wellspringbak

wellspring519

see ginni

see leo

ntbcw groundswell (ginni) [same Va PO box?]

am 1st policies?

bold format lost 8 22

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an 12 23

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

In 2016, JCN shelled out millions of dollars to dissuade senators from considering President Barack Obama's last Supreme Court nominee, Judge Merrick Garland.

In 2017, JCN dumped millions into having Trump's first Supreme Court nominee Justice Neil Gorsuch fill the seat Obama's nominee was denied.

In 2018, the group repeated the same process to back Trump's second nomination of Justice Brett Kavanaugh.

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.

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Wellspring Committee, Inc.

8665 Sudley Road, Suite 182, Manassas, Virginia 20110

Overview

Wellspring Committee, Inc. is a business registered with Virginia State Corporation Commission (SCC), Clerk's Information System (CIS). The customer account number is #06906903. The business address is 8665 Sudley Road, Suite 182, Manassas, Virginia 20110. The business industry is 0 - General.

Business Information

Entity ID 06906903

Entity Name Wellspring Committee, Inc.

Address 8665 Sudley Road

Suite 182

Manassas

Virginia 20110

Status INACTIVE

Voluntarily Terminated - Can Reinstate

Status Date 2018-12-20

Duration 9999-12-31

Incorporate Date 2008-02-26

Incorporate State VA

Office Effective Date 2008-02-26

Industry Code 0 - General

Stock Indicator N

Assessment Indicator NON-ASSESSED-MUST FILE ANNUAL REPORT AND RA

Registered Agent Information

Registered Agent Name Gammon & Grange P.C.

Registered Agent Address 8280 Greensboro Drive

Suite 140

Mclean

Virginia 22102

Registered Agent Status Active

Business Officers

Officer Title Officer Name

CHAIRMAN NEIL CORKERY

Businesses with the same agent

Business Name Address Registered Agent Name Incorporate Date

Holy Trinity Ministries, Inc. 14700 Flint Lee Rd Ste H, Chantilly, Virginia 20151-1502 Gammon & Grange P.C. 2020-09-25

Fairfax Soccer Club 311 Maple Ave W Ste D, Vienna, Virginia 22180-4309 Gammon & Grange P.C. 2022-02-14

The Greenwich Fund 3220 N. St. Nw, Suite 302, Washington, District Of Columbia 20007 Gammon & Grange P.C. 2017-08-30

Society of Fellowships 1600 N Oak St Apt 1817, Arlington, Virginia 22209-2770 Gammon & Grange P.C. 2021-07-12

Carter Ministries 8700 Centreville Rd Ste 206, Manassas, Virginia 20110-8411 Gammon & Grange P.C. 2016-03-01

Caprock Strategies, LLC 4335 36th St S, Arlington, Virginia 22206-1809 Gammon & Grange P.C. 2020-12-21

The C.S. Lewis Institute, Inc. 8001 Braddock Rd Ste 301, Springfield, Virginia 22151-2110 Gammon & Grange P.C. 2018-12-21

Dulles Advisory Group, LLC 902 Poplar Court, Sterling, Virginia 20164 Gammon & Grange P.C. 2016-09-02

Christians Against Poverty America 650 Warrenville Rd Ste 100, Lisle, Illinois 60532-4315 Gammon & Grange P.C. 2018-07-16

Icons for America 9671 28th Bay St, Norfolk, Virginia 23518 Gammon & Grange P.C. 2020-04-28

Find all businesses with the same agent

Officer Information

Officers

Officer Title Officer Name

CHAIRMAN NEIL CORKERY

Businesses with the same officer (NEIL CORKERY)

Business Name Address Registered Agent Name Incorporate Date

Catholic Voices 3220 N St NW Ste 126, Washington, District Of Columbia 20007-2829 Gammon & Grange P.C. 2012-02-24

Jcn Pac 1455 Pennsylvania Ave. Nw, Suite 400, Washington, District Of Columbia 20004 North Rock Reports LLC 2016-04-29

Foundation for Accountability and Civic Trust 1717 K St.nw, Suite 900, Washington, District Of Columbia 20006 Corporation Service Company 2012-08-08

Catholic Views Council, Inc. 9502 Nelson Lane, Manassas, Virginia 20110 Ann M Corkery 2000-01-18

Institute for Marriage and Public Policy 8280 Greensboro Dr, Mclean, Virginia 22102 Gammon & Grange P.C. 2003-09-22

The Greenwich Fund 3220 N. St. Nw, Suite 302, Washington, District Of Columbia 20007 Gammon & Grange P.C. 2017-08-30

Wedgwood Culture Fund 5272 Lyngate Court, Suite 200, Burke, Virginia 22015 Mark Rodgers 2012-09-06

Infrastructure Financial, Inc. 13278 Styer Court, Highland, Maryland 20777 Michael Mclaughlin 2011-09-29

https://www.nationofchange.org/2022/07/07/opus-dei-supreme-indecency-extreme-deceit/

the current Supreme Court majority that just denied women a legal right to abortion (Dobbs vs. Jackson) consists of religious fanatics whose careers have been fast-tracked (so that young Justices can serve for decades) by ultra-wealthy, like-minded lobbyists and political operatives. The nexus of this activity lies with a powerful arch-conservative organization within the Catholic Church, Opus Dei, that in the U.S. operates out of the Catholic Information Center in Washington D.C.

I am not targeting Catholics but rather the Church’s reactionary, fundamentalist wing. Many Catholic organizations are dedicated to upholding the rights and lives of minorities (and majorities, such as women), victims of pedophilic priests, gays, the poor, immigrants, etc. The fundamentalist wing of any religion has more in common with other creeds’ fundamentalisms than with many of its own co-religionists, whom they often regard as enemies. Catholic fundamentalism is obviously not the only “brand” influencing American politics, but it is the one with a dominant insidious influence on the judiciary.

Opus Dei and its partner organizations have poured tens of millions of dollars into promoting the careers and appointments of Chief Justice Roberts and the five Justices who overturned Roe: Thomas, Alito, Kavanaugh, Gorsuch, and Barrett (Roberts, an arch-conservative, nonetheless dissented on the abortion case).

Opus Dei was founded in Spain by Escriva de Balaguer in 1928 and grew in power, wealth, and influence during the Fascist dictatorship of Francisco Franco who, with significant military help from Nazi Germany, overthrew the legitimate Spanish government and ruled over a police state from 1939-1975. The group extended its power throughout Latin America, supporting Pinochet’s murderous regime in Chile and other terrorizing dictatorships. It consistently opposes gay, sexual, and reproductive rights, and the Catholic liberation movements that champion the poor in Latin America. It has been involved in the Vatican’s banking scandals but still wields enormous influence over Vatican finances, as detailed by Robert Hutchison in his book, Their Kingdom Come.

Opus Dei’s assets as of 2008 were $2.8 billion, but they have undoubtedly grown since. Popes John Paul II and Francisboth elevated Opus Dei officials to the highest Church offices. One of Opus Dei’s core principles, as articulated by its founder, is to engage in “the sphere of public life”, not because they are human or Catholic rights but because “they are God’s rights…May such ‘fanaticism’ for the Faith…become stronger every day.” Opus Dei is not simply a conservative religious group, it is openly dedicated to wielding political and financial power in nations throughout the world. And that often means promoting and aligning itself with the most violent, reactionary regimes and acting in the shadow realms of political influence.

Opus Dei members were prominent in Trump’s White House, including Attorney General William Barr and Pat Cipollone, Trump’s former White House counsel. Opus Dei had access to Trump’s budgetdirector, Mick Mulvaney, along with other noted right-wing lobbyists (Heritage Foundation, Koch Industries), meetings the Trump administrationtried to keep secret. Member Larry Kudlow was Trump’s director of the National Economic Council. It may well be the most powerful political lobby in the world and yet its explicit political agenda is absolutely subservient to its extreme, authoritarian religious agenda.

A key fixer in this effort is Leonard Leo. Leo is on the board of directors of the Catholic Information Center (William Barr was a past director) and Executive Vice Presidentof the Federalist Society, a lobbying group that adheres to an “originalist” interpretation of the Constitution (more on this below). The two organizations are close political allies, as Leo’s dual role suggests. As Trump’s close advisor during his presidency, Leo was responsible for selecting and guiding the Supreme Court nominations of Alito, Barrett, Kavanaugh, and Gorsuch and was instrumental in riddling the lower Federal courts with Trump appointees.

Meanwhile, members of both Opus Dei and The Federalist Society include Alito, Clarence Thomas, and the late Justice Antonin Scalia. Chief Justice Roberts is a Federalist Society member and the Society’s members and supporters are prominent in many of nation’s top law schools and most powerful law firms, which allows it to have an untoward influence over judicial selections. When Clarence Thomas headlined a 2013 Federalist Society fundraiser, guests were seated in proximity to him according to the size of their donations. In effect, the Federalist Society and Opus Dei have become the Supreme Court of the land.

Much of Opus Dei’s influence was exerted via the Wellspring Committee, established and run by Opus Dei members Ann and Neil Corkery in 2008. The Koch brothers were instrumental in providing Wellspring with its first $10 million in seed money. According to Robert Maguire of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, the Corkerys “have been the overseers of massive amounts of money that have gone into federal judicial races.”

Wellspring closed down in 2018 but not before passing its mantle to the Judicial Crisis Network (JCN); in 2017 Wellspring transferred $14,814, 998.00, or 94% of its donations that year, to JCN. JCN was formerly directed by Leonard Leo and now by Carrie Severino, who served as Thomas’s law clerk. (Opus Dei’s Roger Severino, Carrie’s husband, was Director of Trump’s Office for Civil Rights). JCN is a 501(c)(4) organization so its donors can remain secret. JCN poured millions into supporting Bush and Trump’s Supreme Court nominees (Roberts, Alito, Kavanaugh, Gorsuch, and Barrett) and millions blockingObama’s Court nominee, Merrick Garland.

Given Opus Dei’s absolute anti-choice ideology, global power, and influence over the Supreme Court, it is clear the Court’s anti-choice decision was not driven by legal arguments over the right to privacy, strict or “originalist” interpretations of the Constitution, or states rights. These were all just window dressing. The Supreme Court—and much of our judiciary—has been taken over by fanatics with a strictly theologicalagenda: to replace “separation of Church and State” with “the Church runs the state”. It is a narrow, fanatical religious ideology that decided the case.

The so-called “originalist” theory of interpreting the Constitution claims the Constitution only protects rights explicitly mentioned in the text. The Constitution itself rejects the “originalist” idea so central to conservative ideology. The Ninth Amendment reads, “The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.” This clearly states that interpreting the Constitution is a living, evolving process, for how else can those “other[s]” rights be “retained by the people”? The Ninth is also a safety valve: “If we left out any important rights, sorry, our bad, it doesn’t mean those rights aren’t protected as well.” The Ninth has been used to uphold such diverse rights as teaching non-English languages, sending kids to private schools, protecting against forced sterilization, and the 1965 Griswold decision overturning bans on contraception, in which privacy was deemed a “penumbra” (also called “unenumerated”) right. The penumbra concept was then applied to abortion in 1973’s Roe decision.

Justice Harry Blackmun wrote the majority decision in Roe v. Wade, citing both the Ninth and Fourteenth Amendments: “This right of privacy, whether it be founded in the Fourteenth Amendment’s concept of personal liberty and restrictions upon state action, as we feel it is, or…in the Ninth Amendment’s reservation of rights to the people, is broad enough to encompass a woman’s decision whether or not to terminate her pregnancy. The detriment that the State would impose upon the pregnant woman by denying this choice altogether is apparent.” The Court also recognized that “When those trained in the respective disciplines of medicine, philosophy, and theology are unable to arrive at any consensus, the judiciary…is not in a position to speculate as to the answer.” Blackmun’s decision includes an overview of the dramatic shifts in cultural and legal attitudes towards abortion, though most views differentiated abortions in the first 12-16 weeks (before the baby is usually felt moving inside the womb) from those occurring later.

The “sanctity of the foetus”, that is, viewing abortion at any stage of pregnancy as equivalent to murder, is the linchpin of the anti-choice position and its driving emotional trigger. However, even the Catholic Church’s historical opposition to abortion had nothing to do with the sanctity of the foetus; it was aimed at the “sin” of sexual pleasure. Church policy varied over the centuries but the foetus’s life was either absent as an issue or secondary to sexual sin and other theological concerns. St. Thomas Aquinas asserted that in its earlier stages a foetus is in a “vegetal” and then “animal” state before achieving person-hood at some point, most likely at the end of the third month. It wasn’t until 1965 that the Church banned abortion on the basis of sanctity of life rather than sexual sin. However, the Bible passages used to justify this claim 1) do not really address abortion (the BIble is much more direct in advising that adulterers be stoned to death); 2) are drawn mostly from the Old Testament, a Jewish document, significant since the Jewish religion allows abortion; and 3) are in the Bible, which has no legal standing in the United States. Or didn’t.

The Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson is only the beginning, as anti-abortion activists and GOP-led extremists mobilize to assault a wide range of rights. The anti-choice movement was never only about abortion. Abortion was used as the emotional catalyst for a broad attack on the values of tolerance and social commitment embodied in Federal guarantees backed by Constitutional authority. The well-being of Americans and our system of government is now in the hands of religious fanatics on a crusade against all those who do not believe in their degraded, medieval version of truth. They are welcome to their beliefs but are not welcome to impose those beliefs on the rest of us, nor to challenge the fundamental values of the United States, which holds the value of human beings above adherence to extreme and rigid political or religious ideologies.

---

ref

https://wallstreetonparade.com/2021/01/the-untold-story-of-how-the-republican-attorneys-general-association-funded-with-large-sums-from-corporate-felons-including-oxycontin-drug-pusher-purdue-participated-in-recruiting-the-mob-that-atta/

if there was ever a DEFCON 1 warning to Americans that campaign finance reform must be a top priority of the incoming President Biden administration, it is the cautionary tale of the Republican Attorneys General Association (RAGA) and their recruitment efforts of the mob that descended on the Capitol of the United States on January 6. Five people are now dead from that siege, including a Capitol Police officer, and dozens injured. The U.S. Attorneys office for Washington, D.C. has also confirmed that two live pipe bombs with timers were found in front of the Republican National Committee and Democrat National Committee, both located near the Capitol.

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When one thinks of a group with the word “Association” in their name, it invokes the idea that this is a fraternal organization or a trade association. What doesn’t come to mind is that it is a campaign financing group to elect Republican Attorneys General – the highest law enforcement officer in a state – by taking vast sums of money from the very companies committing crimes in those states. But that is what RAGA has been doing for many years now.

RAGA defines itself as follows on its website:

“The Republican Attorneys General Association (RAGA) is the only national organization whose mission is electing Republicans to the Office of State Attorney General (AG). RAGA collaborates with our current Republican attorneys general and recruits outstanding candidates, providing them assistance with research, message development, and financial support.”

The day after the attack on the nation’s Capitol, Jamie Corey at the watchdog group, Documented, released an audio tape of robo calls being made by a unit of RAGA. The robo call message went like this:

“I’m calling for the Rule of Law Defense Fund with an important message. The ‘March to Save America’ is tomorrow in Washington D.C. at the Ellipse in President’s Park between E St. and Constitution Avenue on the south side of the White House, with doors opening at 7:00 a.m. At 1:00 p.m., we will march to the Capitol building and call on congress to stop the steal. We are hoping patriots like you will join us to continue to fight to protect the integrity of our elections. For more information, visit MarchtoSaveAmerica.com. This call is paid for and authorized by the Rule of Law Defense Fund, 202-796-5838.”

By January 5, the date of the above robo calls to potentially thousands of people urging them to “stop the steal,” there was no evidence of any significant election fraud. No one was in a better position to know that as a fact than the State Attorneys General who had just watched their states certify the votes in early December. In addition, William Barr, the Attorney General of the United States who was selected for that position by Donald Trump, told the media on December 1 that the Justice Department had uncovered no evidence of widespread voter fraud that would have changed the outcome of the presidential election.

The Executive Committee of RAGA includes Attorneys General from nine states (see above graphic). Its Chairman is Chris Carr, Attorney General of Georgia. For RAGA to participate in fomenting a riot at the Capitol on incendiary information it knew to be false demands a thorough and formal FBI and Congressional investigation. RAGA has thrown a bone to the media by firing its Executive Director, Adam Piper. But the entire structure of RAGA needs deep scrutiny.

The Rule of Law Defense Fund is the dark money fundraising arm of RAGA and located at the same address and suite number as RAGA according to its IRS filings. Both the Rule of Law Defense Fund and RAGA were at varying times listed as “Coalition Partners” on websites set up to promote the January 6 event. While many of these websites have been taken down, we were able to access them at the Internet Archives’ Wayback Machine, which captures website content on past dates. Website names used to promote the January 6 event include: TrumpMarch.com, MarchtoSaveAmerica.com, and WildProtest.com, among others. The obvious question, of course, is why would State Attorneys General want to associate themselves as a Coalition Partner with a group calling itself WildProtest.com, not to mention a false claim of a stolen election.

The WildProtest.com website told its readers this on the day before the event:

“We the People must take to the US Capitol lawn and steps and tell Congress #DoNotCertify on #JAN6! Congress cannot certify this fraudulent Electoral College. Our presence in Washington D.C. will let Members of Congress know that we stand with Rep. Mo Brooks and his colleagues in the House of Representatives who will bravely object to the certification of the Electoral College. We’re in need of at least one Senator. We’ve identified six (seven including Senator-elect Tommy Tuberville) that could join our cause. StopTheSteal.us is working closely, whipping the vote up, with patriots in the Congress.”

Yesterday, 34 Democrats in the House of Representatives signed a letter asking for an investigation by the Capitol Police and Sergeant of Arms in the House and Senate into unnamed persons giving potentially “reconnaissance” tours in the Capitol building the day before the attack. The letter states that on the day before the attack, January 5, “there were unusually large groups of people throughout the Capitol who could only have gained access to the Capitol Complex from a Member of Congress or a member of their staff.”

The Rule of Law Defense Fund is structured as a dark money, tax exempt 501(c)(4) group so that its donors can remain anonymous. Each year it provides hundreds of thousands of dollars to RAGA, in part to pay large salaries.

Exactly why RAGA needs a dark money group is hard to say. RAGA itself is accepting millions of dollars a year in contributions from some of the creepiest corporations in America, including those that have admitted to multiple felony counts brought by the U.S. Department of Justice.

RAGA is structured as a 527 tax-exempt organization that is allowed to raise unlimited funds from individuals and corporations. The IRS requires that it file an 8872 form each quarter showing its contributions and expenditures. We’ve spent this week looking at those forms. It’s not a pretty picture.

Purdue Pharma has given more than $570,000 to RAGA in just the three-year span between 2015 and 2017. In 2007, Purdue Pharma was fined $600 million by the U.S. Department of Justice on charges that it “illegally marketed and promoted OxyContin by falsely claiming that OxyContin was less addictive, less subject to abuse and diversion, and less likely to cause withdrawal symptoms than other pain medications — all in an effort to maximize its profits.” The company clearly viewed that as a slap on the wrist. Last October, the Justice Department brought three felony charges against Purdue and $8 billion in fines. At the time of last year’s announcement by the Justice Department, Tim McDermott of the Drug Enforcement Administration said this: “This resolution closes a particularly sad chapter in the ongoing battle against opioid addiction. Purdue Pharma actively thwarted the United States’ efforts to ensure compliance and prevent diversion. The devastating ripple effect of Purdue’s actions left lives lost and others addicted.”

ADDICTION = EXTRACTION? AHA]

RAGA seems to have a fondness for companies addicting young people. Reynolds American, whose cigarette brands include Camel, Newport, Pall Mall and others, has given more than $400,000 to RAGA since 2014. Altria, parent of Philip Morris, whose brands include Marlboro, Parliament, Benson & Hedges, Virginia Slims and others, has enriched RAGA to the tune of $484,154 since 2014.

In 1999, the U.S. Department of Justice sued Philip Morris, Reynolds and seven other large tobacco companies under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO). The government charged that the tobacco companies engaged in a 40-year conspiracy to mislead the public about the dangers of smoking, distort the dangers of secondhand smoke, and target the youth market as “replacement smokers.” In 2006, following a nine-month trial, Judge Gladys Kessler of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia issued a 1,683 page opinion. The Court found that “Cigarette smoking causes disease, suffering, and death.”

When we saw Big Tobacco was funding RAGA, we knew fossil fuel companies would be there also. Indeed they were, to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars from Koch Industries and Anadarko Petroleum. Why did we know that fossil fuel companies would be donating if Big Tobacco was funding RAGA? Because the makeup of RAGA’s donors looks very much like donors to a Koch brothers’ front group called Citizens for a Sound Economy (CSE), a 1984 group founded by the late David Koch of Koch Industries and Richard Fink, a former professor of economics at George Mason University, who had a long career at Koch Industries beginning in 1990.

In 2013 the health professionals’ journal, Tobacco Control, published a comprehensive report funded by the National Institute of Health (NIH), a federal agency. The report was titled ‘To Quarterback Behind the Scenes, Third Party Efforts’: The Tobacco Industry and the Tea Party.

The report explains that Citizens for a Sound Economy, which split into the Koch-funded Americans for Prosperity (a big funder of the Tea Party movement) and FreedomWorks in 2004, “supported the agendas of the tobacco and other industries, including oil, chemical, pharmaceutical and telecommunications, and was funded by them.” The report indicates that between 1991 and 2002, Philip Morris and other tobacco companies gave CSE at least $5.3 million.

Philip Morris and other tobacco companies launched an offensive in 1994 and 1995, using nonprofit front groups including CSE, to undermine the credibility of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) which was attempting to regulate second-hand smoke. One Philip Morris memo in late 1994 indicated that CSE and other front groups were working “to define the FDA as an agency out of control and one failing to live up to its congressional mandate regarding regulation of drugs and medical devices.”

As we have previously reported, Koch Industries and its front group, Freedom Partners, have played a central role in the Trump administration. See our report here.

The largest funder of RAGA is the Judicial Crisis Network which has contributed $5 million to RAGA since 2015. The bulk of the money flowing to the Judicial Crisis Network has come from a dark money group called the Wellspring Committee, which abruptly shuttered its operations in December 2018. Wellspring has given the Judicial Crisis Network over $52 million from unknown sources. If that sounds like legalized money laundering, you’re thinking correctly.

An IRS public tax filing by the Wellspring Committee for tax year 2016 shows that it received a whopping $32 million (more than three times its prior year’s income) in dark money. According to MapLight, $28.5 million of the $32 million came from a single, anonymous donor. In 2016, Wellspring took 72 percent of its annual income and gave it to the Judicial Crisis Network, a stunning $23,454,997. In turn, the next year, 2017, the Judicial Crisis Network handed a whopping $2.9 million in a single year to RAGA. (What kind of Attorneys General group would accept $2.9 million and have no idea from whom the money was actually coming?)

The Center for Responsive Politics has connected Wellspring to Charles Koch’s network, writing: “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 [Judicial Crisis Network’s] total funding.” Charles Koch is the billionaire Chairman and CEO of the fossil fuels juggernaut, Koch Industries, one of the largest private corporations in the world, with vast interests in oil, refineries, chemicals, paper and trading.

In addition to taking money from the opioid criminals, cigarette manufacturers, and climate change denial funders, RAGA also accepted large sums from two Wall Street banks that have also pleaded guilty to criminal charges brought by the U.S. Department of Justice.

JPMorgan Chase had donated more than $86,000 to RAGA since 2017. In the span of the last six years, JPMorgan Chase has pleaded guilty to six felony counts. Throughout that period, its Board has allowed its Chairman and CEO, Jamie Dimon, to keep his job. Dimon’s annual compensation is now $31.5 million.

Citigroup has just one felony count, to which it has admitted guilt, but its long rap sheet strongly suggests a criminal enterprise. See our 2017 report: A Private Citizen Would Be in Prison If He Had Citigroup’s Rap Sheet. Since 2014, Citigroup and its subsidiaries have donated $331,745 to RAGA.

If we step back and look through a wider lens at the mob attack on the Capitol on January 6, and delve deeply into the money and groups involved, it becomes a screaming battle cry to reform campaign financing and dark money groups in America.

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twt

@mrspanstreppon

Nov 27, 2018

Replying to

@mrspanstreppon

@runPattirun

and

@RobertMaguire_

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

Nov 27, 2018

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

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

april 2016

Leading the pushback from the outside against President Obama’s attempt to bring the Supreme Court back up to its full complement of nine justices, the Judicial Crisis Network claims to have spent $4 million on a TV, radio and digital campaign attacking nominee Merrick Garland and arguing that the next president should fill the vacancy.

Additional politically active, nondisclosing nonprofits, such as the Independent Women’s Forum, the Susan B. Anthony List and the NRA’s Institute for Legislative Action, have also made noise to try to shore up Senate Republicans who want to forestall voting on Garland’s confirmation.

One right-leaning group has weighed in more quietly: The Foundation for Accountability and Civic Trust (FACT) has demanded Harvard University release records having to do with Garland’s role in the debate in the early 1970s over whether to allow ROTC recruiters on that campus. In late March, FACT’s executive director, Matthew Whitaker, was quoted saying that “Americans have a right to know about Garland’s views of the military.”

Turns out JCN and FACT have something in common, beyond a penchant for keeping the names of their donors secret: Neil Corkery, who is treasurer of the judicial group and also the treasurer and a member of the board of directors at FACT, a 501(c)(3) organization.

Longtime readers of OpenSecrets News or The Daily Beast may remember that Corkery’s wife, Ann, had a big hand in getting JCN off the ground, back in early2005 when the “C” in its initials stood for “confirmation,” not “crisis.” At the time, Justice Antonin Scalia himself — whose death two months ago precipitated the current battle over the vacancy — attended a small dinner that included JCN organizers and at least one funder.

JCN originally promoted President George W. Bush’s nominations to the high court; conversely, it has attacked Obama’s. But many observers were surprised last fall when the group mounted an ad campaign criticizing Justice Anthony Kennedy and Chief Justice John Roberts, both appointed by GOP presidents, in an apparent effort to pressure them to take a harder conservative line. In addition, JCN has been involved in several state supreme court elections as well as attorneys general races.

FACT is a much newer creation, organized in 2014 as a conservative counterweight to watchdog groups viewed as more left-of-center, such as Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. The newer outfit took its first public action about a year ago when it filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission against Democratic voter data firm Catalist.

Since then, FACT has, on rare occasions (possibly just once), gone after a Republican, but most frequently accuses Democrats — particularly frontrunner and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton — of ethical or legal violations.

Its funding — $600,000 in 2014, according to the only tax return it has filed to date — comes entirely from a conservative donor-advised fund called DonorsTrust, which means it could come from anywhere. DonorsTrust is a pass-through vessel that manages the charitable contributions of wealthy individuals and foundations to organizations that are “dedicated to the ideals of limited government, personal responsibility, and free enterprise,” according to its website while allowing the donors to remain anonymous. Charles Koch is among the many conservatives who have filtered money through DonorsTrust.

In other words, an organization “dedicated to promoting accountability, ethics, and transparency” gets 100 percent of its funds from a group that exists mainly as a vehicle for donors to elude transparency.

Meanwhile, Corkery adds FACT to a long list of nondisclosing nonprofits at which he holds or has held, a key position, often treasurer, and which often have overlapping slates of directors or officers. For instance, at two other groups where Corkery is treasurer, the Judicial Education Project and Catholic Voices, a close family ally by the name of Dan Casey is president and director, respectively. Casey is also the secretary of JCN. At the Sudan Relief Fund, Corkery is president, Casey is treasurer, and Ann Corkery, Neil’s wife, is a director.

Ann Corkery is also president of the Wellspring Committee, from which JCN receives substantial funding, including more than $6.6 million in 2014; Kathleen Corkery, the couple’s daughter, is on Wellspring’s board of directors, and its secretary-treasurer is Casey’s son. Neil Corkery draws salaries from several of the groups where he’s an office; Ann is paid by Wellspring. (Venn diagram in the works.)

Many of the groups list the same Georgetown address as their office, with different suite numbers. In reality, the address is that of a UPS store, and the suite numbers are post boxes. FACT’s listed address, in downtown Washington, D.C., has no markings; it appears to be an address that is cited by more than one organization without actually being physically used by any of them, with a receptionist who answers the phone with the names of various groups depending on which line is called.

Neither Corkery nor Whitaker, FACT’s executive director, returned calls seeking comment.

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2x but this 1020 anno

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

april 2016

Neither Corkery nor Whitaker, FACT’s executive director, returned calls seeking comment.

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https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2015/03/the-jcn-story-building-a-secretive-gop-judicial-machine/

it was a cold winter night in Washington, D.C., not long after President George W. Bush won a second term, and the mood at the upscale Italian restaurant was downright celebratory.

The most prominent guest was Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, but his table also boasted a mix of high-powered conservatives, including some deep-pocketed donors. Among the elite were Federalist Society executive Leonard Leo, fundraiser and lawyer Ann Corkery, and California real estate magnate Robin Arkley II. “The big prize was to sit next to Scalia,” quipped one attendee at the soiree, adding that Arkley was one such lucky winner.

As it happened, the bash coincided with the birth of a new judicial advocacy outfit that Corkery was instrumental in launching, and Arkley in funding, according to conservative sources familiar with the events. The Judicial Confirmation Network (JCN), set up as a 501(c)(4) “social welfare” group that doesn’t disclose its donors, would prove to be a crucial player in drumming up support for Bush Supreme Court nominees John Roberts Jr. and Samuel Alito Jr. — eventual allies for Scalia on the Court’s right flank.

In the years since, JCN’s modus operandi and battlegrounds have shifted — particularly since Barack Obama won the White House, which prompted the group to sound the alarm and change its name to the Judicial Crisis Network. In the ensuing years, not only has it fought to block Obama’s nominees to the high court, but it has spent millions to sway state judicial elections and attorneys general races, helping to uphold state laws backed by conservatives, nurture like-minded talent in the states, and advance pro-business, limited-government legal agendas aligned with its donors’ leanings.

To expand its influence in state elections, JCN has emerged as a pipeline for secret money to other, better-known dark money groups like the Wisconsin Club for Growth and the American Future Fund which, in turn, have spent big bucks in state Supreme Court and AG races.

JCN heightened its focus on AG races last year when it pumped $1 million in secret money into the Republican Attorneys General Association, making it the third-biggest contributor to RAGA and helping the GOP pick up three new slots so that it now controls the majority of state AG posts.

JCN’s pivotal part in the surge of spending on court elections has received scant attention. But in 2012, it dished out more than:{$2 million in court races in Michigan alone — half of that in a single down-ticket state circuit contest, according to the Michigan Campaign Finance Network. And over the last two years, the organization contributed a minimum of about $2 million to groups that were involved in 2014 state judicial elections and efforts to influence how judges are chosen. Recipients of JCN checks included the many-tentacled Republican State Leadership Committee, which for the first time invested in court races around the country, spending more on them than any other outside group.}:

More broadly, in the 2014 election cycle TV ad spending in state Supreme Court elections jumped to at least $13.8 million, according to a preliminary tally by the nonprofit Justice at Stake Campaign. Outside groups, both conservative and liberal, accounted for an estimated $4.9 million of that, or more than 35 percent — a greater share than ever before.

The sharp rise in judicial election spending by JCN and other groups on both sides of the political aisle troubles some judicial candidates who have been targeted. “To the extent that judicial campaigns start looking like other campaigns, there’s a risk that judges will be perceived as having a political agenda,” Sam Ervin IV, a North Carolina Supreme Court justice, told The Daily Beast. Ervin, who was elected in 2014 and is the grandson of the celebrated senator who led Congress’s investigation of the Watergate scandal, lost an earlier race in 2012 after a spending blitz by several outside groups totaling almost $2.6 million, much of it dark money including $75,000 from JCN. “The public is better served, in an environment where judges are elected, if they know the source of the funding for those campaigns,” Ervin, a Democrat, added.

To fill its own coffers, JCN has increasingly relied on funding — to the tune of nearly $4 million, according to IRS documents — from another non-disclosing group, theWellspring Committee, that’s run by Corkery and was founded seven years ago with the help of conservative donors in the network led by billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch. Corkery’s entree to that rarefied network came via JCN supporter Arkley, an early attendee of their famed retreats. And Ann Corkery and her husband, Neil — who is JCN’s treasurer — are central figures in a cluster of other nonprofits, IRS filings show.

A fast rise

JCN’s early niche entailed working in tandem with a well-organized conservative coalition — in which Leo, the Federalist Society’s executive vice president, was a key player — to ensure that Roberts and Alito won Senate confirmation. To that end, JCN spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in 2005 and January 2006 on radio and online ads, as well as on grassroots efforts, to shape public opinion. One example: The group ran a radio ad blitz in late 2005 in Arkansas, where the two Democratic senators’ votes were considered in play, using Christmas themes and an appeal from a black minister.

Well-connected consultants helped JCN get things up and running. One was Gary Marx, a rising social conservative star who Corkery recruited to became the group’s executive director, according to a well-placed source.

Another was New York lawyer Wendy Long, a former clerk for Clarence Thomas. She left the law firm Kirkland & Ellis and signed on as counsel to JCN, becoming the organization’s face on cable news and buttressing its legal bona fides.

But mostly, JCN’s early rise was attributable to Corkery’s ability to rope in a few big donors. “Ann is very good at cultivating relationships and capitalizing on them,” a conservative source observed.

Robin Arkley, the president and CEO of Security National Corp. who had tapped Corkery to be his political liaison and senior advisor, became a key underwriter of JCN’s operations, to the tune of the high six or low seven figures, sources say. The pair went to some of the early fundraising and policy retreats held by the Kochs — events that now draw a glittering cast of wealthy allies and conservative stars to raise millions for the brothers’ network of politically active groups. Arkley was also a financial backer of the Federalist Society. “Arkley helped put Ann in play” as a liaison to funding for advocacy groups on the right, said one conservative.

Corkery had a breakthrough year in 2008. Koch operatives gave her the reins to their fledgling Wellspring Committee, a dark money conduit that began pumping funds to other dark money Koch-backed groups like Americans for Prosperity. At the same time, Corkery served as a finance vice chair for Mitt Romney’s 2008 presidential campaign.

Though Corkery’s most direct Koch ties frayed after the ’08 elections and Arkley’s wallet took a hit in the financial crisis, according to sources and reports, Corkery mined other big donors she’d been courting for Wellspring, such as John Templeton Jr., a Pennsylvania philanthropist, and New York hedge fund mogul Paul Singer, conservative sources said.

Conservative and business groups had been pouring money into state court elections through the early 2000s in order to produce a friendlier legal climate — one that curbed tort liability for corporations, for example. Smart marketing and intellectual heft provided by Leo’s Federalist Society helped them notch significant gains. From 2000 to 2009, business and conservative groups spent more than twice as much on state court elections as plaintiffs’ lawyers, unions, and liberal groups — $26.3 million to $11.9 million, according to Justice at Stake.

Wellspring, followed quickly by JCN, became big players directly and indirectly funding state Supreme Court races. In 2008, for example, Wellspring funneled $200,000 to a group that produced the negative attack ads that helped a conservative eke out a victory over a sitting Supreme Court justice in Wisconsin, tipping control of the bench to the right. In 2009, Wellspring grants went to groups trying to change judicial selection methods in Missouri and Tennessee.

In 2010, Wellspring began sending money directly to JCN, giving it and a related organization, the Judicial Education Project, $400,000; an additional $306,000 came in 2011, then $1.5 million in 2012 and $1.4 million the next year. Big grants also went to other organizations playing in judicial politics — including $400,000 in 2011 for Wisconsin Club for Growth, a major actor in that state’s shift to a conservative Supreme Court majority.

Wisconsin Club for Growth was also aided by JCN to the tune of more than half-a-million dollars from mid-2012 to mid-2013 as JCN began to function as a dark money conduit like Wellspring. The Wisconsin group spent close to $400,000 to help win a second 10-year term for Justice Patience Roggensack.

Conservative control of the Wisconsin court enabled in no small part by the big pots of dark money dumped into the state, has proved vital to the rejection of challenges to two signature conservative policies championed by GOP Gov. Scott Walker: his initiatives to curb public sector unions and to require voter IDs. (The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday turned away a challenge to the voter ID law, so it will stand.)

And an investigation into whether Walker illegally coordinated efforts with several groups — including Wisconsin Club for Growth — in the run-up to his 2012 recall vote now depends on a ruling by the state’s justices. The special prosecutor leading the probe has asked at least one — perhaps all four — of the court’s conservatives to recuse themselves because of support they have gotten from the groups. (Given recent history and the state’s weak judicial conduct rules, court observers say that seems unlikely.)

The lower court money bomb

While turning, and keeping, the Wisconsin court conservative was a high priority for JCN and others on the right, the group didn’t spend much cash there directly. But the opposite was true in neighboring Michigan, where JCN laid out more than $2 million on two 2012 court races. About half the money went to an effort to keep law professor Bridget McCormack from sitting on the state Supreme Court, including a accusing McCormack of volunteering to represent terrorists, featuring the mother of a soldier killed in Afghanistan. (McCormack did volunteer one of her law school clinics to represent a Guantanamo detainee, though he was released before the students communicated with him.)

The other $1 million, though, was spent attempting to kick an Oakland County Circuit Court judge off the bench — and JCN’s spending in that race was matched by Americans for Job Security, which had earlier benefited from Wellspring largesse.

Such staggering spending on a lower court contest may be unprecedented, and it was far from clear why the groups were interested. One possible explanation: a funder with an ax to grind.

Who that was may never be known. But “pretty much everyone believed” it to be Manoj Bhargava or a person or entity linked to him, said a Michigan lawyer who had a ringside seat at the time; other attorneys and journalists in the state told The Daily Beast the same thing.

The Indian-born Bhargava, who invented the now-ubiquitous 5-Hour Energy shot, might be seen by some as a walking contradiction. On the one hand, he lived as a monk in India for years and has taken a pledge to give more than half his wealth to charity. But he’s also a fierce competitor who, according to a profile in Forbes, displays in his office cardboard tombstones bearing the names of rivals his company has beaten in court.

A 2012 case before Circuit Judge Phyllis McMillen may shed light on the origins of the campaign against her. Bhargava, through 5-Hour’s parent company Innovation Ventures, was suing a key 5-Hour contractor for allegedly stealing trade secrets. At first, McMillen issued a temporary restraining order against the contractor. As facts emerged, though, she lifted the TRO. To allow Innovation Ventures to “crush competitors” unfairly, she said in court on February 10, “is certainly not something that’s supported by public policy.”

McMillen was running for her first full term in 2012. That spring, soon after she lifted the TRO, she and her colleagues who were also on the ballot learned they had opposition: a couple of lawyers from Republican Attorney General Bill Schuette’s office. Three non-Michiganders had provided the seed money for their candidacies: Andrew McKenna of Virginia, a fundraising consultant with ties to Bhargava, according to a well-placed source; John Templeton, one of Ann Corkery’s funding sources; and John Bryan of Oregon, a retired oil and chemicals executive who spoke at one of the Koch confabs.

TV ads sponsored by JCN and its dark money ally showed up closer to the election, with some attacking McMillen (one made her appear to have been lenient with a habitual offender) and others praising the challengers. “They were on every half-hour,” McMillen told The Daily Beast. “It was relentless.” There was radio, too, and a torrent of direct mail.

McMillen says she doesn’t know who went after her. “I have no idea,” she said. “There are people who don’t like the way I’ve decided; we handle big litigation.”

Bhargava did not respond to numerous requests for comment.

In any case, JCN’s Wolverine State crusades didn’t work out too well. McCormack is now a Supreme Court justice and McMillen won her contest, too. In early 2013, she ruled against Bhargava.

But in 2014 he clearly emerged as a national mega-donor to boost GOP governors at a time when his energy drink company was facing probes by as many as 33 state AGs into allegations of deceptive advertising. In the 2014 election cycle, Bhargava’s ETC Capital investment firm gave nearly $2.8 million to the Republican Governors Association, putting him at the top of RGA’s donor heap right after David Koch and his company and casino billionaire Sheldon Adelson.

Attorneys general become focus

JCN’s surging dark money dollars found a new outlet last year when the network ponied up $1 million to the Republican Attorneys General Association for its 2014 drive to help the GOP capture AG seats in Nevada, Colorado, and elsewhere. That made JCN RAGA’s third-largest donor in a year when RAGA was instrumental in helping Republicans capture enough AG posts that they now hold the majority. RAGA and similar 527 organizations must disclose their donors, but the sources of JCN’s contributions remain in the dark.

On top of that, JCN sent $750,000 to the Iowa-based American Future Fund, which started its own AG project between July 1, 2012, and June 30, 2013, tax filings show — JCN’s largest grant of that fiscal year. In turn, AFF chipped in $680,000 to RAGA last year.

State attorneys general had been moving higher on JCN’s political radar. Policy director and chief counsel Carrie Severino, who succeeded Wendy Long as JCN’s counsel in 2010 and, like her, once clerked for Justice Thomas, wrote in National Review right before the 2012 elections that conservative AGs are “emerging as key leaders in the battle for limited constitutional government.” Many of them, she noted, had joined the challenge to Obamacare, and a number were also fighting the Dodd-Frank financial services overhaul and EPA regulations.

Dark money ties that bind

The JCN spending through RAGA to boost the GOP’s share of AG slots is just one example of the synergies that the network has forged as a dark money vehicle. Other ties binding JCN to various groups it has funded — and received money from — are evident in the comings and goings of personnel, consultants, and board members. For instance, when Gary Marx stepped down as JCN’s executive director in mid-2011, he took a similar post with Ralph Reed’s Faith and Freedom Coalition (a group that Wellspring helped in 2010 with a $250,000 check). Likewise, last year Chris Jankowski became a consultant to JCN after spending several years running the Republican State Leadership Committee until he departed suddenly in early 2014, according to multiple sources. Both JCN and Wellspring had funneled hundreds of thousands to the RSLC, which has helped the GOP chart major gains in legislatures and other state offices. (RAGA had been part of that group but was spun off early last year.)

But JCN’s tightest ties with any group or individual revolve around Ann and Neil Corkery, which meant that Wellspring’s links to JCN were personal as well as political. Serendipitously Ann Corkery’s husband Neil was JCN’s treasurer, a paid part-time gig. The group’s small board also includes Dan Casey, a veteran GOP operative and “the political and PR brains” of that shop, says one source. Wellspring’s board was made up of Ann Corkery and two people the Corkerys knew from their work with Catholic groups.

But in 2011, the ties between these two dark money machines grew even closer when Ann Corkery sacked her two fellow board members at Wellspring and replaced them with her daughter and the son of JCN board member Casey, according to IRS filings and former board members. One of those ousted, treasurer Steven Wagner, said, “I never saw any financial records. I was treasurer in name only.”

In fact, Wellspring and JCN are the tip of a nonprofit iceberg when it comes to the Corkery family. In 2012, tax records show that Neil Corkery was not only treasurer of JCN, president of its allied Judicial Education Project, and executive director of a charity called the Sudan Relief Fund, all of which paid him salaries; but he also drew paychecks from at least four other organizations: the anti-gay union National Organization for Marriage, ActRight Action, the Catholic Association Foundation, and Catholic Voices. His total earnings were almost $450,000, and his weekly workload was 105 hours in the first half of the year, the groups’ IRS filings show, before dropping back to a mere 80.

Some who are familiar with the groups are dubious about that workaholic schedule — especially at the Sudan charity, where Corkery was paid $235,000 for a supposed 40-hour workweek. Neither Ann nor Neil Corkery responded to phone messages or written requests for comment on this story.

Moving ahead

Critics notwithstanding, the board changes at Wellspring a few years ago seemed to spell good news for JCN, coinciding with the two recent years in which JCN received close to $3 million from Wellspring and allowing the network to ramp up its efforts in the states.

And JCN has been otherwise busy, too — churning out, for example, amicus briefs for major legal challenges to Obama administration policies, including the high-profile case that now threatens to undermine key sections of Obamacare which was argued before the Supreme Court in early March.

The group doesn’t always toe the mainstream GOP line: It has at times weighed in against Republicans in what looks like internal party spats fueled by donor preferences.

Ultimately JCN looks poised to continue its role as a dark money juggernaut in 2016 in state and federal elections — both directly and via allied dark money and 527 conduits. If JCN’s recent history proves a guide, that means voters going to the polls in 2016 will remain largely uninformed about who’s writing the network’s big checks for ad and grassroots drives to help elect the highest judicial and legal officers in the states, and senators who may well have to approve nominees to fill future Supreme Court vacancies.

Robert Maguire of the Center for Responsive Politics contributed to this piece

Peter Stone, who covered lobbying and the influence of money in politics at National Journal for 18 years, has been writing for Mother Jones, The Huffington Post, The Daily Beast and others.

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

m ellis

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

In 2016, JCN shelled out millions of dollars to dissuade senators from considering President Barack Obama's last Supreme Court nominee, Judge Merrick Garland.
In 2017, JCN dumped millions into having Trump's first Supreme Court nominee Justice Neil Gorsuch fill the seat Obama's nominee was denied.
In 2018, the group repeated the same process to back Trump's second nomination of Justice Brett Kavanaugh.
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.

FROM YOUR SITE ARTICLES

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an 1020

...LISA GRAVES: It is the case that the Republicans have really politicized the courts in that way, while they claim that the Democrats have. The court that they complained so much about, the one historically complained about, was the Warren court. 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—

BILL MOYERS: What do you mean?

LISA GRAVES: 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. That was attacked vociferously on the right as an inappropriate and outrageous decision. 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.

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.

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 litmus test about abortion, that he would only appoint someone to the Supreme Court who would overturn Roe v. Wade. 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.

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. 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—

BILL MOYERS: Leonard Leo, tell me who he is.

LISA GRAVES: Leonard Leo, 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. 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. 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.

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 standing on the precipice of what he called the revival of what he described as the quote, "Structural Constitution," that would roll back 100 years of precedents in America. And that the appointments that Trump was making were in design to do just that, to remove the rights of people to organize in labor unions. The rights of people to petition their government for social 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. 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.

BILL MOYERS: 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?

LISA GRAVES: It's already under way. One of the main groups that Leonard Leo has helped to orchestrate is called the Judicial Crisis Network, JCN. 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 dark money 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 Wellspring Committee giving to Judicial Crisis Network.

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?

"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."

LISA GRAVES: Yes. So, the Judicial Crisis Network is formally led by Carrie Severino, along with the assistance of Gary Marx, 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.

Their funders are unknown. We do know that there was one huge donation to the Wellspring Committee. 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.

But to JCN and the Independent Women's Forum and their network, 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.

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.

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. 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. 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.

"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."

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?"

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.

BILL MOYERS: Is it possible, Lisa, that she doesn't know that the fix is in and that she's the fix?

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.

She doesn't believe the Constitution requires judges to follow precedent. 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.

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.

BILL MOYERS: 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?

LISA GRAVES: I believe that she is. 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. 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.

And she's also been someone who's been an activist in attacking the Affordable Care Act. 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.

BILL MOYERS: 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 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. That's going to be a real blow to workers in what is an expanding gig economy.

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, thatshe 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. 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. So, you have this tobacco lawyer who represents a segregated school district, who is asked by the United States Chamber of Commerce to write a memo about where the law could go. 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. And so that Powell blueprint from the early 1970s to really push for courts that were going to be pro-corporation and I think she very clearly represents that perspective. 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.

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?

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.

BILL MOYERS: Trump obviously believes that she will be a wedge to help him win a second term. And that's the issue.

LISA GRAVES: 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. 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.

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?

LISA GRAVES: I believe that's precisely the strategy. This president is trying to secure for himself an illegitimate victory in this election. 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. The court is actually problematic in a number of ways. First of all, you have someone like 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. As that case was coming through the court, she then became part of the transition team for the victor. You have a Justice of the Supreme Court in John Roberts who advised on the Bush v. Gore case. You have another recently confirmed justice in Justice Kavanaugh who was an attorney on one of the original cases that resulted in the decision in Bush v. Gore. And now you have a nominee who also worked on the Bush v. Gore case in Amy Coney Barrett.

BILL MOYERS: 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.

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. 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.

BILL MOYERS: 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.

LISA GRAVES: 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.

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.

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. 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. 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

BILL MOYERS: I agree with that.

LISA GRAVES: –and could affect the outcome of the election, one way or the other.

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?

LISA GRAVES: 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. 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.

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. 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.

BILL MOYERS: What will you be watching for during the confirmation hearings?

LISA GRAVES: That's a great question.

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—

LISA GRAVES: Yeah.

BILL MOYERS: –the nominee says bull. Pleasantly, elegantly, sometimes, but it's bull.

LISA GRAVES: Yeah.

BILL MOYERS: And the public moves on.

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.

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. 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.

BILL MOYERS: Would you concede that she might see this in the context of what she said to the commencement at Notre Dame when she said that there was a larger purpose to being a lawyer than being a lawyer, and I'm paraphrasing, that 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?

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.

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. 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. 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.

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.

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.

BILL MOYERS: By transactional, you mean–

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.

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.

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, 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. 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.

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.

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....

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https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2018/11/trump-inauguration-money-links-secretive-dark-money/

Notorious “dark money” conduit Wellspring Committee gave $14.8 million to the primary spender on Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation and paid $919,900 to the mysterious LLC that made a $1 million donation to President Donald Trump’s inaugural committee, according to a new tax return obtained Nov. 27 by the Center for Responsive Politics.

Wellspring has acted as a conduit for large contributions from secretive donors since it was set up, effectively laundering multi-million dollar donations with no substantive disclosure or accountability.

Despite operating behind the scenes with a name unknown to most of the American public, Wellspring is at the crux of Ann and Neil Corkery’s network of politically active dark money groups, funneling millions from anonymous financiers to political causes they don’t want their names attached to — and doing ostensibly little else.

Wellspring has continued to be the chief financier of the Judicial Crisis Network (JCN), with a $14,814,998 contribution last year.

JCN is another nondisclosing politically active nonprofit linked to the Corkerys’ network of conservative dark money groups. It has become the predominant dark money spender in Supreme Court confirmation fights as a vehicle for deep-pocketed donors to funnel millions of dollars behind or against judicial nominees.

Since 2010, Wellspring has funneled more than $54.2 million to JCN, according to tax returns obtained by CRP.

The bulk of Wellspring’s funds that came from three multi-million dollar secret donors in 2017, a shift from prior years in which the biggest amount the group received from a single mystery donor increased with each passing year. The largest donor accounted for $8.9 million, another gave $5.5 million and a third secret donor provided $2 million — but all of their identities remain hidden from the public.

The biggest anonymous contribution to Wellspring in 2016 was nearly $28.5 million, a jump from $8.5 million in 2015 and $6.96 million in 2014. That one secret donor accounted for around 90 percent of Wellspring’s funding in 2016, a year it gave $23 million to JCN.

As a 501(c)(4) social welfare organization, JCN is not required to report its donors to the IRS — and chooses not to disclose its funders’ identities to the public — so its only discoverable donors are other entities like Wellspring that act as conduits for the anonymous money directed at JCN.

JCN was back in the limelight this year as the biggest spender in support of Trump’s second Supreme Court nominee, Brett Kavanaugh. Following its tried and true playbook, JCN launched its first ad about Kavanaugh before Trump even finished announcing his nomination and soon after announced plans to spend $10 million on his confirmation. JCN pledged $10 million to support the successful confirmation of Trump’s first Supreme Court nominee, Neil Gorsuch, the prior year and reported spending $7 million to block the confirmation of Merrick Garland before President Barack Obama left office.

JCN has also spent substantial sums on lobbyists, including Jon Kyl, who lobbied to help JCN marshall in Gorsuch’s nomination before becoming the official White House “sherpa” guiding Kavanaugh through that same process. He was later appointed to fill the late Sen. John McCain’s seat — ultimately enabling him to vote for the confirmation he was once tasked with helping Kavanaugh secure.

JCN spent $483,246 in total on Facebook ads and just $1,900 on Google platforms around the fight to confirm Kavanaugh with an estimated reach of potentially millions of Facebook users.

TV advertising made up the bulk of JCN’s reported spending on Kavanaugh with around $3.9 million going TV ads, according to Kantar Media/CMAG estimates — leaving millions of dollars JCN had pledged to spend unaccounted for.

The puzzle of Trump’s mysterious inaugural gift

The only contractor paid by Wellspring last year was BH Group, the mysterious LLC created four months to the day before it made a $1 million donation to the Trump inaugural committee on Dec. 22, 2016.

The newly discovered payment for “public relations” follows a $750,000 payment to the newly minted BH Group the prior year as well as $947,000 from JCN to the BH Group around when the LLC made its inaugural donation.

While it initially appeared that BH Group was merely a shell company created solely for the purpose of laundering money into the Trump inaugural committee, more information about the LLC has only added to its mystery.

New tax returns reviewed by CRP reveal that Judicial Education Project, JCN’s sister 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, also paid an additional $1.3 million to BH Group LLC last year. Judicial Education Fund keeps its donors anonymous but CRP tracked the bulk of the group’s recent funding to DonorsTrust, which accounted for more than 99 percent of its money last year. Like JCN, Judicial Education Fund has also been funded by Wellspring in prior years.

One name that CRP has tied to the mysterious LLC is Leonard Leo, the executive vice president at the Federalist Society, an influential conservative and libertarian legal organization, who listed “BH Group” as his employer in a campaign finance filing reported to the Federal Election Commission.

Leo’s more widely known affiliation with the Federalist Society has gained attention after reports that it played a substantial role guiding the hand of Trump’s White House in its judicial nomination process, including in the selection of Supreme Court justices.

Ann Corkery, the Wellspring Committee’s former president and wife of current president Neil Corkery, has reportedly worked closely with him in this process and Leo has been “directly involved” in raising much of the anonymous money the Wellspring Committee brings in every year.

A public records request revealed that Leo and another Federalist Society vice president have also been involved in a nonprofit called the BH Fund, which was set up to enforce a donor agreement between an anonymous $20 million donor and the Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason University, whose president came under fire for allowing donors to dictate conditions in return for financial gifts.

:{Incorporation records list BH Group’s address as a virtual office in Arlington, Va. and the only identified point of contact is Donna Smith, whose name matches that of a longtime paralegal at Holtzman Vogel Josefiak Torchinsky, the law firm that shared a Warrenton, Va. office with the address the Trump inaugural committee on its tax return.:{}:

Continuing the money churn

Staying the course from prior years, Wellspring also gave $400,000 to the Catholic Association, $48,000 to the Annual Fund and $350,000 to the Foundation for Government Accountability’s 501(c)(4) arm, FGA Action.

Another appendage of the Corkerys’ dark money web is the Foundation for Accountability and Civic Trust (FACT), a nonprofit run by acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker before he became Jeff Sessions’ chief of staff, as CRP first reported in 2016. Like Wellspring, JCN and the Judicial Education Project, Neil Corkery is also the treasurer of FACT. Nearly 100 percent of FACT’s funding came from a single anonymous donor each year since the group was created in 2014, which CRP discovered came entirely from a donor-advised fund called DonorsTrust.

In addition to longstanding dark money stalwarts that have realigned their priorities for the Trump era, new groups spending heavily in support of Trump’s agenda also weighed in on Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court confirmation battle but are not entirely isolated from the Washington swamp Trump pledged to drain.

:{Wellspring was one of the early donors of 45Committee, another 501(c)(4) social welfare nonprofit that primarily exists to support Trump’s agenda which spent on ads supporting Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation this year.:{}:

Another spender was America First Policies, the 501(c)(4) nonprofit organization staffed by former Trump campaign and White House personnel that has become the main dark money group supporting Trump’s agenda.

Although America First Policies itself does not reveal donors’ identities, CRP traced over a quarter of its funding to major corporate players, including Reynolds American and Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA), a trade group representing the drug company industry’s lobbying interests.

New tax documents filed by another pro-Trump nonprofit, Great America Alliance, show it raised and spent around $3.4 million during that period. Unlike America First Policies, which reported millions more in previously undisclosed political spending it its new tax return, Great America Alliance claimed that it “educated voters through direct and indirect political advocacy messaging nationwide within the scope of applicable laws and regulations.”

This highlights one of the many legal grey areas emerging in the wake of Trump’s unprecedented move to register as a candidate for the 2020 presidential election on his first day in office — leaving the vast majority of financiers behind the growing network of dark money groups spending on his agenda a mystery.

Feel free to distribute or cite this material, but please credit the Center for Responsive Politics.

For permission to reprint for commercial uses, such as textbooks, contact the Center: info@crp.org

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https://www.alternet.org/2019/05/mysterious-dark-money-group-got-22-million-to-get-trump-scotus-pick-kavanaugh-confirmed/

A just-published report by the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics’ award-winning OpenSecrets.org reveals the Judicial Crisis Network, a conservative secretive dark money group received $22 million from anonymous donors in the year leading up to the Tump administration and conservatives’ push to place Brett Kavanaugh on the U.S. Supreme Court.

$17 million of that $22 million came from one anonymous donor.

“The Judicial Crisis Network (JCN), a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit, pledged to spend as much as $10 million to ensure Kavanaugh’s confirmation — the same amount that it spent to help confirm Justice Neil Gorsuch in 2017,” Anna Massoglia and Andrew Perez at OpenSecrets reveal in their report Friday.

“JCN has close ties 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.”

If you’re not familiar with the Judicial Crisis Network, here’s one of their ads you may have seen on TV in the run up to the Kavanaugh confirmation vote:

[vid]

Here’s where it gets even more disturbing.

“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 larger network of opaque groups.”

That “larger network of opaque groups” links to another OpenSecrets report: “New clues link $1 million Trump inauguration mystery money to secretive ‘dark money’ network.”

OpenSecrets adds, “Wellspring has continued to send massive annual endowments to JCN since the group launched in 2005. JCN, in turn, has continued to pour tens of millions of dollars into every subsequent Supreme Court nomination fight and working to reshape the judiciary. Wellspring reported donating almost $15 million to JCN in 2017, on top of $23.5 million in 2016. Neither organization discloses the sources of its funds.”

ref

https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2019/05/dark-money-group-funded-by-17million-mystery-donor-before-kavanaugh

The 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.

The Judicial Crisis Network (JCN), a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit, pledged to spend as much as $10 million to ensure Kavanaugh’s confirmation — the same amount that it spent to help confirm Justice Neil Gorsuch in 2017. JCN has close ties 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.

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 latest tax return, which was obtained by MapLight and OpenSecrets. Former Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy announced his retirement in June 2018, paving the way for Kavanaugh’s nomination.

JCN’s filing lists nine other anonymous contributions, none smaller than six figures.

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 larger network of opaque groups. Neil Corkery, Wellspring’s current president, previously served as JCN’s treasurer; his wife, Ann, was leading Wellspring at the time.

Wellspring has continued to send massive annual endowments to JCN since the group launched in 2005. JCN, in turn, has continued to pour tens of millions of dollars into every subsequent Supreme Court nomination fight and working to reshape the judiciary. Wellspring reported donating almost $15 million to JCN in 2017, on top of $23.5 million in 2016. Neither organization discloses the sources of its funds.

The 2017-18 tax return also reveals JCN paid $241,000 to BH Group — a Virginia limited-liability company tied to Leo, the Trump judicial adviser — after paying the company $947,000 the previous year. BH Group was responsible for a mysterious $1 million donation to Trump’s inaugural committee in 2017. BH Group received at least $919,000 from Wellspring and $1.4 million from the Judicial Education Project, a nonprofit affiliated with JCN, through the end of 2017.

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 gave $950,000 to the NRA in 2017. The NRA ran ads boosting both Gorsuch and Kavanaugh.

JCN gave almost $3.6 million to the Republican Attorneys General Association (RAGA) and $450,000 to the Rule of Law Defense Fund. RAGA launched 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.

One of the many controversies Pruitt dealt with during his 17-month EPA tenure involved the revelation his wife had secured 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 McClatchy.

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 launched in 2017 as a conservative counterweight to EMILY’s List.

The Susan B. Anthony List boosted Kavanaugh’s nomination and continued 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 Facebook ad buys targeting women.

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 resigned last year amid an investigation into the organization.

This story was produced in partnership between OpenSecrets and MapLight.

$500K one year 990 404

2014 $652,829 $643,912 $0 $0

American Dream Initiative

Alexandria, VA (Legal domicile: VA)

Parent OrganizationN/ATypeCivic Leagues, Social Welfare Organizations, and Local Associations of EmployeesYear Founded2013Reported Political Activity to IRS?NoPeriod of Last ReportJan 2014 - Dec 2014IndustryEmployer Listed/Category Unknown

Total number of volunteers3Total number of employees0

Overall FEC-reported spending from Jan 2014 - Dec 2014 $0 Overall Political Spending of all known grant recipients $0 Recipient Political Spending Attributable to Donor $0 FEC-reported spending since last IRS filing None reported

Annual Fund

Centreville, VA (Legal domicile: DE)

Parent OrganizationN/ATypeCivic Leagues, Social Welfare Organizations, and Local Associations of EmployeesYear Founded2010Reported Political Activity to IRS?NoPeriod of Last ReportJul 2011 - Jun 2012IndustryN/A

Total number of volunteers0Total number of employees0

Overall FEC-reported spending from Jul 2011 - Jun 2012 $0 Overall Political Spending of all known grant recipients $738,188 Recipient Political Spending Attributable to Donor $100,000 FEC-reported spending since last IRS filing $0

Longterm Political Activity Ranking105

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2014:

Wellspring Cmte 12/31/2014 $49,000 AMC Annual Fund

josesph stuart, neil corkery am action network 100K$

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https://maplight.org/story/trump-judicial-adviser-linked-to-1-million-anonymous-inaugural-donation/

This story was produced by MapLight in partnership with Fast Company.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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maplight

A dark money organization that has spent millions to finance conservative causes was the source of the $17 million spent to keep Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia’s seat in Republican hands, tax documents reviewed by MapLight reveal.

The Wellspring Committee, a Virginia-based nonprofit, donated more than $23 million last year to the Judicial Crisis Network, which spent $7 million on advertisements pushing Republican senators to block President Barack Obama’s court pick, Merrick Garland. After the election, the network spent another $10 million to boost President Donald Trump’s pick, Justice Neil Gorsuch.

Wellspring received more than $32 million in donations last year, with $28.5 million coming from a single, anonymous donor. Before 2016, Wellspring had never received more than $13.2 million in annual donations. As a social welfare organization, Wellspring is not required to disclose its donors.

A tax form from the Wellspring Committee shows $28.5 million coming from a single, anonymous donor. Wellspring gave $23.5 million to another dark money organization that spent millions to keep Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia’s seat in Republican hands.

JCN and Wellspring share personal ties. Ann Corkery, a Washington lawyer, has served as Wellspring’s president. Her husband, Neil, has been JCN’s treasurer and has apparently succeeded Ann as Wellspring’s president, according to the committee’s tax return; JCN’s most recent tax filing doesn’t mention him.

Last year, Wellspring gave $100,000 to the Federalist Society, a conservative lawyers organization that has emerged as one of the most influential players in Washington during the Trump era. The organization recommended Trump nominate Gorsuch for the Supreme Court, and one of its top executives, Leonard Leo, is reportedly advising the Trump administration on judicial selections. JCN and Wellspring provided almost 80 percent of the money raised by the Rule of Law Project, a conservative nonprofit that listed Leo as a director in tax filings.

JCN has put Wellspring’s money to use in other ways. JCN reported giving $8.5 million in grants to conservative nonprofits and political groups on its latest tax return, covering July 2015 to June 2016. Beneficiaries included the Republican Governors Association and the Republican Attorneys General Association, as well as organizations that supported conservative court justices in Wisconsin and North Carolina

Wellspring also donated $2 million to the American Future Fund, an organization that spent more than $12 million on ads boosting Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., in his presidential and Senate campaigns, during the 2016 election cycle. It gave another $2.5 million to Illinois Policy Action, a dark money organization that supports conservative policies in Illinois.

https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2017/11/web-of-secret-money-hides-one-mega-donor-funding-conservative-court/

When a small nonprofit called the Judicial Crisis Network poured millions into a campaign to stop the Senate from confirming Barack Obama’s Supreme Court pick last year, and then spent millions more supporting President Donald Trump’s choice for the same seat, political observers assumed conservatives from around the country were showering the group with donations.

Not so.

Newly obtained tax documents show that JCN’s money came almost entirely from yet another secretive nonprofit, the Wellspring Committee, which flooded JCN with nearly $23.5 million in 2016.

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.

Like JCN, Wellspring — at one time tied to the donor network spearheaded by conservative industrialists Charles and David Koch — is a nonprofit that is supposed to be dedicated to social welfare functions and doesn’t have to disclose the names of its benefactors. Since the 2010 Citizens United Supreme Court decision loosened certain constraints on political spending, these and other 501(c)(4) groups have become increasingly politically active while providing anonymity to their donors. Often one group, like Wellspring, will act as a conduit, giving most of its funds to other, similar groups with political agendas.

“It sounds like Wellspring Committee acted as a dark money conduit to provide an extra layer of secrecy to whomever was bankrolling the Judicial Crisis Network ads,” Brendan Fischer of the nonpartisan Campaign Legal Center in Washington said in an email interview. “This has the effect of layering secrecy on top of secrecy, and almost entirely insulating donors from any form of public accountability.”

But, Fischer added, “Even though the public doesn’t know who is really behind the tens of millions spent, there is nothing stopping these secret donors from making their identities known to the beneficiaries of that spending.”

Illinois Policy Action was another organization that benefited from Wellspring’s grants in 2016, receiving $2.5 million; it’s the lobbying arm of the Illinois Policy Institute, a conservative Chicago think tank in Chicago that has ties to the state’s billionaire governor, Republican Bruce Rauner, according to the Chicago Tribune. In 2016, the institute released a documentary critical of Rauner’s political opponent, Illinois House Speaker Mike Madigan, a Democrat.

The American Future Fund, another former Koch “dark money” nonprofit, pulled in $2 million from Wellspring last year. It spent more than $12.7 million in 2016 federal elections without disclosing its donors.

Early in the Republican presidential primaries, AFF appeared to be supporting Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) through attacks on his GOP opponents, Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, Ohio Gov. John Kasich and Donald Trump.

When the group ran ads highlighting lawsuits against Trump University, the Republican frontrunner tweeted “Phony Rubio commercial. I could have settled, but won’t out of principle!” Trump did eventually settle the lawsuit for $25 million after becoming president.

Wellspring also paid out $750,000 to a firm called BH Group LLC, not as a grant but for “public relations” services.

The corporation is nearly untraceable beyond an address for a “virtual office” in Arlington, Va. A representative of the company that manages the space, Regus, said that the BH Group has no physical presence and that all its mail is forwarded to another address. The representative would not provide a forwarding address or any names of individuals affiliated with BH Group “for security reasons.”

BH Group LLC’s only other appearance in the public record? On the list of Trump inaugural donors: It gave $1 million to help pay for the festivities. Virginia incorporation records show the LLC wasn’t formed until the end of August 2016. That means Wellspring’s payment to it was made between then and the end of the year — right around when the Trump inaugural committee was doing the bulk of its fundraising.

As for the Judicial Crisis Network, when Trump’s Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch was sworn in last April, the group’s chief counsel was there, snapping pictures in the White House Rose Garden.

Categories: 501(c) groups Influence & Lobbying Issues and Legislation Outside Money PACs

Tags: 2016 election, American Future Fund, BH Group, bruce rauner, dark money, Illinois Policy Institute, Judicial Crisis Network, koch, Koch Brothers, mcclatchy, megadonor, merrick garland, Neil Gorsuch, scotus, Supreme Court, Wellspring Committee

Robert mcguire joined the Center in August 2011 as the outside spending and PACs researcher. In 2012, he started CRP's Politically Active Nonprofits project, which tracks the financial networks of "dark money" groups, mainly 501(c)(4) and 501(c)(6) organizations. In 2014, he won, with colleague Viveca Novak, the Society of Professional Journalists' Sigma Delta Chi Award for Public Service in Online Journalism for a series of stories published on OpenSecrets Blog. Robert has a masters in U.S. foreign policy from American University. Before coming to Washington, D.C., he lived, studied and worked for several years in France and Taiwan, traveling extensively in Europe and Asia. He is originally from Charleston, SC.

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https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2012/06/rich-rewards-one-mans-shadow-money-network/

howard rich 2012

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.

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.

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.

“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.”

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.”

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.

But few, if any, of those millions of viewers understand the complicated web of secretive, densely interwoven political groups from which the video emerged.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

“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.

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.

“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.

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.

“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.”

O’Keefe said Rich is careful to obey laws as they are written, but opposes limits on campaign contributions.

“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.

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.

“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:

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.

The network

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

O’Keefe declined to say whether Rich’s own money drives his organizations.

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.

“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.

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.

“That’s a real and ongoing concern,” he said. “We viewed it as our role to protect [donors] from that.”

The churn

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.

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.

Yet the same year, U.S. Term Limits Foundation lent $85,000 back to Americans for Limited Government, Inc.

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.

“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.

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.

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.

***

“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.”

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.

The fact that Rich lends money to the groups in his network is unusual, Owens noted.

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.

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.

“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.

The spread

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.

And Rich’s groups also distribute to an array of other nondisclosing nonprofits in the form of grants.

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.

“Americans for Job Security has no purpose other than to cover various money trails all over the country,” the commission’s report concluded.

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.

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.

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.

Rich is fond of ballot initiatives for a very simple reason, U.S. Term Limits co-founder O’Keefe says.

“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.”

[dyn graph] cf

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.

Palmetto State Politics

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.

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.

“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.”

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.

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.

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.

That’s the address of the Center for Independent Thought, the libertarian think tank run by Rich’s wife, Andrea Millen Rich.

Dick Harpootlian, the chairman of the South Carolina Democratic Party, is blunt in his assessment of Rich.

“He owns the whole f***ing state,” Harpootlian said recently in an interview with OpenSecrets Blog.

Phil Noble, a Democratic party activist who in 2010 traveled the state confronting candidates for taking Rich’s campaign contributions, is almost as blunt.

“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.

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.

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.

Bright narrowly won the race.

Noble blames Rich for corrupting South Carolina’s political culture by encouraging the development and use of secretive non-profits to attack political enemies.

“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.”

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.”

Continuing to Spend

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.

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.

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.

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).

But if Rich is pushed on his campaign finance activities, expect him to push back.

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.

“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.”

Center for Responsive Politics researcher Robert Maguire contributed to this story.

Wellspring Cmte

MANASSAS, VA (Legal domicile: VA)

Parent OrganizationN/ATypeCivic Leagues, Social Welfare Organizations, and Local Associations of EmployeesYear Founded2008Reported Political Activity to IRS?NoPeriod of Last ReportJan 2014 - Dec 2014IndustryEmployer Listed/Category Unknown

Total number of volunteers0Total number of employees2

Longterm Political Activity Ranking35

2013

Casey, Michael Secretary, Treasurer 1.00

Corkery, Ann President 10.00

Corkery, Kathleen Director 1.00

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Wellspring_Committee

The Wellspring Committee is a 501(c)(4) organization operating out of Manassas, Virginia that serves as a fund for conservative political nonprofit groups.[1] Founded in 2008, the Wellspring Committee regularly contributes funding to nonprofits that create ads for Republican candidates and causes.[1] However, because the Wellspring Committee does not fund the ads directly, its IRS tax filings maintain the Wellspring Committee is not engaged in "political campaign activities on behalf of or in opposition to candidates for public office."[1]

Wellspring is a major funding source for the Judicial Crisis Network, a 501(c)(4) nonprofit that uses undisclosed dark money "issue ads" to influence state and federal judicial appointments and elections, and which has spent heavily to oppose President Obama's appointment of a replacement for deceased U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia.[2] JCN was founded by Wellspring president Ann Corkery.[3]

Contents

1 Ties to the Koch Brothers

2 Donors Not Disclosed

3 Finances

3.1 Contributors and Membership

3.2 Core Finances

3.3 Distribution of Grants and Other Financial Assistance

3.3.1 2014

3.3.2 2013

3.3.3 2012

3.3.4 2008-2011

3.3.5 Spending Tied to 2011-2012 Wisconsin Recall and "John Doe" Investigation into Alleged Illegal Campaign Coordination

4 Personnel

4.1 Ann Corkery

4.2 Other Personnel

5 Articles and References

5.1 References

Ties to the Koch Brothers

Koch Wiki

The Koch brothers -- David and Charles -- are the right-wing billionaire co-owners of Koch Industries. As two of the richest people in the world, they are key funders of the right-wing infrastructure, including the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) and the State Policy Network (SPN). In SourceWatch, key articles on the Kochs include: Koch Brothers, Koch Industries, Americans for Prosperity, American Encore, and Freedom Partners.

Wellspring was founded in 2008 "with the help of conservative donors in the network led by billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch," according to a report by the Center for Responsive Politics. Current president Ann Corkery, who took over Wellspring in 2008, has also worked for Robin Arkley's Security National Servicing Corporation, and the two reportedly attended early donor summits of the Koch brothers' political network.[4] While Corkery's ties to the Kochs reportedly "frayed" after that, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, she continued to raise funds from other Koch network donors, including Paul E. Singer and John Templeton, Jr..[4]

Donors Not Disclosed

As a 501(c)(4) organization, the Wellspring Committee does not disclose its donors. The group's tax status allows it to be "part of a network of conservative tax-exempt groups that do little but transfer money, via grants, to other groups closer to the political front lines."[1]

According to the Center for Responsive Politics, Wellspring is "little more than [a] UPS mailbox," and was created because:

"For donors especially concerned with protecting their anonymity, the bounce pass -- writing a check to a non-disclosing group that'll turn around and give the funds to another non-disclosing group -- can seem attractive. IRS rules prevent the public disclosure of donors to a group like, say, the Faith and Freedom Coalition -- which spent $216,441 on ads in the 2010 election, and $570,744 in 2012, FEC reports show. But why not layer in more protection? That way, if a group is ever forced to say where its money came from -- and there are lawsuits, pending legislation and an array of state attorneys general trying to make that happen -- it will only have to cite the name of other, similarly protected groups. Like Wellspring -- which, as it happens, has given $250,000 to Faith and Freedom.[1]

Wellspring's "recipient groups spent about $60 million in the 2010 election cycle, and more than double during the 2012 cycle."[1] A significant portion of that money has also been used to fund State Supreme Court campaigns throughout the U.S.[1]

Finances

Contributors and Membership

As a 501(c)(4) nonprofit, the Wellspring Committee is not required to disclose its donors. A small amount of its revenue has been traced back to identifiable donors; the American Democracy Alliance gave $150,000, Founding Principles PAC gave $1,026 and Rosebush Corp. gave $100,000.[1][5]

Wellspring has become a major funding source for the Judicial Crisis Network, a 501(c)(4) nonprofit that uses undisclosed dark money "issue ads" to influence state and federal judicial appointments and elections. JCN was launched by Wellspring president Ann Corkery, whose husband Neil Corkery serves as JCN's treasurer. Wellspring's secretary and treasurer, Michael Casey, is the son of a JCN board member.[3]

Core Finances

Wellspring's budget doubled from 2013 to 2014. As detailed under Distribution of Grants and Other Financial Assistance, the bulk of its expenditures each year comprise contributions to the Judicial Crisis Network, which totaled $6.7 million in 2014.

2014[6]

Total Revenue: $7,802,442

Total Expenses: $8,654,094

Wellspring President Ann Corkery received $120,000 in compensation for a reported 10 hours of work per week.

Net Assets: $190,191

2013[7]

Total Revenue: $3,576,053

Total Expenses: $3,038,102

Net Assets: $1,041,843

2012[8]

Total Revenue: $2,351,661

Total Expenses: $2,409,257

Net Assets: $503,890

Distribution of Grants and Other Financial Assistance

2014

Grants issued:[6]

Judicial Crisis Network: $6,655,000

Wedgwood Circle Institute: $5,000

American Dream Initiative: $250,000

Adam Smith Foundation: $25,000

Annual Fund: $49,000

Arizona Public Integrity Alliance: $15,000

Federalist Society: $235,000

1st Amendment Alliance Ed: $250,000

North Carolina Chamber of Commerce: $25,000

Rule of Law Project: $30,000

Catholic Association: $650,000

2013

Grants issued:[7]

Judicial Crisis Network: $1,435,000

State Government Leadership Foundation: $100,000

American Future Fund: $125,000

AMC Annual Fund: $48,000

Catholic Association Inc.: $60,000

Common Sense VA PAC (listed as a 501(c)(4) in the tax filing): $719,193

This PAC ran ads in Virginia's 2013 election, some against Democratic Gov. Terry McAuliffe and some for Republican Attorney General candidate Mark Obenshain.[9] Based on the PAC's filings with the Virginia State Board of Elections, Wellspring's contributed 99.2 percent of the PAC's contributions over $100 in 2013.[10]

2012

Grants issued:[8]

American Conservative Union: $240,000

Breitbart Fund: $5,000

Catholic Association: $440,000

Catholic Association Foundation: $10,000

Judicial Crisis Network: $1,515,000

Swim America: $10,000

2008-2011

According to the Center for Responsive Politics, the following organizations received assistance from the Wellspring Committee between the years 2008 and 2011:

American Action Network: $305,500

American Energy Alliance: $604,000

American Future Fund: $367,457

American Majority Action (American Majority): $1,020,125

Americans for Job Security: $2,951,922

Americans for Prosperity: $1,651,811

Citizens for the Republic: $360,000

Common Sense Issues Coalition (Common Sense Issues): $50,000

Concerned Women for American Legislative Committee (Concerned Women for America): $50,000

Faith & Freedom Coalition: $250,000

Judicial Crisis Network: $520,000

Judicial Education Project: $186,000

Let Freedom Ring: $25,000

Right to Life: $542,000

RightChange.com: $1,131,459

Susan B Anthony List: $753,278

Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce: $200,000

Wisconsin Club for Growth: $400,000 (This grant was reported in 2011.)[4]

Spending Tied to 2011-2012 Wisconsin Recall and "John Doe" Investigation into Alleged Illegal Campaign Coordination

Wellspring reported a $400,000 grant in 2011 to Wisconsin Club for Growth, which spent $9.1 million during Wisconsin's historic 2012 recall races for Governor, Lt. Governor and State Senate.[11] That spending was at the center of a John Doe investigation; prosecutors in Wisconsin alleged that Friends of Scott Walker and dark money groups were part of a "criminal scheme" to coordinate activities during the state's 2011 and 2012 recall election, in violation of the state's campaign finance laws.[12] The group's board of directors includes Eric O'Keefe, a right-wing political operative with deep ties to the Koch brothers.

Wisconsin Club for Growth sued in both state and federal court to stop the probe. In July 2015 the Wisconsin State Supreme Court, whose conservative majority was elected with millions in spending from the outside groups under investigation in the probe,[13] ruled that Walker's campaign and conservative groups did not violate campaign finance laws.[14] The ruling effectively rendered Wisconsin's disclosure rules and spending limits meaningless.[15]

Personnel

Ann Corkery

Ann Corkery serves as president of the Wellspring Committee[6] and is a partner at Stein Mitchell Cipollone Beato & Missner LLP. Her official biography describes her as "an expert communication strategist" who "has leveraged her media expertise and sources to shape campaigns and influence outcomes."[16]

Ann Corkery and her husband Neil are closely involved in a set of nonprofits that seek to advance right-wing judicial and social agendas, several of which receive funding from Wellspring.[4]

As a fundraiser and recruiter, Corkery was "instrumental" in launching the Judicial Crisis Network in 2008, according to Open Secrets.[4] At that time Corkery also worked for Robin Arkley's Security National Servicing Corporation, and the two reportedly attended early donor summits of the Koch brothers' political network.[4]

"Arkley helped put Ann in play" as a liaison to funding for advocacy groups on the right, said one conservative.[4]

In 2008 Corkery also served as vice chair for finance of Mitt Romney's presidential campaign and took over the Kochs' Wellspring Committee.> While Corkery's ties to the Kochs reportedly "frayed" after that, she continued to raise funds from other Koch network donors, including Paul Singer and John Templeton.[4]

In 2011, Corkery replaced the other two board members of Wellspring, John Klink and Stever Wagner, with her daughter Kathleen and Michael Casey, whose father was a board member of JCN alongside Neil Corkery.[4]

Corkery had a history in Religious Right activism prior to her involvement with Wellspring and JCN. She has served on the board or acted as an officer for the Catholic League, the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, the National Organization for Marriage, and the Judicial Crisis Network.[1] She and her husband Neil Corkery, are known for their "significant political contributors to Republican social conservative candidates" including former Senator Rick Santorum.[17] In "2003, she was appointed by President Bush to be a delegate to the United Nations General Assembly, where she fought for a ban on human cloning; he also made her a delegate to the UN Commission on the Status of Women."[1]

Neil Corkery serves as treasurer of JCN, president of JCN's Judicial Education Project, and executive director of the Sudan Relief Fund, and is affiliated with the National Organization for Marriage, ActRight Action, the Catholic Association Foundation, and Catholic Voices.[4]

Other Personnel

Kathleen Corkery, Director[6]

Kathleen Corkery is Ann Corkery's daughter.[3]

Michael Casey, Secretary and Treasurer[6]

Previously known personnel:

John Klink, Director

Klink also served as Consultant for the Pontifical Council for the Family and President of the International Catholic Migration Commission (ICMC). He has also served on the executive boards for Unicef and the U.N.'s children's fund. In 2001, Klink was a member of the Republican National Committee's Catholic Task Force and an adviser to President George W. Bush. During that time Klink "advocated against the use of condoms and oral contraceptive pills."[18][19]

Steve Wagner, Director, Secretary, and Treasurer. Wagner, who was replaced on the board in 2011, told the Center for Responsive Politics, "I never saw any financial records. I was treasurer in name only."[4]

Articles and References

References

? Jump up to:1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7 1.8 1.9 Viveca Novak, Robert Maguire and Peter Overby,Wellspring's Flow: Dark Money Outfit Helped Fuel Groups on Political Front Lines, Opensecrets, November 5, 2013.

Jump up? Judicial Crisis Network, "JCN Launches 'Let the People Decide' Campaign," press release, February 18, 2016.

? Jump up to:3.0 3.1 3.2 Viveca Novak, "Wellspring gives big boost to Judicial Crisis Network with $6.6 million grant," Center for Responsive Politics, Open Secrets, November 24, 2015.

? Jump up to:4.00 4.01 4.02 4.03 4.04 4.05 4.06 4.07 4.08 4.09 4.10 Viveca Novak and Peter Stone, "The JCN Story: Building a Secretive GOP Machine]," Center for Responsive Politics, Open Secrets, March 23, 2015.

Jump up? Peter Overby, Viveca Novak, Robert Maguire Secret Persuasion: How Big Campaign Donors Stay Anonymous, NPR.org, November 6, 2013.

? Jump up to:6.0 6.1 6.2 6.3 6.4 Wellspring Committee, "2014 IRS Form 990," organization tax filing, November 23, 2015.

? Jump up to:7.0 7.1 Wellspring Committee, "2013 IRS Form 990," organization tax filing, December 12, 2014.

? Jump up to:8.0 8.1 Wellspring Committee, "2012 IRS Form 990," organization tax filing, November 19, 2013.

Jump up? "Anti-LGBT, Extremist “Common Sense Virginia” Runs $500k Worth of False Ads Attacking McAuliffe," Blue Virginia, October 22, 2013.

Jump up? Virginia State Board of Elections, "Campaign Finance Report: Common Sense Virginia (PAC-13-00516)," report accessed April 2016.

Jump up? Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, Recall Race for Governor Cost $81 Million, Posted: July 25, 2012/Updated: January 31, 2013

Jump up? Patrick Marley, Daniel Bice, Bill Glauber, John Doe prosecutors allege Scott Walker at center of 'criminal scheme', Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, June 19, 2014.

Jump up? Brendan Fischer, "After Koch-Tied Judge Is Reversed, Walker Probe Rests with Conflicted WI Supreme Court," Center for Media and Democracy, PR Watch, September 25, 2014. Accessed September 30, 2014.

Jump up? Patrick Marley and Mary Spicuzza, Wisconsin Supreme Court ends John Doe probe into Scott Walker's campaign, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, July 16, 2015.

Jump up? Brendan Fischer, "Five Things to Know About the Scott Walker John Doe Ruling," Center for Media and Democracy, PR Watch, July 16, 2015.

Jump up? Stein Mitchell, "Ann Corkery," corporate website, accessed April 2016.

Jump up? Human Rights Campaign Neil and Ann Corkery, Official Website, accessed November 6, 2013.

Jump up? Pacific Coast Business Times Staff $22M Bankruptcy Spotlights Montecito, Pacific Coast Business Times, September 14, 2009.

Jump up? O'Meara, Ferguson, Whelan and Conway, John M. Klink, Consultant Biography, Official Website, accessed November 6, 2013.

Category: Koch Connection

good-government group has won its case against the Federal Election Commission for negligence in enforcing campaign finance laws against two conservative political groups that have ties to billionaire industrialists and conservative juggernauts Charles and David Koch and that were active in several Southern states.

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) filed a complaint with the FEC in 2012 against Americans for Job Security and the American Action Network for failing to register as political committees while financing $27.6 million worth of political ads during the 2010 elections. AJS is an anti-union 501(c)6 nonprofit trade association based in Virginia, while AAN is a 501(c)4 "social welfare" nonprofit based in Washington, D.C.

After the FEC dismissed the suit, CREW sued the regulatory body itself.

This week a federal judge ruled that the FEC was "arbitrary and capricious" when it dismissed CREW's complaint against the groups and will need to reconsider it. The ruling could dramatically change how the FEC investigates nonprofits that spend on politics and consequently increase election-spending transparency.

"The case sees through the problematic tactic of using bogus 'issue ads' that are clearly political in an attempt to evade transparency and accountability," CREW Communications Director Jordan Libowitz told Facing South.

To avoid violating their nonprofit status, the primary purpose of trade organizations and social welfare groups must not be political activity. Unlike the 527 political committees known as super PACs that have strict political disclosure requirements, trade organizations and social welfare groups are not required to disclose their donors except when reporting political expenditures that explicitly support or oppose a candidate for office and, in some cases, expenditures on so-called "electioneering" ads that run close to an election and criticize or support candidates without asking citizens to vote for or against them.

In 2010, AJS spent $9.5 million on political ads benefiting Republican candidates including considerable amounts on U.S. House and Senate races in the South: nearly $1.7 million in North Carolina, close to $900,000 in Arkansas, over $500,000 in Virginia, and smaller sums in Florida, Georgia and Kentucky.

Of that amount, $4.6 million went toward electioneering communications. Though political ads amounted to nearly 77 percent of AJS's 2010 spending, it did not register as a political committee with the FEC.

AJS's income that year included $4.8 million from the Center to Protect Patient Rights, an Arizona-based social welfare nonprofit that served as a key funding source for the Koch political operation, and $3 million from the Wellspring Committee, which has funded Koch-backed political groups including Americans for Prosperity.

That same year, AAN spent at least $18.1 million on ads targeting 29 races, with $13.7 million of that going towards electioneering communications. Though the ad buys constituted nearly 67 percent of the group's spending from 2009 to 2010, it did not register as a political committee or reveal who funded the ads.

AAN spent millions on Southern races for U.S. House and Senate, including nearly $2.3 million in Virginia, over $500,000 in West Virginia, and close to $190,000 in Arkansas, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. AAN received over $300,000 from the Wellspring Committee in 2010 and donated $200,000 to the Center to Protect Patient Rights in 2011, according to Conservative Transparency.

In 2011 and 2012, CREW filed complaints against AJS and AAN for failing to report numerous electioneering communications to the FEC and not registering as political committees.

The FEC's own Office of General Counsel found that both groups had broken campaign finance law. But in the summer of 2014, the FEC — by law a six-member body evenly divided between Republicans and Democrats — gridlocked as it often does, with the three Republicans asserting in both cases that electioneering communications should not be considered when judging how much of an organization's work is political.

The case against the FEC

The FEC's dismissal of CREW's complaints didn't stop the watchdog from continuing its fight. In August 2014, CREW sued the FEC for failing to enforce campaign finance law against AAN and AJS.

"Due to the FEC's inaction, AAN and AJS have become a template for political groups to hide political spending," CREW's complaint stated.

AAN and AJS still have not registered as political groups. AAN has continued to spend on elections, funneling millions of dollars into politics in 2012 and 2014; so far this election cycle the group has documented over $600,000 of ad spending on U.S. House races. AJS spent nearly $16 million in 2012 but hasn't reported any federal ad buys since then.

Last December, CREW filed a motion for summary judgment against the FEC. On Sept. 19, U.S. District Court Judge Christopher Cooper ruled that "the controlling commissioners relied on a faulty legal premise in applying the 'major purpose' test … The commissioners' decisions were thus 'contrary to law.'"

The judge ordered the FEC to reconsider the complaints within 30 days. The FEC has the option to appeal the ruling.

"We are very hopeful that all of the FEC commissioners will take the court's decision to heart, find the ads in question to clearly be political ads, and accordingly determine that AAN and AJS had a major purpose to affect elections and must disclose their donors," said CREW's Libowitz. "If somehow three commissioners again prevent meaningful enforcement, CREW will consider whether additional legal action is appropriate."

Judge Cooper's ruling is a watershed moment for campaign finance law as the definition of "political activity" will now include electioneering communications. This new definition is expected to either force numerous organizations to significantly decrease their political activity or to register as political groups, thus increasing transparency of their ads and donors.

Libowitz said the decision "sends a strong signal" that the FEC needs to enforce the law and has energized his group to ramp up its watchdog efforts.

"Now that we have seen clearly that courts will compel the FEC to do its job even over the opposition of obstructionist commissioners, we will redouble our efforts to find serious violations and ensure that they are adequately addressed," he said.

(To comment on or to share this story, click here.

http://www.opensecrets.org/news/2015/11/wellspring-gives-big-boost-to-judicial-crisis-network-with-6-6-million-grant/

secretive nonprofit that has given millions of dollars to conservative 501(c)(4) groups over the years sank more than $6.6 million into the Judicial Crisis Network in 2014, giving a significant boost to a group that has become increasingly involved in not only state judicial but also attorneys general races.

The donor, the Wellspring Committee, gave out nearly $8.3 million in grants last year, according to a new filing with the IRS, more than triple what it donated the year before. The sum was more than Wellspring has given away in any year except 2010, when it sent $8.4 million to like-minded organizations. That year, though, JCN and an offshoot group received just $400,000 from Wellspring, a sliver of what it got last year.

The bond between the two groups is strong — familial, even. Wellspring was founded and is still headed by Ann Corkery, a lawyer who for years has been involved in conservative fundraising and also helped launch JCN. Her husband, Neil, is JCN’s treasurer. Their daughter, Kathleen, is on Wellspring’s board, and the secretary-treasurer of the group, Michael Casey, is the son of one of JCN’s board members.

Wellspring received all of its 2014 revenue of $7.8 million from just three contributions — one of which was a transfer of $6.95 million, according to the annual form 990 it filed this month. Like other (c)(4) organizations, Wellspring is not required to disclose the identities of its donors. The group’s 990 says its “mission is to advance limited government and free markets.” But it functions as little more than a conduit, with no program activities of its own and virtually all of its money going out to other groups.

JCN was formed in 2005 as the Judicial Confirmation Network to help get President George W. Bush’s Supreme Court appointees approved by the Senate. After President Barack Obama was elected, though, “Confirmation” became “Crisis,” and the group began fighting to block his nominees to the high court. It also started spending large sums in some states to influence judicial and attorneys general races.

JCN also sent funds to other groups that worked to sway state judgeship elections, such as the Republican State Leadership Committee, which spent more money putting conservatives on the bench in more states than any other outside group in 2014, according to the nonpartisan organization Justice at Stake.

But attorneys general have been a growing focus of conservative donor groups. Carrie Severino, JCN’s chief counsel, said in 2012 that conservative AGs, many of whom have challenged Obamacare, the Dodd-Frank financial services overhaul and EPA regulations, are “emerging as key leaders in the battle for limited constitutional government.”

In 2014 JCN gave $1 million to the Republican Attorneys General Association, making it the third largest donor to the GOP organization that year. Between mid-2013 and mid-2014 JCN also donated $1.35 million — the largest grant it handed out in that period — to another dark money group, the American Future Fund, which has its own project to elect GOP attorneys general and is also a donor toRAGA. According to RAGA’s disclosure filings, JCN gave it another $200,000 in the first half of 2015.

Similarly, Wellspring gave $350,000 to something called the American Dream Initiative last year — a group run by Dan Backer that spent hundreds of thousands of dollars attacking the Democratic candidate in Texas’ 2014 attorney general race.

This fall, JCN has spent at least $200,000 on TV and digital ads criticizing Supreme Court Justices Anthony Kennedy and John Roberts, comparing them to former Justice David Souter — a Republican appointee who often sided with the more liberal wing of the court. While Roberts and Kennedy can hardly be called liberals (particularly Roberts), two of the court’s decisions last term, one upholding the Affordable Care Act and one legalizing same-sex marriage nationwide, triggered widespread disgust on the right. JCN’s statement announcing the ads called Kennedy and Roberts “examples of bad GOP appointments.” The group has a website describing the judicial appointment philosophies of the Republican presidential candidates.

Our efforts to reach Wellspring and JCN for comment by phone and on foot were unsuccessful. We visited the address JCN lists on its 990 — 722 12th St. NW, fourth floor — and found only Americans for Tax Reform, the group headed by Grover Norquist that asks candidates to sign a pledge saying they won’t raise taxes. An ATR receptionist was noncommittal about whether JCN had offices in the suite but said she would get a message to someone connected with the group.

Other Wellspring grants went to the Federalist Society, a conservative legal organization whose executive vice president, Leonard Leo, was instrumental in getting both Wellspring and JCN off the ground, and the Catholic Association.

Categories: 501(c) groups Outside Money

Tags: american dream initiative, American Future Fund, ann corkery, carrie severino, Dan Backer, Federalist Society, Judicial Crisis Network, leonard leo, Neil Corkery, republican attorneys general association,Republican State Leadership Committee, Viveca Novak, Wellspring Committee

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from JCN 3/15

3/15

http://www.opensecrets.org/news/2015/03/the-jcn-story-building-a-secretive-gop-judicial-machine

was a cold winter night in Washington, D.C., not long after President George W. Bush won a second term, and the mood at the upscale Italian restaurant was downright celebratory.

In the years since, JCN’s modus operandi and battlegrounds have shifted — particularly since Barack Obama won the White House, which prompted the group to sound the alarm and change its name to the Judicial Crisis Network. In the ensuing years, not only has it fought to block Obama’s nominees to the high court, but it has spent millions to sway state judicial elections and attorneys general races, helping to uphold state laws backed by conservatives, nurture like-minded talent in the states, and advance pro-business, limited-government legal agendas aligned with its donors’ leanings.

JCN’s pivotal part in the surge of spending on court elections has received scant attention. But in 2012, it dished out more than $2 million in court races in Michigan alone — half of that in a single down-ticket state circuit contest, according to the Michigan Campaign Finance Network. And over the last two years, the organization contributed a minimum of about $2 million to groups that were involved in 2014 state judicial elections and efforts to influence how judges are chosen. Recipients of JCN checks included the many-tentacled Republican State Leadership Committee, which for the first time invested in court races around the country, spending more on them than any other outside group.

More broadly, in the last election cycle TV ad spending in state Supreme Court elections jumped to at least $13.8 million, according to a preliminary tally by the nonprofit Justice at Stake Campaign. Outside groups, both conservative and liberal, accounted for an estimated $4.9 million of that, or more than 35 percent — a greater share than ever before.

The sharp rise in judicial election spending by JCN and other groups on both sides of the political aisle troubles some judicial candidates who have been targeted. “To the extent that judicial campaigns start looking like other campaigns, there’s a risk that judges will be perceived as having a political agenda,” Sam Ervin IV, a North Carolina Supreme Court justice, told The Daily Beast. Ervin, who was elected in 2014 and is the grandson of the celebrated senator who led Congress’s investigation of the Watergate scandal, lost an earlier race in 2012 after a spending blitz by several outside groups totaling almost $2.6 million, much of it dark money including $75,000 from JCN. “The public is better served, in an environment where judges are elected, if they know the source of the funding for those campaigns,” Ervin, a Democrat, added.

To fill its own coffers, JCN has increasingly relied on funding — to the tune of nearly $4 million, according to IRS documents — from another non-disclosing group, the Wellspring Committee, that’s run by Corkery and was founded seven years ago with the help of conservative donors in the network led by billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch. Corkery’s entree to that rarefied network came via JCN supporter Arkley, an early attendee of their famed retreats. And Ann Corkery and her husband, Neil — who is JCN’s treasurer — are central figures in a cluster of other nonprofits, IRS filings show.

A fast rise

Robin Arkley, the president and CEO of Security National Corp. who had tapped Corkery to be his political liaison and senior advisor, became a key underwriter of JCN’s operations, to the tune of the high six or low seven figures, sources say.The pair went to some of the early fundraising and policy retreats held by the Kochs — events that now draw a glittering cast of wealthy allies and conservative stars to raise millions for the brothers’ network of politically active groups. Arkley was also a financial backer of the Federalist Society. “Arkley helped put Ann in play” as a liaison to funding for advocacy groups on the right, said one conservative.

Wellspring, followed quickly by JCN, became big players in directly and indirectly funding state Supreme Court races. In 2008, for example, Wellspring funneled $200,000 to a group that produced the negative attack ads that helped a conservative eke out a victory over a sitting Supreme Court justice in Wisconsin, tipping control of the bench to the right. In 2009, Wellspring grants went to groups trying to change judicial selection methods in Missouri and Tennessee.

Conservative control of the Wisconsin court, enabled in no small part by the big pots of dark money dumped into the state, has proved vital to the rejection of challenges to two signature conservative policies championed by GOP Gov. Scott Walker: his initiatives to curb public sector unions and to require voter IDs. (The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday turned away a challenge to the voter ID law, so it will stand.)

The lower court money bomb

While turning, and keeping, the Wisconsin court conservative was a high priority for JCN and others on the right, the group didn’t spend much cash there directly. But the opposite was true in neighboring Michigan, where JCN laid out more than $2 million on two 2012 court races. About half the money went to an effort to keep law professor Bridget McCormack from sitting on the state Supreme Court, including a last-minute ad accusing McCormack of volunteering to represent terrorists, featuring the mother of a soldier killed in Afghanistan. (McCormack did volunteer one of her law school clinics to represent a Guantanamo detainee, though he was released before the students communicated with him.)

Such staggering spending on a lower court contest may be unprecedented, and it was far from clear why the groups were interested. One possible explanation: a funder with an ax to grind.

The Indian-born Bhargava, who invented the now-ubiquitous 5-Hour Energy shot, might be seen by some as a walking contradiction. On the one had, he lived as a monk in India for years and has taken a pledge to give more than half his wealth to charity. But he’s also a fierce competitor who, according to a profile in Forbes, displays in his office cardboard tombstones bearing the names of rivals his company has beaten in court.

A 2012 case before Circuit Judge Phyllis McMillen may shed light on the origins of the campaign against her. Bhargava, through 5-Hour’s parent company Innovation Ventures, was suing a key 5-Hour contractor for allegedly stealing trade secrets. At first McMillen issued a temporary restraining order against the contractor. As facts emerged, though, she lifted the TRO. To allow Innovation Ventures to “crush competitors” unfairly, she said in court February 10, “is certainly not something that’s supported by public policy.”

TV ads sponsored by JCN and its dark money ally showed up closer to the election, with some attacking McMillen (one made her appear to have been lenient with a habitual offender) and others praising the challengers. “They were on every half-hour,” McMillen told The Daily Beast. “It was relentless.” There was radio, too, and a torrent of direct mail.

McMillen says she doesn’t know who went after her. “I have no idea,” she said. “There are people who don’t like the way I’ve decided; we handle big litigation.”

Bhargava did not respond to numerous requests for comment.

In any case, JCN’s Wolverine State crusades didn’t work out too well. McCormack is now a Supreme Court justice and McMillen won her contest, too. In early 2013, she ruled against Bhargava.

But in 2014 he clearly emerged as a national mega donor to boost GOP governors at a time when his energy drink company was facing probes by as many as 33 state AGs into allegations of deceptive advertising. In the last election cycle Bhargava’s ETC Capital investment firm gave nearly $2.8 million to the Republican Governors Association, putting him at the top of RGA’s donor heap right after David Koch and his company and casino billionaire Sheldon Adelson.

Attorneys general become focus

State attorneys general had been moving higher on JCN’s political radar. Policy director and chief counsel Carrie Severino, who succeeded Wendy Long as JCN’s counsel in 2010 and, like her, once clerked for Justice Thomas, wrote in National Review right before the 2012 elections that conservative AGs are “emerging as key leaders in the battle for limited constitutional government.” Many of them, she noted, had joined the challenge to Obamacare, and a number were also fighting the Dodd-Frank financial services overhaul and EPA regulations.

Dark money ties that bind

The JCN spending through RAGA to boost the GOP’s share of AG slots is just one example of the synergies that the network has forged as a dark money vehicle. Other ties binding JCN to various groups it has funded — and received money from — are evident in the comings and goings of personnel, consultants, and board members. For instance, whenGary Marx stepped down as JCN’s executive director in mid-2011, he took a similar post with Ralph Reed’s Faith and Freedom Coalition (a group that Wellspring helped in 2010 with a $250,000 check). Likewise, last year Chris Jankowski became a consultant to JCN after spending several years running the Republican State Leadership Committee until he departed suddenly in early 2014, according to multiple sources. Both JCN and Wellspring had funneled hundreds of thousands to the RSLC, which has helped the GOP chart major gains in legislatures and other state offices. (RAGA had been part of that group but was spun off early last year.)

Moving ahead

The group doesn’t always toe the mainstream GOP line: It has at times weighed in against Republicans in what look like internal party spats fueled by donor preferences.

Robert Maguire of the Center for Responsive Politics contributed to this piece

Peter Stone, who covered lobbying and the influence of money in politics at National Journal for 18 years, has been writing for Mother Jones, The Huffington Post, The Daily Beast and others.

Wellspring's Flow: Dark Money Outfit Helped Fuel Groups on Political Front Lines

by Viveca Novak, Robert Maguire and Peter Overby on November 5, 2013 5:15 AM

links http://www.opensecrets.org/news/2013/11/wellsprings-flow.html

The third part of a package produced in collaboration with NPR. Part I is available here, and Part II is here.

For people who guard their privacy closely, Ann and Neil Corkery are key players in some very public enterprises.

The many groups they are or have been involved with -- as board members or officers -- include the Catholic League, an aggressive defender of the church against what it sees as "slanderous assaults;" the National Organization for Marriage, which has fiercely fought official recognition of gay marriage; and the Judicial Crisis Network, which opposes what it sees as "activist" judges and has waded into the abortion battle.

Less publicly, Ann, 52, has run a politically active dark money group, the Wellspring Committee -- a 501(c)(4) nonprofit that isn't required to disclose its donors. Neil, 54, is connected to another, much smaller dark money group, The Annual Fund, which received all of its start-up funding from Wellspring. Neither group conducts any activities on its own, but together they have helped fund many more visible, highly political nonprofits that spent tens of millions of dollars on ads benefiting Republican causes and candidates in the 2010 and 2012 elections.

From 2008 through 2011, Wellspring and the Annual Fund gave out more than $17 million in grants to other groups, according to tax filings the groups submitted to the IRS. (neither group's 2012 tax form is yet available.) And the impact of their contributions is amplified by the fact that they are part of a network of conservative tax-exempt groups that do little but transfer money, via grants, to other groups closer to the political front lines. Among them are the Center to Protect Patient Rights (CPPR) and TC4 Trust, which have given to many of the same grantees as the Corkerys' outfits.

Groups that received money from Wellspring and the Annual Fund -- like Americans for Prosperity and Americans for Job Security -- spent about $60 million in the 2010 federal elections and more than double that in the 2012 cycle, according to reports they filed with the Federal Election Commission.

The amount of money that 501(c)(4) and (c)(6) groups have spent on federal elections has nearly tripled since 2008, FEC filings show, going from $110 million in 2008 to more than $311 million in 2012. While some of the surge was due to earlier legal developments, much of it was spurred by the 2010 Supreme Court decision Citizens United v. FEC, which freed corporations -- including nonprofits -- to spend unlimited sums on elections as long as they don't coordinate their efforts with a candidate's campaign.

The Corkerys would not agree to multiple requests for an interview. "I'm very much concerned about my privacy," Neil Corkery told NPR and the Center for Responsive Politics, which jointly produced this package of stories.

Sharing the wealth

If we could have talked to the mysterious couple, we'd have asked, among other things, how they decide which groups get funding from the two nonprofits. Some Wellspring and Annual Fund grantees focus on issues the Corkerys seem personally invested in, such as the National Right to Life Committee, which received $542,000, and Susan B. Anthony List, the recipient of more than $753,000; Wellspring cut checks to both groups in 2008.

wellspring flow 2.jpg

Other recipients, such as American Action Network, Americans for Job Security (AJS) and Americans for Prosperity, are notably active in the political ad wars. AJS, for example, which received a combined total of nearly $3 million from Wellspring in 2008 and 2010, spent at least $8.3 million on ads mentioning federal candidates in 2010, and nearly $16 million in 2012. AJS was also involved in a scheme last year that funneled $11 million into efforts to curb the political power of labor unions and prevent a tax increase. California’s campaign finance agency called it political "money laundering" and last month levied $1 million in fines in the case.

And still other Wellspring recipients train their sights on the judicial branch. The Judicial Crisis Network (JCN) -- originally called Judicial Confirmation Network -- was started in 2004 to help build support for former President George W. Bush's federal court nominees. Now it works against Obama's judicial picks -- and Obama himself. According to Federal Election Commission records, JCN spent $571,000 in 2008 opposing Obama's election. JCN also runs ads benefiting conservative state court candidates. According to the Michigan Campaign Finance Network, the group spent more than $1 million airing ads against a Democratic state supreme court candidate in Michigan last year; its target, Bridget Mary McCormack, won despite that. It also spent $1 million on a lower court race – believed to be the first time dark money has been used in a trial court contest.

As it happens, Neil Corkery is treasurer of JCN. Wellspring, run by his wife, gave the group and its affiliate, the Judicial Education Project, a total of more than $700,000 over a two-year period encompassing 2010 and 2011. ...?

In 2010 Wellspring gave $125,000 each to the Michigan-based American Justice Partnership (AJP) and the Michigan Chamber of Commerce, which shares AJP's goal of putting more conservatives on the bench.

That year, AJP gave more than $1 million to the Michigan Republican Party. And the Michigan Chamber gave $5.4 million to the Republican Governors Association -- about the same amount that the RGA subsequently routed to the Michigan GOP. The state GOP spent about $4.8 million on in Michigan's supreme court race that year, according to the independent Michigan Campaign Finance Network, which did a detailed review of public records.

Got that? Not if the groups involved can help it. The upshot, though, is that two of Wellspring's recipients invested in the contest -- which ultimately restored a conservative majority to the highest court in the state.

In addition, over the course of three years, Wellspring has given nearly $1 million to Missourians for Better Courts. That group has fought to change Missouri's judicial selection process, which it argues is overly influenced by liberal trial lawyers.

Putting, or keeping, conservatives on the nation’s courts was the focus of several other Wellspring grantees, including the Alabama Civil Justice Reform Committee, Alabama Voters Against Lawsuit Abuse, Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce and the Illinois Manufacturers Association.

Cash in, cash out

On the other side of the ledger sheet, though, the sources of Wellspring's millions are mostly a cipher. Like all 501(c)(4) organizations, it doesn't have to reveal them. CRP and NPR have been able to learn of only three donors, all of which are also (c)(4)s: The American Democracy Alliance gave Wellspring $150,000 in 2008, the year the Corkery group launched. A second, Founding Principles PAC gave it $1,026, also in 2008. And Rosebush Corp. gave Wellspring $100,000 in 2011.

That's a little more than $251,000 -- roughly 1 percent of the $24 million Wellspring has reported as income from 2008 through 2011. None of the three donor groups returned calls from NPR and CRP seeking comment.

The American Democracy Alliance, like Wellspring, has taken an interest in judicial elections: In 2010, it gave $100,000 to ShowMe Better Courts, a Missouri group; and $500,000 to the Adam Smith Foundation -- which, in turn sent money to Missourians for Better Courts, the same group that received nearly $1 million from Wellspring.

Rosebush Corp., headed by a Pennsylvanian named Brian Sullivan, also gave $750,000 in 2011 to Americans for Limited Government, a group headed by wealthy libertarian Howard Rich that has spent millions running ads against Democrats and giving to other conservative organizations. The next year, Rosebush gave to Club for Growth Action, which has helped fuel the rise of some tea party Republicans, and to the pro-Mitt Romney super PAC, Restore Our Future.

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Cash in, cash out

Founding Principles PAC is a tiny political action committee, inactive since early 2010, funded largely with donations from Ann Corkery's former boss at Security National Servicing Corp., Robin Arkley, and his wife.

faithandfreedom.jpg

Why would someone give money to outfits like Wellspring, which are little more than UPS mailboxes? For donors especially concerned with protecting their anonymity, the bounce pass -- writing a check to a non-disclosing group that'll turn around and give the funds to another non-disclosing group -- can seem attractive. IRS rules prevent the public disclosure of donors to a group like, say, the Faith and Freedom Coalition -- which spent $216,441 on ads in the 2010 election, and $570,744 in 2012, FEC reports show. But why not layer in more protection? That way, if a group is ever forced to say where its money came from -- and there are lawsuits, pending legislation and an array of state attorneys general trying to make that happen -- it will only have to cite the name of other, similarly protected groups. Like Wellspring -- which, as it happens, has given $250,000 to Faith and Freedom.

“Obviously donors could simply give money to the organizations they wanted to give to,” said law professor Donald Tobin of Ohio State University’s Moritz School of Law. “The idea of bundling it into a 501(c)(4) and then using that (c)(4) as a way to distribute money [to] other organizations is new, and I think is generally designed to help cleanse money through the system.”

As political activity by 501(c)(4) social welfare organizations and 501(c)(6) trade groups has increased, so have questions about whether they’re following the law. The IRS, which oversees them, says that such organizations can spend up to 49 percent of their resources on politics. What constitutes “politics” isn’t always clear. But the definition of “social welfare,” which is supposed to be the major purpose of (c)(4)s, is also problematic. Organizations like Wellspring consider their grants to other nonprofits to be social welfare, even when those groups are deeply involved in politics.

“The group is a conduit,” said Tobin. “The web of transactions…makes you question whether [Wellspring] is really engaged in a social welfare purpose or not.”

Wellspring’s lawyer is Washington, DC, campaign finance attorney Cleta Mitchell. She says Tobin might be “a lefty loony law professor,” and says it’s sometimes better to have one group to do fundraising and another to carry out programs.

Mitchell says, “It’s good for both. The fundraising and grant-making c4 doesn’t have to actually engage in the program operations, and the operating c4 doesn’t have to do a lot of separate fundraising.”

But the IRS has been silent on the matter, and the fact that money is fungible and usually can’t be followed through to a particular expenditure only muddies the waters.

Conservative groups have made far greater use of political nonprofits than liberal ones,. In the last election cycle, 28 social welfare groups spent more than $1 million each on political advertising, as reported to the FEC. Twenty of those were conservative groups, spending a total of $204 million. Seven were liberal organizations, spending a combined $33 million, and one was independent. In addition, available evidence indicates that the conservative groups are more interconnected, churning money among members of the network.

Corkery connections

Ann Corkery started Wellspring in 2008, the year she was also a co-chair of the National Women for Mitt Finance Committee. She had been involved in politics at least since 2000, when she and her husband helped the RNC with outreach to Catholics. In 2003, she was appointed by President Bush to be a delegate to the United Nations General Assembly, where she fought for a ban on human cloning; he also made her a delegate to the UN Commission on the Status of Women.

She seems to have come to politics at least in part through her religion. Corkery has been a member of an ultraorthodox subset of Roman Catholicism. According to an interview she gave in 1990, she was introduced to Opus Dei by Neil; he was a member but later dropped out, while she remained.

Her involvement with the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, dates back a number of years. In the words of the League’s famously pugnacious leader, Bill Donohue, the group specializes in "public embarrassment of public figures who have earned our wrath." Corkery was on the board of directors as of 2012, though her name no longer appears on the list.

She's also on the board of the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, a conservative legal group whose activities have included fighting to keep the words "under God" in the pledge of allegiance, and against insurance coverage of contraception under the Affordable Care Act. Her bio, unlike those of her fellow directors, was removed from Becket's website after CRP and NPR began trying to reach her, although her name remains. In 2008, she presented Becket's annual award for "courage in defense of religious liberty" to Mitt and Ann Romney.

The Corkerys also have made forays into popular culture. Ann works with Friends of Abe, a group of Hollywood conservatives who deplore the liberal predilections of many in their industry. She's even been associate producer of a feature film, An American Carol, a comedy that mocks liberal director Michael Moore.

Meanwhile husband Neil is CFO of Wedgwood Circle, a collection of investors and artists that pursues "redemptive cultural content" and seeks projects "that are injecting truth, beauty, and goodness into the art and entertainment industries," according to its website. The Wedgwood Circle website says Neil "runs a financial consulting firm specializing in assisting nonprofit organizations."

Neil has also been treasurer of the National Organization for Marriage since it was founded in 2007. NOM's initial goal was to see that California’s Proposition 8, barring same-sex marriage, was passed – which it was, though it was knocked down by the Supreme Court in early 2013. The group has pushed similar ballot measures in other states and been active in legislative and judicial elections. Last month, NOM President Brian Brown called New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) “a man who lacks the courage of his supposed convictions” after Christie dropped his appeal of a state court’s ruling to allow the marriage of same-sex couples.

Among the many other groups he’s involved with, Neil is also executive director of the Bishop Gassis Sudan Relief Fund, which says it is “bringing the gospel of Christ, and providing food,shelter and medical care to the men, women and children of South Sudan.”

And Neil Corkery is listed as the keeper of records for The Annual Fund, the 501(c)(4) that was launched with $2.4 million in 2010 -- from Wellspring. One surprising contributor since then: the Pharmaceutical Researchers and Manufacturers Association, which gave The Annual Fund $400,000 in 2011. The fund's six grantees include three that Wellspring also helped fund, and one that got money from PhRMA.

The Koch network overlap

Any discussion of dark money pass-through groups usually comes around to a mention of the Koch brothers.

However mysterious the source of the Corkery groups’ funds, there are a number of overlaps between their grantees and those of certain other,similar pass-through organizations. That's particularly true in the case of the Center to Protect Patient Rights, which is run by Sean Noble, a political consultant and operative connected to billionaire industrialists and conservative funders David and Charles Koch.

Americans for Job Security, for instance -- a 501(c)(6) business association -- has received nearly $3 million from Wellspring; CPPR has given it more than $4.8 million. Similarly, both Wellspring and CPPR have helped fund a social welfare group spearheaded by the Kochs, Americans for Prosperity; they've given $2.7 million and $4.3 million respectively.

In total, 10 recipients of Wellspring and/or Annual Fund grants also received money from CPPR from 2008 through 2011. Those include the American Future Fund and Independent Women's Voice, which is headed by another figure in the Koch orbit. Wellspring also uses a consulting firm with ties to the Kochs: The group's largest outside vendor in 2010 was Cove Strategies, where two of the four principals are former Koch Industries employees.

anncorkery.jpeg

Last year, Ann Corkery's name showed up on the list of partners at the Washington law firm Stein, Mitchell, Muse & Cipollone. According to the firm’s website, she is an "expert communication strategist" who has "provided strategic counsel to a number of national and state political candidates."

She has also, the website says, had "great success in devising and executing signature reputation campaigns for national political leaders and organizations."

Considering how skillfully the Corkerys have flown under the radar, they might celebrate the success of their own "reputation campaign."

They would probably do so quietly.

Categories: 501(c) groups, Outside Money

Tags: Adam Smith Foundation, American Action Network, American Democracy Alliance, American Future Fund, americans for job security, Americans for Limited Government, americans for prosperity, Ann Corkery, Annual Fund, Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, Bill donohue, Brian Sullivan, Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, center to protect patient rights, Chris Christie, Cleta Mitchell, club for growth, club for growth action, faith and freedom coalition, Founding Principles, Howard Rich, Independent Women's Voice, Judicial Crisis Network, koch, Michigan Campaign Finance Network, Mitt Romney, National Organization for Marriage, Neil Corkery, peter overby, Pharmaceutical Researchers and Manufacturers Association, Phrma, Restore Our Future, robert maguire, Robin Arkley, Rosebush Corp., Security National Servicing Corp., shadow money trail, tc4, TC4 Trust, viveca novak, Wedgewood Circle, Wellspring Committee

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1/24/2015 In the Garden of Dark Money, the Thorny Case of Rosebush Corp. | OpenSecrets Blog

http://www.opensecrets.org/news/2015/01/inthegardenofdarkmoneythethornycaseofrosebushcorp/?utm_source=CRP+Mail+List&utm_campaign=c5a… 1/5

In the Garden of Dark Money, the

Thorny Case of Rosebush Corp.

by Robert Maguire on January 22, 2015

Former IRS official Lois Lerner became the face of the IRS “scandal,” though the agency rarely

rejects exemption applications. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster, File)

Ever since news broke in 2013 that the IRS had targeted the exemption applications of tea party and

some other politicallyoriented groups for extra scrutiny, conventional wisdom had it that the agency

throws up roadblocks for organizations trying to obtain its seal of approval.

But much evidence indicates the IRS backs down without much fuss when groups seeking 501(c)(4)

“social welfare” status come calling.

That was certainly true in the case of Rosebush Corp., OpenSecrets Blog has learned. The

Pennsylvaniabased nonprofit has been a conduit for large sums of money destined for other, more

politically active, groups — including Americans for Job Security (AJS), which spent more than $15

million attacking President Obama in his 2012 reelection bid.

In what appears to have been a highly unusual move, in 2013 the IRS initially denied Rosebush’s

application for exempt status. Rarer still, though, the agency largely reversed its decision in August

2014, when it recognized the group as a 501(c)(4) organization.

Out of the bush, into the spring

OpenSecrets Blog obtained Rosebush’s denial letter only because it is part of the group’s 1024

application materials that must be made available once a group’s exemption is approved. (Normally,

only heavily redacted denial letters are released, with all identifying information removed.) The

documents offer a rare glimpse at the applicant’s interaction with the IRS, and the agency’s reasoning

for denying the exemption.

Rosebush is the largest of the few donors known to have boosted the coffers of a 501(c)(4) social

welfare organization called the Wellspring Committee, the hub of a complex dark money network that

OpenSecrets Blog, in partnership with NPR, wrote about in 2013. The report showed that, for years,

money flowed into Wellspring before being doled out to a set of politically active nonprofits, many of

which engaged in direct or indirect electioneering in races on the state and federal levels.1/24/2015 In the Garden of Dark Money, the Thorny Case of Rosebush Corp. | OpenSecrets Blog

http://www.opensecrets.org/news/2015/01/inthegardenofdarkmoneythethornycaseofrosebushcorp/?utm_source=CRP+Mail+List&utm_campaign=c5a… 2/5

At the time, Rosebush was not recognized by the IRS. But the documents show it had been seeking

an exemption since April 2012; in December 2013, the agency rejected the request.

In doing so, the IRS raised a number of concerns about the group. Foremost was the fact that

Rosebush described its social welfare function as “making contributions to other likeminded Section

501(c)(4) organizations.” As the IRS pointed out, “making a grant only promotes social welfare if the

recipient of the funds uses the proceeds to promote social welfare.” The IRS said it was “unable to

determine” whether the funds Rosebush distributed were used for social welfare purposes, in part

because Rosebush didn’t present any documentation to that effect.

The question was particularly relevant in Rosebush’s case because of the AJS grant, reported here for

the first time. AJS is a 501(c)(6) trade association, not a social welfare group. The grant — which left

Rosebush tied with Crossroads GPS as AJS’ most generous known benefactors in 2012 — made up

78 percent of Rosebush’s 2012 expenditures and 56 percent of its total $3.6 million expenditures over

three years.

Trade associations like AJS, the IRS pointed out, “have the exempt purpose of promoting common

business interests for their members; they do not have the exempt purpose of promoting social

welfare.” It’s not impossible for a trade group to use funds received from a social welfare organization

for activities that fit both missions, but the IRS was concerned that Rosebush “had no formal written

grant agreement with [AJS] requiring it use the grant proceeds for specific activities or projects that

promote social welfare” nor did Rosebush “receive any reports from [AJS] describing how it used the

proceeds.”

After bringing in more than $51 million in 2012, AJS revenues plummeted to just $817,975.

The questions seemed apt, since AJS has been one of the most politically active nonprofits in the

country, and politics does not qualify as social welfare. For more than 17 years, it has spent heavily in

elections around the country, leading to scandals in Alaska and California, all without revealing its

donors. AJS’ revenues ebb and flow from election year to off year, and those gyrations have grown

more marked in the postCitizens United era.

Other substantial Rosebush grantees aren’t strangers to the political arena, either. In 2011, Rosebush

directed $750,000 — 67 percent of its total expenditures that year — to Americans for Limited

Government, a 501(c)(4) linked to the libertarian real estate developer Howard Rich in Rosebush’s

home city of Philadelphia. The Rosebush grant amounted to more than 90 percent of ALG’s revenues

that year.1/24/2015 In the Garden of Dark Money, the Thorny Case of Rosebush Corp. | OpenSecrets Blog

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In a letter, ALG explained that the funds were used for “choice in education options,” mostly in 2012.

Another Rosebush grantee, Legislative Education Action Drive or LEAD, is also headed by Howard

Rich and focuses on “the debate on choice in education by providing citizens the information and

resources to advocate for meaningful reform.” LEAD got $300,000 from Rosebush and $170,000 from

ALG in 2012 — the two grants making up 89 percent of the group’s revenues that year. Most of

LEAD’s expenditures that year went towards grants to two other groups, one of which, Young

Conservatives of Pennsylvania, was also a Rosebush grantee. The other grantee, which received

$200,000 from LEAD, was a group called Citizens in Charge, run by operatives who sit on the boards

of Rich’s other organizations.

The IRS made no mention of this churning of funds — a signature of Howard Rich’s operations — or

Rosebush’s role in it.

In 2010, ALG spent more than $1 million on that year’s midterm elections — all against Democrats —

and the year following Rosebush’s contribution, ALG would go on to be the largest donor to a

conservative super PAC called Now or Never PAC.

In fact, Rosebush itself gave $200,000 to super PACs. That was something the IRS did raise concerns

about, since super PACs are by their nature political.

The tax agency also had questions about the fact that Rosebush is “governed by a single individual

who is both your director and treasurer.” That would be Brian Sullivan, the only human linked directly to

Rosebush by name. The IRS pointed out that Rosebush doesn’t “have a paid staff” and its “governing

body has no other formal members.”

In 2013, Rosebush spent no money, according to a form 990 filed last July, because it was waiting to

sort out its status with the IRS. That doesn’t mean that Sullivan sat on the sidelines, though. He

started another (c)(4) with precisely the same mission statement as Rosebush’s; he called the new

group Green Orchard. As the Center for Public Integrity reported last October, Green Orchard has been

used to convey hundreds of thousands of dollars to super PACs and 501(c) organizations since 2013,

all in the name of a purpose identical to Rosebush’s.

Lowering the bar

What are the consequences of denying exempt status to a group that’s already operating? Very little,

really: The organization in question is simply required to pay taxes on its revenue. The IRS told

Rosebush that it does “not qualify for exemption as an organization described in Section 501(c)(4)

and…must file federal income tax returns.”

Even that doesn’t happen often. Denials are exceedingly rare: Less than 0.25 percent of 501(c)(4)

applicants are denied, according to an extensive report by the Center for Public Integrity last summer.

And even when a denial is imminent, the IRS often warns the applicant beforehand so it can withdraw

its paperwork prior to receiving the rejection.

None of the 501(c) organizations with the most reported political spending over the last three election

cycles were denied exempt status, or had their status revoked. One smaller group, a liberal 501(c)(4)

called Arkansans for Common Sense, was denied in 2013 for having a primary purpose that the IRS

described as “the participation in a political campaign on behalf of or in opposition to a candidate for

public office.”

One of the largest political spenders over the last few elections — a conservative group that spent

more than all liberal dark money organizations combined in both the 2010 and 2012 elections — is

Crossroads GPS, which applied for exempt status in 2010. It has yet to receive the green light,

according to IRS data, and was even slated for denial when the IRS scandal broke. However, GPS is

still in operation, spending $26 million on direct political advocacy in 2014.

Most of the time, organizations’ exemption applications are approved. Even a group that had spent the

majority of its funds over multiple years on direct political activity and engaged in “campaign money

laundering” was granted an exemption, as we have reported, despite the fact that the group —

Americans for Responsible Leadership, which is linked to thenKoch money man Sean Noble — said it1/24/2015 In the Garden of Dark Money, the Thorny Case of Rosebush Corp. | OpenSecrets Blog

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had no intentions of changing its activities in the future. Another Kochbacked group, Citizens

Awareness Project, was given an exemption despite having only two donors and spending a large

share of its funds directly on politics. Yet another group, a liberal nonprofit called American Bridge 21st

Century Foundation that specializes in doing opposition research on Republican politicians, received an

exemption.

How did Rosebush turn the IRS around? In a letter, Sullivan explained that Rosebush Corp. had

implemented, by decree of its sole director (himself), more stringent oversight of grantee spending. In

addition, he promised to go to each organization to which the group had already given money and

get assurances that the funds were used properly.

That’s how Americans for Limited Government came to write that it received its $750,000 grant from

Rosebush in late September 2011 and used the money over the course of the following 12 months —

that is, well into the election year — for the promotion of “choice in education options.”

ALG’s own tax filings in 2011 and 2012 made no reference to such initiatives, however. In 2012, most

of ALG’s spending was in the form of grants to other 501(c) groups — many of which share board

members with ALG — and to a super PAC called Now or Never PAC, which received more than $2.5

million.

Rosebush’s largest grantee, Americans for Job Security, the trade association that received well over

half the money Rosebush doled out over three years, sent in a form letter that was supplemented with

a short note from AJS president Stephen Demaura thanking his benefactor for its “membership and

support.”

“Membership” is an important term for AJS. As a 501(c)(6), AJS technically doesn’t have donors —

rather, it has duespaying members. Donors must be reported to the IRS (though not the public) in an

annual 990 filing. But duespaying members are never reported anywhere. It’s not entirely clear how the

money that AJS collects as dues is substantially different from the funds that 501(c)(4) social welfare

groups collect as grants, though. The organizations paying dues to AJS are frequently social welfare

organizations. In 2008, about a third of AJS’ revenue, $4 million, came from two social welfare groups,

the Wellspring Committee — at the time, part of the Koch donor network — and Freedom’s Watch. In

2010, Wellspring gave $346,098, and the Center to Protect Patient Rights, the new conduit for Koch

cash, gave $4.8 million; their combined grants again made up about a third of the AJS haul that year.

OpenSecrets Blog research indicates that of the $14.6 million AJS is known to have received in 13

grants from 501(c)(4) organizations since 2008, only one grant, totaling $425,000, was reported to the

IRS as “membership.” None were reported as “dues.”

Demaura did not respond to requests for comment on this discrepancy.

The AJS letter in support of Rosebush’s appeal made no effort to convince the IRS that the funds it

received were spent on social welfare. AJS said that 15 months after Rosebush’s “membership,” it was

“unable to provide the representations you request.” The money went into AJS’ general fund that was

used for “our general purposes and various projects” — including a bungled injection of funds into

California ballot measures and significant direct political advocacy.

Demaura wrote that “the grant was to used solely for permissible Section 501(c)(6) activities” — which

is to say, not necessarily social welfare. He went on to explain that AJS is “designed to promote the

‘common business interest’ of its members,” which is the function of a 501(c)(6) trade association.

The IRS responded last August to Rosebush’s appeal by saying that it would grant the exemption if

Rosebush amended its grant agreement to make more specific the need for grantees to use the funds

for social welfare.

Rosebush agreed to those conditions, and after two years of correspondence with the IRS, another

dark money conduit was exempt in the eyes of the IRS.

Rosebush isn’t entirely out of the woods yet. Its exemption was effective going back to Jan. 1, 2013,

which means that it has not yet been cleared for activities during the time it was granting funds to1/24/2015 In the Garden of Dark Money, the Thorny Case of Rosebush Corp. | OpenSecrets Blog

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Americans for Job Security. The IRS left the appeals door open for that period, though. Sullivan — who

would not comment on other aspects of this story — confirmed that Rosebush is indeed pursuing an

appeal and has not paid income tax on its activities before 2013.

Categories: 501(c) groups Outside Money

Tags: 501(c)(4), 501(c)(6), Americans for Job Security, Brian Sullivan, dark money, denial, exempt status,

exemption, irs, IRS Scandal, Robert Maguire, Rosebush Corp., Shadow Money Trail, stephen demaura,

Wellspring Cmte, Wellspring Committee

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