater abundance of deep pockets on the right. “Liberals have siloed policy interests—the environment, civil rights, gay rights—and there are pretty distinct networks and groups for each one,” Teles said. “And conservatives have more networks that cut across these policy domains. Most conservatives are more identified by their particular ideological stripe—like social conservatives—rather than any specific issue.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">More to the point, conservatives, as a group, have cared more about judicial selection than liberals have. As Fredrickson puts it, “We still struggle to get people to recognize that the courts are one of the most important battlegrounds for public policy. Democrats make hundreds of thousands of calls about Jeff Sessions and far fewer about Judge Gorsuch, but the stakes are so much higher. Judge Gorsuch will leave his fingerprints on the Constitution a lot longer than Jeff Sessions will.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Gorsuch’s confirmation once again gives the Supreme Court a majority of Republican appointees, as it had before Scalia’s death, last February. But Ginsburg (who was appointed by Bill Clinton) is eighty-four; Anthony Kennedy (the Court’s swing vote, appointed by Reagan) is eighty; and Stephen Breyer (a Clinton appointee) is seventy-eight. If Trump has the opportunity to replace any of these three, much less all of them, the ideological balance of the Court will be transformed for at least a generation.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Other recent Presidents, when given a chance for a second nomination, have returned to the remaining names on their original list. If Trump follows this pattern, the next nominee will come from Leo’s pipeline, too, giving him a fourth Justice on the Court. Some of these prospective nominees—who include the federal appeals-court judges Thomas Hardiman and William H. Pryor, Jr., as well as the federal district-court judge Amul Thapar, a favorite of Mitch McConnell, the Senate Majority Leader—are even closer to the Federalist Society than Gorsuch is. Pryor, who serves on the Eleventh Circuit, has spoken at least eighteen times at Federalist Society events. And, when Leo returns to the Federalist Society, he will find it thriving. He says that he isn’t even worried about recruiting new members. “We don’t really care about those membership numbers,” Leo said. “We’re not a club. We’re a movement.” </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">This article appears in other versions of the April 17, 2017, issue, with the headline “Full-Court Press.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">gorsuch</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/18/us/politics/neil-gorsuch-supreme-court-conservatives.html</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">March 7, 2005, Leonard Leo tapped out an email on his BlackBerry to Mary Beth Buchanan, then the director of the Executive Office of United States Attorneys, suggesting a candidate to replace Carol Lam, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of California. "You guys need a good candidate?" Leo, the executive vice president of the Federalist Society, wrote to Buchanan, herself a member of the influential conservative lawyers' group. "I'd strongly recommend the current GC [general counsel] of the Air Force, Mary Walker."</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">At the time, White House and Justice Department officials were in preliminary talks about replacing an unspecified number of "underperforming" federal prosecutors, a plan that would culminate almost two years later in the forced resignations of nine U.S. Attorneys, including Lam, and ignite a scandal that has claimed the jobs of at least four high-ranking Justice Department officials. Leo's email, written so early in the process, speaks to the close relationship that has developed between the Federalist Society—an organization whose aims include "reordering priorities" within the judicial system to fit its conservative agenda—and key Justice Department decision makers, many of whom are members of the group.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">While perhaps not a prerequisite for employment at the highest echelons of Justice, membership in the society has become a standard by which political appointees at the agency identify candidates who share their agenda. Some officials at the agency view it as such an indicator of conservative virtue that membership in the society was included as a category—along with Hill and campaign experience—on a spreadsheet that was used to rank the qualifications of the 93 sitting U.S. Attorneys, a document included in the reams of Justice Department memoranda released by the House Judiciary Committee this spring.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Beyond highlighting the organization's role as the administration's de facto headhunter for conservative lawyers and judges, Leo's correspondence raises the question of what, if any, role the Federalist Society played in the prosecutor firings. Leo did not respond to messages left at his office and on his cell phone, but he told the New York Times last night that, when he emailed Buchanan, he was unaware that a plan was in the works to replace multiple U.S. Attorneys. But, he acknowledged, his recommendation was not unsolicited. "The only way I could have possibly made that recommendation is if somebody said to me, 'Gee, do you know anyone who would be good?'" he said.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Leo's email, released yesterday as part of an ongoing congressional investigation into the prosecutor firings, marks the second time in as many days that his name has been raised in connection with the probe. Testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday, Bradley Schlozman—the controversial Justice Department official who replaced Todd Graves as the U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Missouri—acknowledged seeking Leo's advice on candidates to fill career positions at the agency.Unlike his former colleague, Monica Goodling, who testified that she "crossed the line" in vetting the political bonafides of job applicants, Schlozman denied subjecting potential hires to a political litmus test.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">His record would suggest otherwise. Schlozman is a member of the Federalist Society, and in May the Boston Globe reported that half of the career lawyers hired during his tenure were members of the society or the conservative Republican National Lawyers Association; among the eight hires during the previous two years, none had been. According to Joseph Rich, a 37-year veteran of the Justice Department who served as the head of the agency's voting rights section until 2005, Schlozman was among a cadre of appointees who have presided over an unprecedented wave of politicization at the agency. Within the Civil Rights division, where Schlozman served until March 2006, "there appeared to be a conscious effort to remake the Division's career staff," Rich told Congress in March. He described "major" changes in hiring procedures "which virtually eliminated any career staff input into the hiring of career attorneys." As a result, he went on, the attorneys hired for the division had "little if any experience in, or commitment to, the enforcement of civil rights laws."</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The politicization of Justice went well beyond hiring practices, according to Rich, extending to efforts to "influence elections." Schlozman, he says, was part of a group of political appointees that greenlighted Tom DeLay's controversial redistricting plan, which resulted in Texas Republicans winning a record number of U.S. House seats in the 2004 election. Later, while serving as the interim U.S. Attorney in Missouri, Schlozman indicted four voter registration recruiters for the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) on charges of voter fraud days before the mid-term elections. (During his Senate appearance this week, Schlozman maintained that he was unaware of ACORN's political leanings.)</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Federalist Society's advice has been sought not only on Justice Department hires: Leonard Leo is one of the Bush administration's go-to experts on the federal judiciary. When the time arrived for the president to fill two open Supreme Court slots, Leo took a temporary leave from the Society in order to advise the administration. The administration did end up selecting two Federalist Society members for the high court, bringing to four the number of Supreme Court justices (Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, John Roberts, and Samuel Alito) who claim membership in the organization.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Leo was less successful in selling Justice on his pick to replace Carol Lam. This owed, perhaps, to Mary Walker's controversial past. In addition to being accused of whitewashing an investigation of rampant sexual assault at the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colorado, Walker also headed the group of Pentagon lawyers that produced a report arguing that the president was not bound by the Geneva Conventions. When Lam stepped down in February, she was replaced by one of her deputies, Karen Hewitt—also a member of the Society.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Daniel Schulman is Mother Jones' deputy Washington, DC, bureau chief. Reach him at dschulman (at) motherjones.com. Dan is the New York Times best-selling author of Sons of Wichita</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Trump: Scalia Will Be 'The Ultimate Example' Of My Supreme Court Picks</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">9/9/16 @ 5:15</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Trump: All My Judges Will Be 'Picked By The Federalist Society'</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">6/13/16 @ 5:15</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">If Republicans Get Their Wish On The Supreme Court, What Would Trump Or Cruz Do?</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">4/6/16 @ 6:20</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Federalist Society VP Says Senate Could Ignore SCOTUS Nominees Indefinitely</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">3/7/16 @ 2:22</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">'School Choice' Just Part of DeVos Family's Far Right Agenda</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">3/2/16 @ 12:25</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Meet A Law Professor Conservatives Turn To On Marriage, Immigration And The SCOTUS Blockade</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">2/23/16 @ 12:57</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Right Wing Leftovers</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">SUBMITTED BY: Kyle Mantyla, Wednesday 07/01/2009, 5:58pm</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In retrospect, this 2002 Mark Sanford ad seems a tad hypocritical.Operation Rescue is now going to start targeting Leroy Carhart.The Federalist Society's Leonard Leo has been elected chairman of the United States Commission for International Religious Freedom.Ken Hutcherson lashes out at President Obama over the LGBT event at the White House.Three of Rep. Michelle Bachmann's fellow Republicans are apparently getting fed-up with her Census nonsense.In news that should send shivers down your spine, Steve Dillard's name is among those the state judicial nominating commission has submitted to the... MORE ></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Right Calls to "Take Off the Gloves" Against Non-Existent SCOTUS Nominee</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">SUBMITTED BY: Kyle Mantyla, Thursday 05/14/2009, 12:35pm</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Ben Smith reports that right-wing groups met with several Republican Senators yesterday to plot strategy on how to defeat President Obama's Supreme Court nominee:Leaders of some of the social and judicial conservative groups planning an all-out fight over the Supreme Court nominee met with Republican Senators yesterday, a source says, passing on a couple of the items that came up in the meetings.Centrally, it remains unclear how broadly the Republican leadership will commit to a fight, particularly on this first nominee, and so that's the question currently being arbitrated.One of the... MORE ></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Federalist Society Downplays Its Power</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">SUBMITTED BY: Kyle Mantyla, Friday 11/21/2008, 1:33pm</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">It seems like it was just a few days ago that I was pointing out that the Federalist Society's claims that it was just some non-political debating society was entirely bogus. Now comes an article in the Washington Post saying that, after eight years of driving the Bush Administration's "efforts to change the federal judiciary," the Federalist Society must now be prepared to find itself out in the wilderness, which Federalist Society head Leonard Leo laughed off, saying that nothing would really change because the organization was really just a debating society all along:... MORE ></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">It seems like it was just a few days ago that I was pointing out that the Federalist Society's claims that it was just some non-political debating society was entirely bogus. </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Now comes an article in the Washington Post saying that, after eight years of driving the Bush Administration's "efforts to change the federal judiciary," the Federalist Society must now be prepared to find itself out in the wilderness, which Federalist Society head Leonard Leo laughed off, saying that nothing would really change because the organization was really just a debating society all along:</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Federalist Society executive vice president Leonard A. Leo laughed when asked about the wilderness remark, saying, "I know the media likes to talk about us in terms of power and influence." But he said the group's primary goal has always been discussion of legal interpretation and limited constitutional government, and that that "remains as important as it was on November 3rd."</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Leo can laugh all he wants, but his days of working hand-in-glove with the Bush Administration to get its nominees confirmed are over and while he can try and pretend that they never really had that much influence, anyone who has paid any attention to the judicial confirmation battles over the last several years knows the truth about just how deeply he and his organization were involved and fully expects them to be just as involved, albeit in trying to prevent confirmations, during the Obama administration.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Terrorism and Abortion and Judges, Oh My!</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">SUBMITTED BY: Kyle Mantyla, Wednesday 09/06/2006, 4:50pm</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">On today’s edition of “The 700 Club,” Pat Robertson lamented that the Republicans are facing very real difficulties in getting their right-wing base motivated for the upcoming elections, because unlike previous elections, the Right can’t just focus on “judges, judges, judges, judges” this time around and is therefore growing “dispirited” by things like the war in Iraq and growing deficits. [View the video highlight: Broadband or Dial-Up.]  Given that “judges, judges, judges, judges” has been the primary mobilization... MORE ></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Leonard Leo is an American lawyer who currently serves as executive vice president of the Federalist Society.[2]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Contents  [hide] </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">1<span style="white-space:pre"> </span>Career</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">2<span style="white-space:pre"> </span>Bibliography</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">3<span style="white-space:pre"> </span>References</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">4<span style="white-space:pre"> </span>External links</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Career[edit]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Leo was appointed by President George W. Bush and the United States Senate to three terms on the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom.[3] He has been a U.S. Delegate to the UN Council and UN Commission on Human Rights as well as the Organization of Security and Cooperation and World Health Assembly. Leo has served as an observer at the World Intellectual Property Organization and as a member of the U.S. National Commission to UNESCO.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Leo previously served as National Co-Chairman of Catholic Outreach for the Republican National Committee, and as the 2004 Bush presidential campaign's Catholic Strategist. With James Taranto, he edited the book Presidential Leadership. Leo is a graduate of Cornell University and Cornell Law School.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Leo organized efforts in support of the John Roberts and Samuel Alito U.S. Supreme Court confirmations.[4][5] He received the 2009 Bradley Prize.[6]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Leo has been published in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Huffington Post.[7][8][9] He is a board member of the National Catholic Prayer Breakfast and a member of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In 2016, after the death of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, Leo helped arrange funding to rename George Mason University's Law School the Antonin Scalia Law School.[10]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Bibliography[edit]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Presidential Leadership: Rating the Best and the Worst in the White House (Simon & Schuster, 2004), co-editor</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">References[edit]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Jump up^ Carney, Timothy (October 11, 2006). "Of Catholics, the Court and Nov. 7". National Catholic Register. Retrieved 1 September 2015.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Jump up^ "Leonard A. Leo". Federalist Society. Retrieved 21 May 2014.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Jump up^ Prodromou, Elizabeth; Leo, Leonard (July 1, 2011). "Protecting Religious Freedom Abroad". Harvard International Review. Retrieved 21 May 2014.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Jump up^ Kirkpatrick, David (July 22, 2005). "A Year of Work to Sell Roberts to Conservatives". New York Times. Retrieved 21 May 2014.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Jump up^ Cook, Robin (Fall 2006). "Confirmation of High Court Justices Akin to Political Campaign, Leo Says". UVA Lawyer. Retrieved 21 May 2014.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Jump up^ "Bradley Prize recipient Leonard Leo begins chairmanship of religious-freedom commission". Bradley Foundation. July 2009. Retrieved 21 May 2014.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Jump up^ Leo, Leonard (January 9, 2006). "Thirty Questions for Alito: Finality and Fallibility". New York Times. Retrieved 21 May 2014.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Jump up^ Leo, Leonard; Argue, Donald (April 12, 2010). "Nigeria's Descent Into Religious Strife". Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 21 May 2014.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Jump up^ Leo, Leonard (January 19, 2011). "Confronting China's Failure on Religious Freedom". Huffington Post. Retrieved 21 May 2014.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Jump up^ Sloan, Karen (March 31, 2016). "George Mason Law School To Become Antonin Scalia School of Law". The National Law Journal. Retrieved 6 June 2016.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">External links[edit]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Federalist Society biography</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Authority control<span style="white-space:pre"> </span></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">WorldCat IdentitiesVIAF: 163276863SUDOC: 113930682</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Flag of United StatesJustice icon<span style="white-space:pre"> </span>This American law-related biographical article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Categories: Living peopleAmerican lawyersAmerican legal writersCornell Law School alumniCornell University alumniAmerican jurist stubs</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">off bs</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">eonard Leo serves as Executive Vice President of the Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies, an organization of 46,000 individuals that is premised on advancing limited, constitutional government. In that capacity, he has helped to build a nationwide infrastructure of lawyers, judges, and business leaders who seek to foster the application of our nation's Founding principles through the projects of the Society as well as other independent projects of mutual interest and concern in the legal and policy worlds on which they band together.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In addition to his work with the Society, Mr. Leo has played an active role in both public diplomacy and politics. He has been appointed by President George W. Bush as well as the United States Senate to three terms to the US Commission on International Religious Freedom, where he is presently serving in his second term as chairman. He has been a US Delegate to the UN Council and UN Commission on Human Rights as well as the Organization of Security and Cooperation in Europe and World Health Assembly of the WHO. He also has served as an observer at the World Intellectual Property Organization and as a member of the US National Commission to UNESCO.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">While on leave from the Federalist Society, Mr. Leo organized the outside coalition efforts in support of the Roberts and Alito U.S. Supreme Court confirmations in 2005-2006, and, in 2004, was the Bush-Cheney Presidential Campaign's Catholic Strategist. He also served as National Co-Chairman of Catholic Outreach for the Republican National Committee. He is active in a number of Catholic organizations, serving as a founding board member of the National Catholic Prayer Breakfast and a member of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Mr. Leo was the recipient of the 2009 Bradley Prize, along with the other founders and directors of the Federalist Society, for his work and efforts in advancing freedom and the rule of law through the organization. He is the co-editor of Presidential Leadership: Rating the Best and the Worst in the White House (Simon & Schuster, 2004), as well as the author of opinion editorials in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Washington Post, among other publications.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Mr. Leo holds degrees from Cornell University and Cornell Law School. He presently resides in northern Virginia, where he and his wife Sally have raised their seven children.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Federalist Society takes no position on particular legal or public policy issues. The people listed as Experts have spoken or otherwise participated in Federalist Society events, publications, or multimedia presentations. A person's appearance on this list does not imply any other endorsement or relationship between the person and the Federalist Society. All expressions of opinion by an expert are those of the expert.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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Boyden Gray Address at the 2007 National Lawyers Convention - Event Audio/Video </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">2007 National Lawyers Convention </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">November 15, 2007</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Welcome & Opening Address - Paul D. Clement </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">May 03, 2007</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The U.S. Attorney Controversy - Event Audio </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Federalism & Separation of Powers Practice Group </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">March 27, 2007</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">2006 National Lawyers Convention Annual Dinner - Event Video </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">2006 National Lawyers Convention </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">November 16, 2006</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Paul Clement Address - Event Audio </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">2006 National Lawyers Convention </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">November 16, 2006</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Are Judicial Elections a Threat to Judicial Independence? - Event Audio </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Co-Sponsored by the Southeastern Legal Foundation and Georgia Public Policy Foundation </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">November 02, 2006</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Intellectual Property as a Tool of Empowerment for the Developing World: An Empowerment Agenda </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">White Paper </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">October 18, 2006</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">John Ashcroft Address Before The Federalist Society at the 2003 National Lawyers Convention </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Transcript </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">November 15, 2003</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Customary International Law: The Next Font of Judicial Activism? - Transcript </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">2003 National Lawyers Convention - "International Law and American Sovereignty" </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">November 13, 2003</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Judges Wars - Transcript </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">September 09, 2003</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Rating the Presidents of the United States, 1789-2000: A Survey of Scholars in History, Political Science, and Law </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">November 16, 2000</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Leonard A. Leo : Experts : The Federalist Society</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">www.fed-soc.org/experts/detail/leonard-a-leo</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Federalist Society</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Leonard Leo serves as Executive Vice President of the Federalist Society for Law and ... and concern in the legal and policy worlds on which they band together.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Leonard Leo - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonard_Leo</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Wikipedia</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Leonard Leo is an American lawyer who currently serves as executive vice president of the Federalist Society. ... "A Year of Work to Sell Roberts to Conservatives". New York Times. Retrieved 21 May 2014. Jump up ^ Cook, Robin (Fall 2006).</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Federalist Society - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federalist_Society</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Wikipedia</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Leonard Leo. Budget. Revenue: $17,823,780. Expenses: $13,935,875 (FYE September 2014). Website, www.fed-soc.org. The Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies, most frequently called simply the Federalist Society, is an organization of conservatives and .... Avery and McLaughlin write that the Federalist Society is primarily a “group ...</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Leonard Leo | Young Conservatives Coalition</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">www.theycc.org/programs/fellowship/leonard-leo/</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Leonard Leo serves as Executive Vice President and a member of the board of the ... interest and concern in the legal and policy worlds on which they band together. ... While on leave from the Federalist Society, Mr. Leo organized the outside ...</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Leonard Leo | Right Wing Watch</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">www.rightwingwatch.org/category/people/leonard-leo</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Federalist Society's Leonard Leo has been elected chairman of the ... and judicial conservative groups planning an all-out fight over the Supreme Court ...</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Federalist Society VP Says Senate Could Ignore SCOTUS Nominees ...</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">www.rightwingwatch.org/.../federalist-society-vp-says-senate-could-ignore-scotus-no...</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Mar 7, 2016 - During the administration of George W. Bush, the Federalist Society ... fill the federal courts with judges who embrace a right-wing legal ideology. ... by the Federalist Society's Leonard Leo, has returned the favor as a ... Conservative Groups Urge Maximum Obstruction Of Hillary Clinton's Judicial Nominees.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Bush's Shadow Justice Department: Did the Federalist Society Have a ...</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">www.motherjones.com/.../bushs-shadow-justice-department-did-federali...</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Mother Jones</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Jun 7, 2007 - Before midnight on March 7, 2005, Leonard Leo tapped out an email on his BlackBerry ... Leo, the executive vice president of the Federalist Society, wrote to Buchanan, herself a member of the influential conservative lawyers' group. .... Trump Files: When Donald Ran Afoul of Ancient Scottish Heraldry Law.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Conservative Federalist Society Can Expect Its Status to Shrink</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">www.washingtonpost.com › Politics › The Fed Page</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Washington Post</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Nov 21, 2008 - Federalist Society executive vice president Leonard A. Leo laughed ... But he said the group's primary goal has always been discussion of legal ...</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Supreme Conflict: The Inside Story of the Struggle for Control of ...</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">https://books.google.com/books?isbn=1594201013</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Jan Crawford Greenburg - 2007 - ?Political Science</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">... and Miers met with the Federalist Society's Leonard Leo in Miers's office in the West Wing. Leo, the executive vice president of the conservative legal group, ...</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[PDF]the federalist society and movement conservatism - Carolina Digital ...</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">https://cdr.lib.unc.edu/indexablecontent/uuid:a046e8b1-4e0b-4af8-8a08-cea9e5cb58a7</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">explore how Federalists have promoted conservative legal theories of interpretation, .... libertarian lawyers of the Federalist Society—founded as a student group with ... Among the people put in a real bind by the situation was Leonard Leo, the.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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