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scharf, will WH COUNSEL miz

PRIMARY WH COUNSEL PRESS SUPPRESS FUCKERY 10 26

thiel conf dialog LEO TOO

NOTE ~ INVEST JRNL 3X MILES TAYLOR

looks like miller, xo wrangler

leo ann corkery [templeton?] FED SOC

BRET KAVANAUGH

TRUMP DEFENSE LIAR

HARLAN CROW

SINGER ELLIOT MGMT VULTURE TAG

TRUMP ADMIN

RAGA TEAM RED?

ANDREW BAILEY BAIL AG MIZZOU POW RIVAL; PATRICK MORISSEY AG

THOMAS ALBUS FULTON FUCKERY GT CONSPIRACY FAIL? DEGENOVA

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AN 8 26

A prominent former official is sounding the alarm about President Donald Trump's increasingly tyrannical tendencies, writing for The i Paper that he has now succeeded in corrupting the two offices above all that are tasked with telling him "no."

Miles Taylor previously worked as a staffer in Trump's first administration, eventually rising to the office of chief of staff for the Department of Homeland Security. His tenure was most notable, however, for an anonymous op-ed he published in the New York Times, exposing the abuses and excesses that he was witnessing behind the scenes. Since departing in 2029, he has emerged as a vocal conservative critic of Trump and his MAGA agenda.

In his latest piece for The i Paper, published on Tuesday, Taylor sounded the alarm about two recent Trump appointments, which he said represented the corruption of the two offices "more than any others — whose jobs are to tell the president of the United States 'no,'" filling them with yes-men sure to follow his every order.

"The attorney general and the White House counsel," Taylor wrote. "Those jobs exist to keep the president on the right side of the law. This weekend, two men were elevated into America’s top legal jobs after working to build literal monuments to their boss."

He continued: "On Sunday, the President announced that Will Scharf, Trump’s staff secretary and perhaps the chief 'monument man,' will become White House counsel on September 1. Americans know him, if at all, as the man standing over Trump’s shoulder in the Oval Office, narrating executive orders as the President signs them. He also chairs the National Capital Planning Commission, which oversees federal construction in the capital, a role in which he has become Trump’s personal builder. He fast-tracked the White House ballroom. He expedited review of the President’s planned triumphal arch — a 250ft 'Arc de Trump' — and personally argued it should be exempt from the century-old law capping Washington’s buildings at 130ft. Approve the arch, and the leader makes you his lawyer."

The other concerning development was the appointment of Todd Blanche, Trump's former personal attorney, as Attorney General, replacing "the last attorney general was fired for not weaponizing the Justice Department fast enough."

"Blanche is a 'monument man,' too, which is evidently a requirement for elevation," Taylor added. "When preservationists sued over Trump’s demolition of the East Wing (which he tore down to construct a 90,000 sq ft ballroom dedicated to himself), Blanche took on the case. He argued in court filings that construction must resume, portraying the President’s party palace as a matter of national security urgency."

He concluded later: "I can tell you how important these two legal jobs actually are. When I served in the first term, the lawyers willing to say 'no' were the last line of defense. The president would demand something illegal... It was a wall that held — barely — a hundred times over. Trump remembers that wall as vividly as I do. He spent his four years out of power studying where it stood and who manned it. This weekend, he finished solving the problem. The next time he goes hunting for a lawyer with an answer he likes, he won’t have to look very far. The two men who should’ve been whispering 'no' into the President’s ear got his attention by whispering 'yes, sir.' Now they’re seated at his right hand."

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Trump has a pick for White House counsel: Will Scharf, who has been serving as White House staff secretary since 2025. And according to New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman, Scharf has his work cut out for him — as Trump has a history of being "very hard" on his White House counsels.

During a Monday morning, August 10 appearance on journalist Peter Alexander's new show on MS NOW, Haberman noted that Scharf is very much a Trump loyalist. But she also argued that he could run into problems as White House counsel because he "has limits on what he will do."

Along with journalist Jonathan Swan, Haberman wrote the 2026 book "Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump" — which takes an in-depth look at Trump's second presidency. During her appearances on MS NOW and CNN, Haberman has been stressing that Trump is much more brazen during his second presidency than he was during his first."

Talking to Alexander, Haberman emphasized that although Scharf is on board with Trump more often than not, his willingness to buck the president on occasion could prove problematic for him.

When Alexander described Scharf as an "ultimate loyalist" to Trump, Haberman responded, "He is, but he also has some limits, Peter, on what he will do. One of the things we wrote about in the book, Jonathan and I did, is two issues where Will Scharf drew a line over the course of the last year and a half — where he got concerned about what could entangle this administration in legal fights that they might not be prepared for. One was about when to invoke the Insurrection Act, which is, you know, a loaded weapon on the shelf, as is the idea of suspending habeas corpus rights for undocumented migrants."

Haberman continued, "You know, the right to due process under habeas corpus is an idea that predates the Magna Carta. It's enshrined in the Constitution. The Supreme Court has repeatedly upheld it very broadly. There was an episode that we wrote about where the president and (Trump White House adviser) Stephen Miller were really aggressively discussing, possibly just broadly, suspending these rights. But in general, Will Scharf is, as you say, he is somebody who generally believes in pretty expansive executive power. He was part of the president's team that fought for the immunity ruling at the Supreme Court, which has allowed President Trump, in President Trump's mind, to plow through all kinds of limits this term."

Appointed to White House counsel, effective September 1, Scharf replaces Trump ally David Warrington — who is returning to the private sector. Scharf has been a strong supporter of Trump's proposed White House ballroom, helping secure approval for the $400 million project.

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Co-Founder & Advisor to the CEO

Mario Schlosser is the Co-Founder & Advisor to the CEO at Oscar Health. In this role, he accelerates technology innovation across the Oscar Health family – Oscar Insurance, Lucie Health Marketplace and Trove Group – to grow the individual market.

Mario previously served as President of Technology & Chief Technology Officer and CEO of Oscar, leading the company from its founding to 1M+ members. Before co-founding Oscar, Mario also co-founded the largest social gaming company in Latin America, where he led the company's analytics and game design practices. Prior to that, Mario was a Senior Investment Associate at Bridgewater Associates and worked as a consultant for McKinsey & Company in Europe, the U.S. and Brazil.

Mario also spent time as a visiting scholar at Stanford University, where he wrote and co-authored 10 computer science publications, including one of the most-cited computer science papers published in the past decade, in which he developed the EigenTrust Algorithm to securely compute trust in randomized networks. In May 2019, Mario and his co-authors, Sepandar D. Kamvar (Mosaic Building Group Inc) and Héctor Garcia-Molina (Celo), received the prestigious Seoul Test of Time Award from the International World Wide Web Conference Committee (IW3C2) for this work.

Mario holds a degree in computer science with highest distinction from the University of Hannover in Germany and an MBA from Harvard Business School.

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6 26 Will Scharf - Wikipedia NO TALK

William Owen Scharf (born March 29, 1986) is an American attorney and political operative who has served as the White House staff secretary since 2025.

Scharf graduated from Princeton University with a Bachelor of Arts in history in 2008 and from Harvard Law School with a Juris Doctor in 2011. After graduating from Harvard, he clerked for Judge Raymond Gruender of the Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit. Scharf later worked for Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner. In 2015, he was hired by Catherine Hanaway's campaign in the 2016 Missouri gubernatorial election to serve as Hanaway's policy director. After Hanaway lost the Republican primary to Eric Greitens, Scharf joined Greiten's campaign in a similar role. He served as Greitens's policy director until Greitens's resignation in June 2018.

:{Scharf was involved in several Supreme Court confirmations, including those for Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett. In June 2020, Scharf joined the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Missouri as a prosecutor in its violent crimes unit.

really?]

In January 2023, Scharf announced that he would run in the 2024 Missouri attorney general election as a Republican, seeking to challenge the incumbent Andrew Bailey. In his campaign, Scharf sought to highlight his proximity to former President Donald Trump, whom he had concurrently served as his personal lawyer, and claimed that Bailey had perpetrated corruption in the attorney general's office. Bailey defeated Scharf in the Republican primary in August 2024.}:

In November 2024, Trump named Scharf as his White House staff secretary. In July 2025, Trump appointed him to serve as the chair of the National Capital Planning Commission.

Early life and education (1986–2011)

William Owen Scharf[1] was born on March 29,[2] 1986,[3] in New York City, New York.[4] Scharf is the son of Fiona and Michael Scharf.[5] Michael worked in private equity.[6] They attended Princeton University, where they were the primary benefactors of Princeton's Chabad house.[5] Scharf was raised in a Modern Orthodox household. He grew up in New York and North Florida.[7] Scharf attended Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts, graduating in 2004.[4]

Scharf graduated magna cum laude from Princeton University in 2008 with a Bachelor of Arts in history. At Princeton, Scharf was involved in the Center for Jewish Life and Chabad. He was the president of the Chabad Student Board, the Charter Club, and the Interclub Council. Scharf ran for president of Princeton's student government in 2005, but lost in a runoff election by seventy votes. He was additionally a member of the Princeton Alcohol and Drug Alliance, was the press secretary for Princeton's chapter of College Republicans, and had a column in The Princeton Tory.[5]

The Princeton Tory is a magazine of conservative political thought written and published by Princeton University students. Founded in 1984 by Yoram Hazony, the magazine has played a role in various controversies, including a national debate about white privilege. Notable alumni associated with the magazine include United States Senator Ted Cruz, and the current United States Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth. Four editors have gone on to be Rhodes Scholars.

In 2008, Scharf was charged with selling alcohol to minors and causing a nuisance. The Princeton Municipal Court later dropped the charges; Scharf threatened to file a civil suit over the incident.[5] Scharf graduated from Harvard Law School in 2011 with a Juris Doctor. He served as the president of Harvard's chapter of the Federalist Society.[4] Scharf told The Wall Street Journal that he chose to attend Harvard believing he would be more accepted as a conservative.[8]

Career

Clerkship and private practice (2011–2015)

After graduating from Harvard University in 2011, Scharf clerked for Judge Raymond Gruender of the Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit.[4] He later worked for Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner.[9] Scharf was additionally a teaching fellow at Harvard's Department of Government.[10]

Political work (2015–2020)

In 2015, Scharf began volunteering for Catherine Hanaway's campaign in the 2016 Missouri gubernatorial election.[4] He later joined the campaign as Hanaway's policy director.[9] After Hanaway lost to Eric Greitens in the Republican primary, Greitens asked that Scharf join his campaign.[4] He served in a similar role in Greitens's campaign.[9] After Greitens won the election, he named Scharf as his policy director in December 2016.[11] Scharf served as the vice chair of Greitens's tax-reform committee.[12] As Greitens's policy director, he helped write anti-abortion legislation.[13] In an interview with The Washington Post in March 2026, Scharf stated that he had worked with the Missouri General Assembly to cut the state's historic-preservation tax-credit program, that he had led its real-estate tax-credit programs, and that he had helped designate "opportunity zones" in the state.[14]

In 2018, allegations emerged that Scharf had an affair and had committed campaign finance violations. In May 2018, the Missouri House of Representatives's Special Investigative Committee on Oversight requested that Scharf testify about a memorandum Scharf had written claiming that Greitens had obscured some of his donors.[15] The following month, Greitens resigned amid the possibility of impeachment. Scharf left his administration in June.[9] As a consultant for the Judicial Crisis Network,[9] he worked on the Supreme Court confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh.[6] Scharf additionally worked for CRC Advisors.[16] In January 2020, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported that Scharf was a member of a Facebook group advocating for Greitens's return to political office.[17]

Assistant U.S. attorney and private practice (2020–2023)

According to the Riverfront Times, Scharf had been listed in a monthly office birthday list[6] for the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Missouri[18] in March 2020;[6] the position that Scharf would eventually seek, an assistant U.S. attorney, had not yet been vacated.[6] He began working in the office in June. Scharf was detailed as the nominations counsel in the Department of Justice's Office of Legal Policy to work on Amy Coney Barrett's Supreme Court confirmation in September.[9] At the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Missouri, Scharf worked in the violent crimes unit. A review of Scharf's work by The Guardian in July 2024 found that Scharf largely prosecuted felony firearm possessions and violations of supervised release.[18] Scharf resigned in November 2022.[19] By December 2023, he had joined D. John Sauer's James Otis Law Group.[20]

Missouri attorney general campaign (2023–2024)

In November 2022, the Missouri Independent reported that Scharf was among several names being considered to succeed Eric Schmitt as the attorney general of Missouri if Schmitt were to win that year's Senate election.[21] According to Spectrum News, Governor Mike Parson did not interview Scharf and instead named Andrew Bailey.[22] Scharf resigned as an assistant U.S. attorney that month, he told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that he was considering a campaign in the 2024 Missouri Attorney General election.[19] On November 30, Scharf announced that he had established an exploratory committee for a campaign in 2024. He worked with the political consulting firm Axiom Strategies.[22] In January 2023, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported that Scharf had donated US$505,000 to his campaign account and had garnered US$294,000 from over two hundred donors, including Leonard Leo, the co-chairman of the Federalist Society; West Virginia attorney general Patrick Morrisey; and Peter Bisbee, the executive director of the Republican Attorneys General Association.[23]

On February 1, 2023, Scharf announced that he was running in the 2024 Missouri Attorney General election as a Republican.[7] In August, Donald Trump called Scharf and requested that he join his appellate legal team.[4] Scharf formally joined Trump's legal defense in October.[24] He was involved in Trump's election obstruction case and his subsequent appeal to the Supreme Court.[25] In differentiating himself from Bailey, Scharf cited his connection to Trump and vowed to prosecute machines resembling slot machines outside of casinos. He claimed that Bailey had accepted donations from lobbyists and companies, deeming him responsible for corruption at the attorney general's office.[4] Bailey's campaign accused Scharf of having wealthy donors and noted his affluent background.[26] In March 2024, Scharf received US$500,000 from Club for Growth's federal political action committee and US$1 million from the Concord Fund. The following month, he received three checks totaling US$3 million.[27] Bailey defeated Scharf in the Republican primary on August 6.[28]

White House Staff Secretary (2025–present)

Scharf (left) watching Trump (right) sign an executive order following his inauguration.

On November 16, 2024, President-elect Donald Trump announced that he would name Scharf as his White House staff secretary.[29] Scharf's responsibilities included managing executive orders for Trump to sign; The Washington Post described Scharf's role in publicly presenting the orders to Trump as "not only of a lawyer, but something akin to a game show host sidekick".[30] According to Regime Change (2026), Scharf had written confidential memorandums to White House chief of staff Susie Wiles expressing concern about Stephen Miller's efforts to suspend habeas corpus for undocumented immigrants and invoking the Insurrection Act over protests against mass deportation.[31]

In July 2025, Trump named Scharf as the chair of the National Capital Planning Commission.[32] In a public meeting in September, Scharf asserted that the commission lacked the authority to halt the demolition of the East Wing.[33] In April 2026, he voted to approve the White House State Ballroom.[34] In June, Scharf voted to advance the United States Triumphal Arch.[35]

Views

:{In 2006, Scharf told The Daily Princetonian that he disagreed with former New Jersey governor Christine Todd Whitman's sentiment that the Republican Party should be more moderate. He opposed the nomination of Arizona senator John McCain at the 2008 Republican National Convention, arguing that McCain had "snubbed" the Republican Party on free speech, immigration, judicial appointments, and tax cuts.[5] At a candidate forum in Springfield, Missouri, in May 2024, Scharf stated that he believed that the 2020 presidential election was "stolen" and "rigged".[36]

In July, he told Missourinet that he believed the Missouri State Board of Education and the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education had not done enough for students, accusing the department of being one entity of the "establishment".[37]}:

References

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missouri-members-of-trump-legal-team-score-high-profile-jobs-in-administration

President-elect Donald Trump tapped two Missouri members of the legal team for jobs in the new administration, naming D. John Sauer solicitor general and Will Scharf assistant to the president and White House staff secretary.

Sauer, who lives in the St. Louis suburb of Town and Country, was Missouri solicitor general from 2017 through 2022 under Josh Hawley and Eric Schmitt. In that job, he led Missouri’s unsuccessful effort alongside other GOP attorneys general to keep Trump in power by challenging the 2020 election results.

More recently, Sauer successfully represented Trump at the U.S. Supreme Court in his bid for immunity from being criminally charged for trying to overturn the 2020 election. The justices voted 6-3 along ideological lines in July to give Trump immunity from some official acts he took as president.

As solicitor general, Sauer will be responsible for litigating the federal government’s positions at the U.S. Supreme Court.

“He is a legit genius, an incredible lawyer and I’m thrilled for him and his family,” Schmitt posted on social media.

Scharf, who ran unsuccessfully against Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey in the GOP primary, briefly served in the administration of former Gov. Eric Greitens before moving to Washington, D.C., to work for the advocacy organization Judicial Crisis Network, focused on judicial confirmations and nominations, most notably Justice Brett Kavanaugh.

In 2020, he returned to Missouri to work as an assistant U.S. attorney in St. Louis. Alongside Sauer, Scharf was part of the team advising and defending Trump in his myriad criminal trials over the last year.

In his new job, Scharf will decide which memos, briefings and reports will go to the president and who should weigh in on issues and speeches.

“Will is a highly skilled attorney who will be a crucial part of my White House team,” Trump said in announcing Scharf’s appointment, later adding: “Will is going to make us proud as we Make America Great Again.”

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no lnx

MISSOURI’S ATTORNEY GENERAL ISN’T MAGA ENOUGH FOR LEONARD LEO

The conservative megadonor’s network is plowing money into the Republican primary to support Will Scharf, Trump’s personal attorney.

Shawn Musgrave

July 2 2024,

CONSERVATIVE MEGADONOR Leonard Leo is funneling millions of dollars into the primary race for Missouri’s attorney general. His anointed candidate is Will Scharf, a personal attorney to Donald Trump who represented the former president in the immunity case decided Monday by the U.S. Supreme Court.

What’s remarkable about the Missouri race is that the Republican incumbent, Andrew Bailey, is also an archconservative star-in-the-making, with endorsements from the National Rifle Association, top Missouri lawmakers, and state law enforcement unions.

Despite Bailey’s deeply conservative agenda and rhetoric, Leo is helping bankroll a primary challenge.

Since his appointment in 2023, Bailey has sued the Biden administration over student loan cancellation, protections for transgender students, and federal officials’ efforts to influence social media content moderation practices around Covid-19.

This isn’t enough for Leo. Despite Bailey’s deeply conservative agenda and rhetoric, Leo is helping bankroll a primary challenge that’s pitting national rightwing donors against wealthy conservative Missourians. The primary will be held on August 6.

Leo’s Largesse vs. Old Beer Money

Campaign finance disclosures show that Leo and his allies have underwritten much of Scharf’s bid to be the next state attorney.

The Concord Fund, one of Leo’s dark-money organizations, has given $3.5 million so far to two pro-Scharf PACs: $500,000 to Defend Missouri last year, plus another $3 million to Club for Growth Action Missouri so far in 2024. (One of these $1 million checks was initially misreported as coming from Leo personally, rather than from the Concord Fund.)

Republican megadonor Paul Singer — a hedge fund billionaire and fishing buddy of Justice Samuel Alito who is closely aligned with Leo — has chipped in another $1.5 million to support Scharf, also via Club for Growth Action. Singer and his firm are based in West Palm Beach, Florida.

To try to keep up with this flood of national money to a state primary, the main committee supporting Bailey — Liberty and Justice PAC — has turned primarily to wealthy Missourians. These include the heir to the Anheuser-Busch beer fortune, August A. Busch III, who has given $200,000 in the past two years. Mike and Carolyn Rayner, a retired couple that are part of the family that owns Cargill, have given more than $1 million to Liberty and Justice PAC over this period. Another wealthy couple, Rex and Jeanne Sinquefield, gave $500,000, and a Kansas City law firm, Ketchmark & McCreight, gave more than $230,000.

As of April 1, Liberty and Justice PAC had just under $2 million in the bank, and Club for Growth Action had just under $2.2 million. Since then, Bailey’s mostly local highrollers have contributed around $750,000, compared to the $3.4 million that Club for Growth Action got in just two checks from Singer and the Concord Fund.

Bailey has been unable to unlock one crucial war chest: the Republican Attorneys General Association, a collective of his conservative counterparts in 27 other states. In the Louisiana attorney general race last year, RAGA spent $1.8 million to support the winner, Elizabeth Murrill.

In his brief time as a RAGA member, Bailey has led various coalition efforts, including letters warning CVS and Walgreens in 2023 that sending abortion pills by mail would violate the Comstock Act. He has also led group briefs to the Supreme Court, including in the mifepristone case and the challenges to Texas and Florida laws regulating social media platforms.

Still, RAGA — to which Leo’s Concord Fund is a top contributor and which is also a client of Leo’s consulting firm, CRC Advisors — has not backed Bailey. So far, RAGA has not made a formal endorsement in the race, though its executive director actually donated a small amount to Scharf’s campaign. Last September, Missouri Gov. Mike Parsons, who appointed Bailey, wrote a letter to RAGA complaining about its “unprecedented and deeply concerning” lack of support for an incumbent.

RAGA and Bailey’s campaign did not respond to The Intercept’s questions, including whether Leo’s support for Scharf impacted RAGA’s decision not to back Bailey.

Longstanding Ties

Scharf has a longstanding relationship with Leo and the Concord Fund, which was previously called the Judicial Crisis Network.

Scharf’s campaign website emphasizes that he “played an instrumental role” in building “the most conservative Supreme Court in almost a century” by helping with the confirmation battles over Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett.

For both confirmations, Scharf would have worked closely with Leo, who was the Trump administration’s “court whisperer.”

Related

The Supreme Court Wants a Dictator]

Kavanaugh’s confirmation took place in the summer and fall of 2018. During this period, Scharf was a consultant for the Judicial Crisis Network, according to profiles when Scharf first announced his candidacy. (Scharf’s LinkedIn profile indicates he was a self-employed “consultant” and “portfolio manager” for an undisclosed “private foundation” at the time.)

Scharf joined CRC Advisors in January 2020, around the same time that Leo announced he was stepping down as executive vice president of the Federalist Society to join the firm.

In September 2020, Scharf joined the Justice Department, where he served as nominations counsel at the Office of Legal Policy, according to his LinkedIn. The same month, Trump nominated Barrett to fill the seat of the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg.

Since Scharf left the Justice Department for private practice, he continued working alongside Leo as part of the membership committee for Teneo, a private network for conservatives that Leo chairs.

Leo and others at CRC Advisors were early backers of Scharf’s campaign. Leo gave $2,650 to Scharf in December 2022, as did the CEO of CRC Advisors, Greg Mueller, and its president, Jonathan Bunch, who is also a trustee of Leo’s primary dark-money vehicle the Marble Freedom Trust.

The firm’s chief financial officer, Neil Corkery — who is listed as the keeper of records for multiple Leo-linked groups, including the Marble Freedom Trust, Rule of Law Trust, the 85 Fund, and the defunct BH Fund — chipped in $1,000 to Scharf’s campaign in February 2023. The same month, Corkery’s wife, Ann, who works for the 85 Fund, also contributed $1,000.

A handful of lower-ranking CRC Advisors employees also contributed to Scharf’s campaign since 2022.

As observers of the race have pointed out, there is almost no daylight between Scharf and Bailey when it comes to campaign issues. But only one of them has Leo’s blessing and the cash that comes with it

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https://www.exposedbycmd.org/2023/06/16/leonard-leo-bankrolls-former-lieutenant-to-challenge-gop-incumbent-in-missouris-2024-race-for-ag

Trump’s “judge whisperer” Leonard Leo, the Christian conservative largely responsible for moving the federal court system to the far right in the past decade, is deploying his powerful network to get a friend and former employee elected as Missouri’s next attorney general.

Will Scharf, a former federal prosecutor who worked briefly as a vice president at Leo’s public relations firm CRC Advisors, is challenging sitting Attorney General Andrew Bailey (R) in the August 2024 GOP primary—and leaping ahead of him in campaign cash. 

Missouri Gov. Mike Parsons (R) appointed Bailey to replace former Attorney General Eric Schmitt (R), who was elected to the U.S. Senate last November. But the new attorney general has seen an exodus of key Schmitt staffers since taking office in January, one of whom told the National Review that, “Bailey is not going to be the conservative fighter that Eric Schmitt was.” Given his more “business-friendly” approach, conservative activists are concerned that he won’t have Schmitt’s “appetite for pushing back against critical race theory in schools” or going after “woke” corporations, the National Review reported.

Widely known for his tremendous influence in reshaping the U.S. Supreme Court and moving the federal judiciary to the right, Leo is now aiming to “counter what he sees as an increasing leftward tilt in society,” according to The New York Times.

InJanuary 2020, Leo told *Axios* that he was stepping down from running the right-wing Federalist Society to lead CRC Advisors with communications executive Greg Mueller, starting with a “minimum $10 million issue advocacy campaign focusing on judges in the 2020 cycle.” Still, Leo remains closely involved with the Federalist Society as co-chair of its board of directors.

Scharf, who served as president of a Federalist Society chapter as a law student at Harvard from 2008–11, also reportedly worked as a consultant for Leo’s Judicial Crisis Network (JCN)—since rebranded The Concord Fund—where he was “actively involved” in getting Brett Kavanaugh confirmed as one of Trump’s picks for the Supreme Court.

Both Leo and Mueller, along with Mueller’s wife Charmaine, have maxed out their individual contributions to their hand-picked candidate’s campaign, according to Citizens for Scharf’s January filing. That month, the candidate told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that he considers Leo “a dear friend and mentor.”

Of the $575,000 raised by Defend Missouri, the political action committee supporting Scharf’s run, $500,000 has come from Leo’s Concord Fund, according to the PAC’s April filing. 

If Scharf defeats Bailey and wins in the general election, he will likely join the Republican Attorneys General Association (RAGA), a cash-for-influence operation that coordinates the official actions of Republican state attorneys general and sells its corporate funders access to them and their staff.

The Concord Fund is on record as the largest donor to RAGA in 2020, 2021, and 2022, the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) has reported, giving $4 million last year alone. In 2019, RAGA presented Leo with a “special award” for helping to “shape the trajectory of RAGA and the conservative legal movement more than anyone else.”

RAGA also pays Leo’s Creative Response Concepts—now known as CRC Advisors—$7,500 per month for “consulting,” according to 2022 IRS filings.

In 2022, RAGA Executive Director Peter Bisbee and West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey spurned Bailey, their RAGA colleague, and contributed $250 and $2,000, respectively, to Scharf instead.

Disclosures reveal that in addition to Leo and Mueller, other executives at CRC Advisors have also supported Scharf’s campaign, with CFO Neil Corkery and his wife Ann each contributing $1,000, President Jonathan Bunch and his wife Amanda each giving $2,650, and Senior Executive Maria Marshall donating $1,000.

For years, the Corkerys have served at the center of Leo’s dark money network. Ann is listed in the filing as an attorney for The 85 Fund, one of Leo’s right-wing funding vehicles, and earns $256,000 per year as a counsel for The Concord Fund. In addition to his role at CRC Advisors, Neil has worked for Leo as treasurer of the JCN, president of the Judicial Education Project (as it was known before being renamed The 85 Fund), treasurer of the Foundation for Accountability and Civic Trust, and president of the now-shuttered Wellspring Committee.

Other Leo operatives who lead organizations at the center of the Right’s culture wars have also contributed to Scharf’s campaign. Will Hild, executive director of the Leo-funded group Consumers’ Research that is on the frontlines in the attacks on so-called “woke capitalism;” and Nicole Neily, president of the nonprofitParents Defending Education that is purportedly fighting for parents’ rights, both contributed smaller amounts—in the hundreds—to Bailey’s challenger.

Donor at the Center of the Supreme Court Ethics Scandal Backs Scharf

Real estate tycoon Harlan Crow and his wife Kathy, close friends of Leo and Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and his wife Ginni, maxed out contributions at $2,650 each to Scharf, according to his April campaign filing.

In April, ProPublicareported that Thomas has been accepting luxury trips and lavish gifts from Crow for over 20 years without disclosing them. The story featured a painting—unearthed by True North Research— hanging in Crow’s private resort that depicts him, Thomas, Leo, and others “discussing the law” and illustrates the extremely tight relationship between these men.

Another close associate of Leo’s, the right-wing philanthropist Roger Hertog, gave  https://www.mec.mo.gov/CampaignFinanceReports/Generator.aspx?Keys=B2G41dEVPKgI8cDcdGFsgJsm99XwPL2GsUCWbUlfMr0QoUFTilTH3rvZPcTKwORHP6frqbjz1kQ%2bQsn%2fLxrZKI7CJPRcva8W" data-wpel-link="external" target="_blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: inherit; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s; color: rgb(0, 156, 244); text-decoration-line: none;">

$50,000, the second largest donation made to Defend Missouri. He and Leo have been working together in similar activist circles since at least 2005....Rounding out the leading contributions to Defend Missouri are right-wing donors IsaacPerlmutter, chairman of Marvel Entertainment, and his wife Laura,who together gave $25,000. Perlmutter has emerged as a major GOP donor since Trump’s first presidential run in 2016.

According to Scharf’s January and April filings, other major GOP donors who have jumped in early to support his campaign committee include:

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https://www.alternet.org/the-right-wing/leonard-leo-2659565456/

3 23 an pro publ

a few months ago, Leonard Leo laid out his next audacious project.

Ever since the longtime Federalist Society leader helped create a conservative supermajority on the Supreme Court, and then received more than a billion dollars from a wealthy Chicago business owner to disburse to conservative causes, Leo’s next moves had been the subject of speculation.

Now, Leo declared in a slick but private video to potential donors, he planned to “crush liberal dominance” across American life. The country was plagued by “woke-ism” in corporations and education, “one-sided journalism” and “entertainment that’s really corrupting our youth,” said Leo amid snippets of cheery music and shots of sunsets and American flags.

Sitting tucked into a couch, with wire-rimmed glasses and hair gone to gray, Leo conveyed his inspiration and intentions: “I just said to myself, ‘Well, if this can work for law, why can’t it work for lots of other areas of American culture and American life where things are really messed up right now?’”

Leo revealed his latest battle plan in the previously unreported video for theTeneo Network, a little-known group he called “a tremendously important resource for the future of our country.”

Teneo is building what Leo called in the video “networks of conservatives that can roll back” liberal influence in Wall Street and Silicon Valley, among authors and academics, with pro athletes and Hollywood producers. A Federalist Society for everything.

Despite its linchpin role in Leo’s plans, Teneo (which is not the similarly named consulting firm associated with former officials in the Bill Clinton administration) has kept a low public profile. Its one-page website includes bland slogans — “Timeless ideas. Fresh approach” — and scant details. Its co-founder described Teneo as “private and confidential” in one presentation, and the group doesn’t disclose the vast majority of its members or its funders.

But ProPublica and Documented have obtained more than 50 hours of internal Teneo videos and hundreds of pages of documents that reveal the organization’s ambitious agenda, influential membership and burgeoning clout. We have also interviewed Teneo members and people familiar with the group’s activities. The videos, documents and interviews provide an unfiltered look at the lens through which the group views the power of the left — and how it plans to combat it.

In response to questions for this story, Leo said in a statement: “Teneo’s young membership proves that the conservative movement is poised to be even more talented, driven, and successful in the future. This is a group that knows how to build winning teams.”

The records show Teneo’s members have included a host of prominent names from the conservative vanguard, including such elected officials as U.S. Sens.J.D. Vance of Ohio and Missouri’s Josh Hawley, a co-founder of the group. Other members have included Rep. Elise Stefanik of New York, now the fourth-ranking House Republican, as well as Nebraska’s attorney general and Virginia’s solicitor general. Three senior aides to Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis,a potential 2024 presidential candidate, are members. Another is the federal judge who struck down a Biden administration mask mandate. The heads of the Republican Attorneys General Association, Republican State Leadership Committee and Turning Point USA — all key cogs in the world of national conservative politics— have been listed as Teneo members.

Conservative media figures like Ben Shapiro of the Daily Wire, several pro athletes and dozens of executives and senior figures in the worlds of finance, energy and beyond have also been members.

Leo joined Teneo’s board of directors as chairman in 2021 and has since become a driving force.

Teneo co-founder Evan Baehr, a tech entrepreneur and veteran of conservative activism, said in a 2019 video for new members that Teneo had “many, many, many dozens” of members working in the Trump administration, including in the White House, State Department, Justice Department and Pentagon. “They’re everywhere.”

The goal, Baehr said in another video, was “a world in which Teneans serve in the House and the Senate, as governors — one might be elected president.”

Here’s how “the Left” works in America, according to Baehr.

“Imagine a group of four people sitting at the Harvard Club for lunch in midtown Manhattan,” he said in a 2020 Teneo video: “a billionaire hedge funder,” “a film producer,” “a Harvard professor” and “a New York Times writer.”

“The billionaire says: ‘Wouldn’t it be cool if middle school kids had free access to sex-change therapy paid for by the federal government?’” Baehr continued. “Well, the filmmaker says, ‘I’d love to do a documentary on that; it will be a major motion film.’ The Harvard professor says, ‘We can do studies on that to say that’s absolutely biologically sound and safe.’ And the New York Times person says, ‘I’ll profile people who feel trapped in the wrong gender.’ ”

After a single lunch, Baehr concluded, elite liberals can “put different kinds of capital together” and “go out into the world” and “basically wreck shop."

In a recorded video “town hall” held for incoming members, Baehr, a graduate of three Ivy League universities and a serial entrepreneur fluent in tech startup lingo, recalled the moment when he had the epiphany to create a conservative counter-effort.

It happened a decade earlier when he was eating lunch at a “fairly uninviting” Baja Fresh in Dupont Circle in Washington, D.C., with his then-boss Peter Thiel, the iconoclastic venture capitalist.

Baehr explained in the video that he had become frustrated as he kicked around right-of-center politics and activism for a few years, working on Capitol Hill, in the George W. Bush White House and for right-of-center groups including the American Enterprise Institute and the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty.

Baehr and Thiel lamented what they saw as the fragmented state of conservative networks, with their hidebound think tanks and intellectual centers that hold sway over right-of-center politics. A rare bright spot on their side, Baehr and Thiel agreed, was the Federalist Society. Thiel had, in fact, served as president of the Stanford Federalist Society. What if there were a group similar to the Federalist Society for venture capitalists or corporate CEOs or members of the media? (Thiel did not respond to a request for comment.)

In 2008, Baehr, Hawley and others launched Teneo — Latin for “I grasp" or “I endure.” Hawley, then an associate lawyer in private practice, authored Teneo’s founding principles, according to the new member talk hosted by Baehr, and served on the group’s board. Its core beliefs align with the broader conservative establishment’s: limited government, individual liberty, free enterprise, strong national defense and civil society and belief in a “transcendent order” that is “founded in tradition, philosophy, or theology.”

For a long time, the group didn’t live up to expectations. In its first year, Teneo raised a paltry $77,000, according to its tax filing. From 2009 to 2017, the group, based first in Washington, D.C., and later in Austin, Texas, never raised more than $750,000 in a single year, tax records show. One member described in an interview Teneo’s early days as little more than a run-of-the-mill dinner club with partisan overtones: “Instead of being an organization about ideas, it was all about being a Republican.”

Enter Leo. In the early years of the Trump administration, he and the Federalist Society had remarkable influence within the new government. The Federalist Society had brought the legal doctrines of originalism and textualism — close readings of laws and the Constitution to adhere to the intent and words of the authors — into the mainstream. Leo had taken a leave of absence from the group to advise President Trump on judicial appointments, helping shepherd the appointments of Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court and helping to fill more than 200 other positions in federal district and appellate courts. By the time Trump left office, he had put on the bench28% of all federal judges in America.

In the town hall video, Baehr explained how he modeled Teneo on the Federalist Society. Leo’s “secret sauce,” he said, was to identify an “inner core” group of people within the Federalist Society’s 60,000 members.Leo was “identifying them and recruiting them for either specific roles to serve as judges or to spin up and launch critical projects often which you would have no idea about.”

Soon after Leo took an interest in Teneo, the group’s finances soared. Annual revenue reached $2.3 million in 2020 and nearly $5 million in 2021, according to tax records. In 2021, the bulk of Teneo’s income — more than $3 million — came from one source:DonorsTrust, a clearinghouse for conservative, libertarian and other charitable gifts that masks the original source of the money. In 2020, the Leo-run group that received the Chicago business owner’s $1.6 billion donation gave $41 million to DonorsTrust, which had $1.5 billion in assets as of 2021.

Teneo’s other funders have included marquee conservative donors: hedge fund investorPaul Singer, Home Depot co-founder Bernie Marcus, the Charles Koch Foundation, the Bradley Foundation, and the DeVos family, according to Baehr.

As the group’s finances improved, its videos became much more professionally produced, and its website underwent a dramatic upgrade from previous iterations. All of this was part of what Baehr called “Teneo 2.0,” a major leap forward for the group, driven in part by Leo’s guidance and involvement.

Baehr declined an interview request. He said in a statement: “Since Teneo began, I've been building hundreds of friendships among diverse leaders who have a deep love for this country and are working on innovative solutions to drive human flourishing for all. Teneo has made me a better husband, father, and leader.”

Teneo aims to help members find jobs, write books,meet spouses, secure start-up financing or nonprofit donors and learn about public service. As described in a “Community Vision” report from 2019, Teneo seeks to distinguish itself by acting as “the Silicon Valley of Conservatism — a powerful network of communities where the most influential young leaders, the biggest ideas, and the most leveraged resources come together to launch key projects that advance our shared belief that the conservative worldview drives human flourishing.”

Many of the connections happen at Teneo’s annual retreat, which brings together hundreds of members and their spouses, plus allies including politicians like Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and DeSantis as well as business leaders and prominent academics. Speakers at past Teneo retreats have included luminaries spanning politics, culture, business and the law: New York Times columnistDavid Brooks, federal judge Trevor McFadden, Blackwater founder Erik Prince, “Woke, Inc.” author and 2024 presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, former Trump cabinet official and 2024 presidential hopeful Nikki Haley, ultrawealthy donors and activists Dick and Betsy DeVos, and Chick-fil-A board chair Dan Cathy.

But the group’s internal documents and videos also show the widening sprawl of its other activities. Teneo currently has 20 regional chapters nationwide, plus industry working groups focused, most recently, on media, corporate America, finance and law. In April, the group is hosting a “finance summit” in South Beach that its invitation says will “convene rising conservative talent from major financial institutions, funds, and family offices to connect and discuss key industry issues fundamental to the future of our country.”

Teneo members represent different facets of the conservative movement writ large. Some Teneo members were “very strong Trump defenders,” Baehr said in the 2019 town hall video, while others have opposed Trump vehemently. Baehr said there were clear divisions within the group’s members about immigration and trade policy. “Hopefully other ones, maybe Green New Deal, I hope that’s more like 99 to 1” in opposition, he said.

It’s in the town hall video that Baehr assured new members that Teneo “is private and confidential.” He said the group will never reveal the names of its members without their permission, though they are free to disclose their membership if they want to. Members must be in their 40s or younger to join.

Baehr said Teneo’s website is crafted so as not to pique the interest of Senate staffers who might look up the group if one of its members mentions Teneo during a confirmation process for a judgeship or a cabinet position. “We think a lot about that to protect your current and future leadership opportunities,” Baehr explained.

This strategy appears to have worked. A spokesperson for Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., a critic of Leo’s who has spoken extensively about dark money and the courts, said the senator’s staff was “not familiar with Teneo.” During the confirmation process of Ryan Holte, a Trump appointee to the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, Holte was asked several written questions by Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Cal., about his membership in Teneo, but Feinstein spelled the group’s name wrong each time. (Asked what the mission of the group was, Holte responded that Teneo was a “nonpartisan, and nonprofit, organization that gathers members from a variety of professional backgrounds for dinners and social activities to discuss current events.”)

A recent Teneo fundraising email laid out how the group can bring its members' influence together in service of a cause.

To “confront” what he dubbed “woke capitalism,”Jonathan Bunch, a longtime Leo deputy and now Teneo board member, wrote that the group had brought together a coalition of Teneans “working with (or serving as) state attorneys general, state financial officers, state legislators, journalists, media executives and best-in-class public affairs professionals” to launch investigations, hold hearings, pull state investment funds and publish op-eds and news stories in response to so-called environmental, social and governance, or ESG, policies at the corporate level.

“Our members were in the rooms where it happened,” Bunch wrote.

Another project underway, Baehr explained in a 2020 presentation, was a “surreptitious and exciting” effort to map key institutions in major cities — private schools, country clubs, newspapers, Rotary and so on — and find ways to get Teneo members inside those institutions and help members connect with each other. The initiative has begun by mapping Atlanta and several cities in Texas.

For those Teneo members who run for elected office, the network offers easy access to a large pool of donors and allies. A Leo acolyte and member of Teneo’s Midwest membership committee, Will Scharf, is now running for Missouri attorney general. Campaign finance records show that dozens of Teneo members made substantial early contributions to Scharf’s campaign, including Leo, Baehr and other members of Teneo’s leadership, who last year each gave the maximum allowable donation of $2,650.

In an email, Scharf said many of his “dearest friends are members of Teneo, and it has been a privilege to be involved with such an extraordinarily talented and committed group of young conservatives.”

Leo’s own statements about Teneo suggest that his plan for the group extends well beyond achieving near-term political victories.

“When you’re fighting a battle for the heart and soul of our culture, you want to know you’re in the trenches with someone you can trust, someone you know, and someone who will have your back,” Teneo’s “Community Vision” report quotes Leo as saying. “We don’t win unless we build friendship and fellowship with other people — and that’s what you’re doing here with Teneo.”

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