Consovoy McCarthy Park

Wiley Rein & Fielding

pow mofo pending on voter suppression, achieved muslim ban, big lie lawsuit

16 tags 9 26 xian MILLER

merri

see clarence clerks AMICUS KAVANAUGH SENTELLE

see indep legis BS RAGA

GOP STEAL ELECTION BIG LIE PAXTON VOTER SUPPRESS

see affirmative action

see LEO honest election pjt(/HVJ holtzman)

claremonster

COC

clarence clerks: green, consovoy

JOK

HOLTZMAN KIRKLAND

===

-=-=

RawStory NO LNX $

RawStory

Secret donors paid millions to Clarence Thomas-linked law firm with Supreme Court cases

Alexandria Jacobson, Investigative Reporter

September 21, 2026

Secret donors paid millions to Clarence Thomas-linked law firm with Supreme Court cases

Clarence Thomas attends the swearing-in ceremony of Pam Bondi as attorney general at the White House. Photograph: Kent Nishimura/Reuters

A conservative law firm with deep ties to Justice Clarence Thomas, President Donald Trump and a history of arguing more than a dozen cases on hot-button right-wing causes before the Supreme Court took in more than $33.5 million from nonprofit dark money networks, according to new watchdog research.

Consovoy McCarthy, a boutique conservative law firm started in 2014, brought in more than $29 million since 2015 from nonprofits associated with Leonard Leo, a co-chair of the Federalist Society, a Project 2025 contributor and architect of the conservative supermajority on the Supreme Court, alone, according to tax filings analyzed by True North Research, a progressive investigative research firm.

Leo has a well-documented history of using his networks to funnel money to ultraconservative causes, from working to limit access to abortion medication to supporting anti-trans laws.

ALSO READ: Bombshell memo on horrific race massacre exposes complicit FBI: 'They lied like crazy'

Nonprofits do not need to disclose the identities of their donors, and when such groups support political causes without revealing the sources of their funding, it's considered “dark money.”

Consovoy McCarthy has “become a go-to for these far-right networks, especially networks tied to Leonard Leo ... who's seeking to impose his agenda on all Americans by weaponizing the court system,” said Alyssa Bowen, deputy director at True North Research.

“We've seen Consovoy McCarthy undertake a ton of cases furthering Leo's agenda as they're enriching themselves with Leo cash and cash from other far-right dark money operatives.”

Have a tip? I want to hear it.

I'm an investigative reporter covering politics and government accountability. If you have information the public should know — inside government, a campaign or anywhere power operates with too little scrutiny — I want to hear from you."

I protect sources and can communicate securely and confidentially.

Alexandria Jacobson

Investigative Reporter, Raw Story

alexandria@rawstory.com

Consovoy McCarthy took in money from nonprofits associated with other conservative activists like Edward Blum, who has brought at least eight cases to the Supreme Court, mostly about race-conscious college admissions and voting rights.

“You've got money funneled through a nonprofit organization, you don't really know if there's a wealthy mega donor or special interest helping bankroll the legal arguments that are appearing before a court,” said Michael Beckel, money in politics reform director at Issue One, a bipartisan nonprofit that advocates for reducing the influence of money in politics.

“You don't know if a wealthy donor or special interest is helping underwrite this type of legal advocacy when so much money flows through a nonprofit network.”

Consovoy McCarthy argued high-profile cases before the Supreme Court, including Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, which effectively ended affirmative action in 2023 and was spearheaded by Blum.

The biggest nonprofit contribution Consovoy McCarthy took in was more than $1.8 million from Students for Fair Admissions in 2018.

In total, the firm took in nearly $8.8 million from the nonprofit founded by Blum, according to tax filings.

“There's a lot of money behind the legal challenges to a lot of these high-profile cases that we see from voting rights law to affirmative action cases, other race-conscious policies,” Beckel said.

“These are very hot-button issues right now, and where there's heat, there's fire, and when you've got the ability to bring big guns into the courtroom, there's some donors who are more than willing to have their money help pay for that type of legal representation all across the ideological spectrum.”

The firm also represented Trump in his effort to conceal his tax returns.

Six of Consovoy McCarthy’s 11 partners clerked for Thomas. Another clerked for Chief Justice John Roberts.

“When you've got many of your partners previously clerking for a specific Supreme Court justice, that can give you an edge in the courtroom. That can give you an edge in recruiting and landing new clients. It can give you an edge in landing major cases before the Supreme Court,” Beckel said.

“These are individuals who might have a particular insight into how Clarence Thomas approaches the decisions that he makes on the bench. If you've got lawyers with special insights into how a Supreme Court justice thinks, that can be very lucrative.”

Thomas McCarthy, co-founder of Consovoy McCarthy, Blum and Leo could not be immediately reached for comment for this story.

'Sad state of politics'

The 85 Fund, managed by Leo, is formerly known as the Judicial Education Project and is the oldest in his dark money network. It gave Consovoy McCarthy $5.65 million between 2016 and 2023.

America First Legal Foundation, co-founded by Stephen Miller, White House deputy chief of staff and a recipient of funding from the Leo-connected donor-advised fund, DonorsTrust, paid Consovoy McCarthy nearly $235,000 in 2022.

Do No Harm, a medical and policy advocacy nonprofit associated with Blum and funded by Leo's network, paid Consovoy McCarthy more than $1.4 million total in 2022 and 2024. The Southern Poverty Law Center has designated Do No Harm as an anti-LGBTQ+ hate group that promotes conversion therapy.

Consovoy McCarthy was paid more than $544,000 from the Project on Fair Representation, founded by Blum.

“There's a coordinated effort by a few billionaire-backed political operatives that are throwing … their weight behind legal cases that undermine policies that help people and benefit politicians or billionaires,” Bowen said.

Speech First, which says it works to protect free speech rights on college campuses and is associated with the conservative billionaire Koch brothers, paid the firm more than $7.3 million total between 2018 and 2024.

The U.S. Chamber Litigation Center, which works on “defending Trump-era deregulation in court,” paid Consovoy McCarthy nearly $200,000.

Defending Education, formerly Parents Defending Education, which advocates for removing critical race theory and diversity, equity and inclusion from schools, paid Consovoy McCarthy $4 million total since 2021. Blum is a board member.

These nonprofits have been considered dark money networks with lack of transparency about their funders.

“Dark money has an incredible influence in the judicial system, as well as the political arena writ large,” Beckel said.

“There are a lot of decisions that have big impacts on the bottom lines of big donors, big businesses, and this is a pattern that we see playing out over and over again — that there is so much opaque and mysterious spending in the court system, as well as the campaigns and elections that are helping elect the politicians who ultimately confirm or deny judges who are nominated by the president to serve in our legal system.

“Unfortunately, campaigns and elections aren't the only place where mystery money is playing a large role today.”

The nonprofits did not immediately provide comment.

“It's just a sad state of politics today, pushed by the far-right, that allows self enrichment and this — if not corruption, perceived corruption — in doing so,” Bowen said.

Alexandria Jacobson is a Chicago-based investigative reporter at Raw Story, focusing on money in politics, government accountability and electoral politics. Prior to joining Raw Story in 2023, Alex reported extensively on social justice, business and tech issues for several news outlets, including ABC News, the Chicago Sun-Times and the Chicago Tribune. She can be reached at alexandria@rawstory.com. More about Alexandria Jacobson.

-=-=

pjt 2025 mascott

She previously worked for Consovoy McCarthy, a Leo-tied law firm where half the partners are former Thomas clerks and which has assailed an array of legal precedents, including affirmative action policies.

America First Legal, a Trump-Aligned Group, Is Spoiling for a Fight

The group, headed by the former Trump adviser Stephen Miller, has filed more than 100 legal actions against “woke” companies and others. But winning may be beside the point.

Stephen Miller declared the America First Legal Foundation to be “the long-awaited answer to the A.C.L.U.”Credit...Haiyun Jiang for The New York Times

By Robert Draper

Reporting from Washington

March 21, 2024

The legal group has filed complaints with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission asserting that “woke corporations” like Disney, Nike, Mattel, Hershey, United Airlines and the National Football League discriminate against white males. It has filed lawsuits arguing that school districts in Pennsylvania, Virginia, Maryland and Arizona promote “radical” pro-transgender and pro-gay attitudes. It has filed amicus briefs to protect Florida minors from drag shows and former President Donald J. Trump from a federal jury trial.

For those who wonder what Stephen Miller has been up to since he left the Trump White House as senior policy adviser, the answer is litigating loudly.

His conservative nonprofit group, America First Legal Foundation, is no ordinary law firm, beginning with the fact that Mr. Miller, 38, is not a lawyer. But judging by the flurry of filings it has generated over the past three years — more than a hundred lawsuits, E.E.O.C. complaints, amicus briefs and other legal demands — the foundation’s small in-house legal team punches above its weight.

Assessing its success rate is more complicated, partly because many of the group’s cases are still pending, while the E.E.O.C. does not publicize which complaints it investigates. But winning may be beside the point.

America First Legal is primarily notable as a policy harbinger for a second Trump term, and for the considerable trouble it causes. “There are lots of conservative legal organizations out there,” said Thomas Healy, a professor of law at Seton Hall University. “What distinguishes America First Legal from the others is its unabashed connection to MAGA ideology.”

Mr. Miller, who declined to be interviewed for this article, is highly likely to return to a second Trump administration should the former president win in November. His legal group includes several lawyers who worked in Mr. Trump’s Justice Department, and who share his hard-line views on immigration, gender and race.

Mr. Miller has in the meantime maintained close alliances with elected Republicans. Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio, the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, along with 44 other G.O.P. members of Congress, enlisted America First Legal to submit a brief to the Supreme Court ahead of a hearing on Monday arguing that the Biden administration had pressured social media companies to censor conservative free speech.

Mr. Miller’s group performed the same service for Mr. Jordan and 22 other elected Republicans in January, arguing that the Justice Department had misapplied statutes in the harsh sentencing of several Trump supporters who were found guilty of storming the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

At a recent Judiciary Committee hearing on border security, the group’s executive director, Gene Hamilton, contrasted the Trump administration’s record with that of the Biden White House. “They don’t actually want an end to this crisis,” he said of the current administration. When Representative Pramila Jayapal, Democrat of Washington, reminded him of the Trump administration’s policy of separating undocumented immigrant families at the border, Mr. Hamilton dismissed her criticisms as “crocodile tears.”

An Opening Act

ImageMr. Miller stands in the background as Donald J. Trump talks to two other men, one of whom is wearing a law enforcement uniform and one of whom is wearing a suit.

Mr. Miller at the White House in 2018. He lasted all four years of the Trump presidency, a rarity among senior staff members in a chaotic administration.Credit...Doug Mills/The New York Times]

Mr. Miller founded the America First Legal Foundation two months after the Trump presidency ended. He declared it to be “the long-awaited answer to the A.C.L.U.,” referring to the century-old civil liberties advocacy group that first came to prominence in 1925, when it challenged a Tennessee law banning the teaching of evolution in what came to be known as the Scopes trial.

“I guess imitation is the greatest form of flattery,” the A.C.L.U.’s executive director, Anthony D. Romero, said in an interview. “Still, it’s like saying the El Segundo Little League champions are the answer to the Texas Rangers.”

Mr. Miller is not known for a lack of bravado. A former communications director to Senator Jeff Sessions, Republican of Alabama, Mr. Miller joined Mr. Trump’s presidential campaign in early 2016 and soon became the candidate’s warm-up act. “Are you prepared to seize a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity?” he exclaimed to one crowd in Indiana.

As the White House architect of Mr. Trump’s immigration policy, Mr. Miller frequently pushed for restrictions greater than what other administration officials were comfortable with. More often than not he prevailed because of his relentlessness and views that aligned with the president’s. He was the driving force behind Mr. Trump’s travel ban on immigrants from mostly Muslim countries and the use of Title 42 public health restrictions to shut down immigration at the southern border during the pandemic.

He lasted the full four years of the Trump administration, a rarity among senior staff members in a chaotic White House. His loyalty served him well. Mr. Miller made contacts with conservative state attorneys general, including Ken Paxton of Texas, and developed first-name-basis relationships with Republican senators.

He also met his wife, Katie Waldman, at the White House, where she served as Vice President Mike Pence’s press secretary. Mr. Trump attended their wedding, held at his Washington hotel, in February 2020. A year later, the former president bestowed his seal of approval on Mr. Miller’s new project.

“The era of unilateral legal surrender must end,” Mr. Trump said in a statement, “and I hope all America First patriots will get behind America First Legal.”

In reality, Mr. Miller’s group joined a crowded field of conservative legal advocacy organizations that included Citizens United, Students for Fair Admissions and Alliance Defending Freedom, each of which has scored landmark victories at the Supreme Court.

Mr. Miller’s group, with fewer than 10 lawyers on its payroll, is considerably smaller than the others. (Alliance Defending Freedom has roughly 100 full-time lawyers. The A.C.L.U. has about 550 lawyers.)

Image

Mr. Miller and Katie Waldman, both dressed in formal attire, link arms in a room with glass-paned doors and windows. In the background are trees and an Australian flag.

Mr. Miller met his wife, Katie Waldman, at the White House, where she served as Vice President Mike Pence’s press secretary.Credit...Patrick Semansky/Associated Press]

The group’s abilities may be somewhat hamstrung by its budgetary choices. In 2022, the most recent publicly available tax filing, America First Legal paid $1.7 million of its $44 million budget to lawyers, while devoting $29.6 million to promotion and advertising.

To fill in the legal gaps, Mr. Miller has relied heavily on two conservative law firms with considerable experience in high-profile cases: Consovoy McCarthy, based in Arlington, Va., whose nine partners include five who served as clerks to Justice Clarence Thomas; and the Austin-based office of Jonathan Mitchell, who devised the legal mechanism for the Texas legislation that all but banned abortion in the state.

Many of America First Legal’s early actions took place in Texas, where it scored a victory in 2021 when it joined the Texas agriculture commissioner, Sid Miller, in successfully suing the Biden administration for including billions of dollars in debt relief to Black farmers as part of the American Rescue Plan. Mr. Hamilton, of Mr. Miller’s group, exulted that the debt relief program had “effectively been crushed in court by America First Legal on behalf of its clients.”

A year later, the administration devised a workaround with a provision in the Inflation Reduction Act that offered more than $5 billion to aid “distressed borrowers,” or farmers who had “experienced discrimination.” The original language targeting the money to “farmers of color” was removed.

In other cases, Mr. Miller’s group has provided free counsel to people who seek action against better-financed entities. Recent clients include a white male freelance scriptwriter, Brian Beneker, who claims that CBS’s diversity policies have favored less qualified writers of color at his expense, and a white male law professor, Scott Gerber, who contends that he was fired from Ohio Northern University for speaking out against what he says is the school’s quota-hiring policy.

“When you’re going against a government, a corporation or a university with big budgets, having a nonprofit with an experienced legal team on your side can make a huge difference,” said Zach Greenberg, the senior program officer for the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, a free-speech advocacy nonprofit that has also consulted with Mr. Gerber.

‘More Heat Than Light’

Image

Mr. Miller points as the talks. In the background is a large sign that says “CPAC.”

Mr. Miller is highly likely to return to a second Trump administration should the former president win in November.Credit...Haiyun Jiang for The New York Times]

Mr. Romero of the A.C.L.U. said that some of Mr. Miller’s cases, like the lawsuit against Black farmers, had merit. But he added that while the A.C.L.U. had shown a historical willingness to take on First Amendment cases even when the clients were the Ku Klux Klan or the National Rifle Association, “I don’t see that in the cards for Stephen Miller’s group.”

“They seem less interested in defending core principles and more about cherry-picking cases that feed the grievances of the MAGA wing of the Republican Party,” he said.

Last month Mr. Miller’s group sued Arizona’s largest public school district, whose headquarters are in Mesa, for what the amended complaint described as “an astonishing situation that once would have been unthinkable.” It claimed that the district’s policy was to “encourage” students to change their gender identification and to forbid notifying parents if students chose to do so. The complaint then predicted several outcomes of such a policy, including sexual violence and genital mutilation.

The lawyer for the Mesa district, Robert D. Haws, declined to comment, citing the pending status of the litigation. But in his motion to dismiss the case filed this month, he said that the “parade of potential horribles” imagined by America First Legal was “completely off the rails.” Mr. Haws also said the school district was simply following a policy that forbids discrimination, including against transgender students.

Some of the litigation pursued by Mr. Miller’s group has suffered from questionable timing, at least from a legal perspective. In April 2021, America First Legal sued the San Antonio City Council for “canceling” Chick-fil-A (whose chairman, Dan T. Cathy, opposes same-sex marriage) by refusing to issue the chain a contract at the city’s airport. But the complaint was filed six months after Chick-fil-A, which has more than 40 restaurants in the San Antonio area, abandoned its plans for an airport location.

If the Chick-fil-A complaint seemed belated, a more recent filing by America First Legal might appear premature. In October, the group sued New York University on behalf of a first-year law student, a white male, who asserted that if he applied to the school’s law review he would most likely be turned down because of his race and gender. The school’s lawyers have filed a motion to dismiss, arguing that the lawsuit engages in “fanciful speculation” about a selection process that has yet to occur.

Kenji Yoshino, a law professor at N.Y.U., said that, America First Legal’s track record seems to suggest “more heat than light.” The group has yet to argue a case before the Supreme Court, and more than two years have passed since it succeeded in thwarting the Biden administration’s agenda.

Last week, during a federal court hearing in the Trump documents case, Judge Aileen M. Cannon rejected the argument made by Mr. Miller’s group in an amicus brief that the case should be dismissed because the National Archives and Records Administration lacked the authority to make a criminal referral. She called it “a red herring.”

Robert Draper is based in Washington and writes about domestic politics. He is the author of several books and has been a journalist for three decades. More about Robert Draper

A version of this article appears in print on March 22, 2024, Section A, Page 12 of the New York edition with the headline: Miller’s Legal Group Is Picking Many Fights To Fuel MAGA Causes. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

See more on: U.S. Politics, American Civil Liberties Union, Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, Donald Trump

READ 474 COMMENTS

The New York Times

===

7 23 an no lnx

'Not appropriate': Lawyers with Supreme Court business sent Venmo payments to former Clarence Thomas aide

Alex Henderson July 12, 2023

Justice Clarence Thomas, now 75, has never been more influential on the U.S. Supreme Court — or more controversial.

During the 1990s and 2000s, Thomas' views were not typical of the High Court on the whole. The Court leaned conservative in those days, but Ronald Reagan-appointed Justices Anthony Kennedy and Sandra Day O'Connor had issues with Thomas' far-right social conservatism. So did the late Justice John Paul Stevens, appointed by Republican President Gerald R. Ford in 1975.

The Court, however, has since moved so far to the right that Thomas has way more influence than he did 20 or 30 years ago. And he has been inundated with controversy, from his wife, Ginni Thomas' efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election results to a series of bombshell reports in ProPublica detailing the gifts he received from billionaire GOP donor Harlan Crow — and failed to report.

READ MORE: 'Stonewalling': Tensions escalate between Harlan Crow and US Senate over gifts to Clarence Thomas

Now, questions are being raised about Rajan Vasisht, a former Justice Thomas aide.

The Guardian's Stephanie Kirchgaessner, in a report published on July 12, explains, "Several lawyers who have had business before the Supreme Court, including one who successfully argued to end race-conscious admissions at universities, paid money to a top aide to Justice Clarence Thomas, according to the aide's Venmo transactions. The payments appear to have been made in connection to Thomas' 2019 Christmas party."

The reporter adds, "The payments to Rajan Vasisht, who served as Thomas' aide from July 2019 to July 2021, seem to underscore the close ties between Thomas — who is embroiled in ethics scandals following a series of revelations about his relationship with a wealthy billionaire donor — and certain senior Washington lawyers who argue cases and have other business in front of the justice."

The former Thomas aide's Venmo account, according to Kirchgaessner, shows that in late 2019, he "received seven payments" from "lawyers who previously served as Thomas legal clerks."

READ MORE: Busted: Analysis reveals billionaire Clarence Thomas benefactor gave millions to dark money groups

The attorneys who made the Venmo transactions, Kirchgaessner reports, included Kate Todd (who was a White House deputy counsel under former President Donald Trump), Consovoy McCarthy (who made anti-affirmative action arguments to the Court), Elbert Lin (former West Virginia solicitor general and a major critic of environmental policies), and thelate Will Consovoy.

Richard Painter, ex-chief White House ethics lawyer under President George W. Bush, believes it is "not appropriate" for former Thomas clerks to essentially send the High Court payments via Venmo.

Painter told The Guardian, "There is no excuse for it. Thomas could invite them to his Christmas party, and he could attend Christmas parties as long as they are not discussing any cases. His Christmas party should not be paid for by lawyers. A federal government employee collecting money from lawyers for any reason.… I don't see how that works."

READ MORE: Ron DeSantis wants to 'improve' the Supreme Court toward the 'gold standard' of Clarence Thomas

The Guardian's full report is available at this link.

FROM YOUR SITE ARTICLES

Clarence Thomas in 1983: 'God only knows where' I would be if not for affirmative action ›

Mike Lee insists 'attack' on Clarence Thomas is over his 'audacity to be conservative as a Black man' ›

The Clarence Thomas 'cover-up' could lead to his downfall: watchdog ›

CHIEF CRITIC

Justice Thomas has hit back against suggestions the court is politicized, saying in a September speech he believes it’s a misconception. “If [the media thinks] you’re anti-abortion or something personally, they think that that’s the way you always will come out,” Thomas said. “They think you become like a politician. And I think that’s a problem.”

WHAT TO WATCH FOR

Whether Justice Thomas will recuse himself from any upcoming cases that could be a conflict of interest. The court will soon hear a challenge to affirmative action policies backed by a group on whose board Ginni also sits, which has sparked calls for him to recuse, and the New Yorker reports she has ties to the leader of a group that’s brought two other upcoming cases to the court. The Washington Post notes that while justices are supposed to recuse themselves in cases that could pose a conflict, there’s no actual enforcement mechanism requiring them to do so. Legal scholars have advocated for the high court to take up a code of conduct that would impose a process for preventing conflicts of interest, but the court has not yet said whether they intend to do so.

TANGENT

Though the “fake electors” plot was known at the time it happened, the strategy—which resulted in seven false slates of GOP electors in states Biden won—has resurfaced in recent months, after the House January 6 committee released documents in December showing former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows was involved in discussions about the plot. The committee has issued subpoenas to many of the false electors in an attempt to learn more about the origins of the plot and the Trump campaign’s involvement. Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco told CNN the Justice Department is also investigating the scheme, after multiple states’ attorneys general referred the certificates to the DOJ and asked them to look into it.

Constellation of Anti-Voting Groups Threaten Democracy

By Marc Elias

:{:{}:

August 18, 2022

https://www.democracydocket.com/news/a-constellation-of-anti-voting-groups-threaten-democracy/

republican leaders of the anti-voting movement recently held a “gourmet dinner” at an “undisclosed location” to discuss my voting rights litigation. The event was billed as the inaugural leadership dinner for a group called the Honest Elections Project. I was not invited to attend.

There is a constellation of well-funded, right-wing groups that use the legal and political system to make voting more difficult and free and fair elections less likely. They range from mere vote suppressors to full-on election deniers. Most oppose expanding voting rights and support strict voting laws. Many seek to gut the Voting Rights Act entirely; others want it interpreted so narrowly as to be ineffective. None of these organizations supported Congress’ efforts to enact new pro-voter legislation.

These right-wing groups work closely with the RNC and with state legislatures to advance anti-voting legislation.

:{:{}:

The American Constitutional Rights Union, Foundation for Government Accountability, Judicial Watch, Lawyers Democracy Fund, Public Interest Legal Foundation (PILF) and Restoring Integrity and Trust in Elections are just a few of the groups fighting against voting rights in court. America First Legal Foundation, Election Integrity Network, Heritage Foundation and True the Vote also support anti-democracy legal efforts. The conservative American Legislative Exchange Council advances model anti-voting legislation for state legislatures.

We recently got a preview of how these groups will operationalize their legal efforts in court in the future. Earlier this year, a Florida federal judge struck down most of the state’s “Big Lie” voter suppression law. In doing so, the court found that Florida Republicans had intentionally discriminated against Black voters and had violated the constitutional rights of Floridians seeking to participate in the democratic process. On appeal, six national anti-voting groups filed separate “friend of the court” briefs opposing the lower court’s decision — in addition to the briefs by the state defendants and the Republican Party.

For many years, the Republican National Committee (RNC) was legally barred from participating in election monitoring or voter suppression efforts as a consequence of the GOP’s ugly history of targeting minority voters in the 1980s. When that bar was lifted in 2017, the RNC picked up where it had left off and ran so-called “election integrity” programs with state parties.

These anti-voting legal groups offer a path for Republicans to wield majority political power without majority support.

Now, in the post-Trump era, the RNC directly partners with voter suppression groups and efforts that two years ago would have been unthinkable. The party’s dismal court results following the 2020 election coupled with MAGA supporters’ distrust of the party establishment has left the GOP operating in the penumbra of the current stars of the election denier and voter suppression movement.

It’s not just what these groups do, but who runs them.

:{:{}:

On PILF’s board of directors, for example, are Cleta Mitchell and John Eastman, both of whom served as lawyers for former President Donald Trump. Mitchell participated in the infamous telephone call during which Trump demanded that the Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (R) find 11,000 votes and declare Trump the winner. Eastman, who has been in the news recently for having a search warrant executed against him, helped craft the January 2021 insurrection plan.

The Honest Elections Project — the host of the secret dinner — was formed in February 2020 and is connected to Federalist Society founder Leonard Leo.

The newest of these groups, Restoring Integrity and Trust in Elections, was co-founded by former U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr (R) and Karl Rove, who served as former senior advisor and deputy chief of staff to President George W. Bush. Casino billionaire Steve Wynn provides the organization’s financial backing as its finance chair.

This group is notably more competent and well-resourced than the legal buffoonery who led Trump’s post-election antics. Though I am no fan of Barr, he is unlikely to hire lawyers who claim Hugo Chávez rigged elections from the grave or threaten to release the mythological Kraken. With Rove on its board as well, Barr is almost certainly not going to hold press conferences in a landscaping parking lot.

Notably, the infrastructure on the right is eclipsing the organizations on the left.

:{:{}:

Historically, most organizations and resources dedicated to protecting the right to vote were connected to the left. Today there are still many important civil rights and voting rights organizations that bring litigation to protect the right to vote. Their work is invaluable. But most of those groups have broader portfolios that extend beyond voting rights and have insufficient resources to meet their growing needs.

What is notable about the right wing’s approach is the scope and interconnected nature of their legal efforts to undermine voting rights and free and fair elections.

Right-wing legal groups work in tandem with Republican legislatures dominated by election deniers. These organizations can help generate the most effective voter suppression policies that Republicans turn into laws. When those laws are challenged in court, the conservative legal groups then help defend them.

This brings me back to the “gourmet dinner” at an “undisclosed location” that I was not invited to attend. The right wing holds these events and funds these groups because they know that they cannot win fair elections. These anti-voting legal groups offer a path for Republicans to wield majority political power without majority support. They know that they lost in 2020. They are embarrassed that Trump was routed in post-election litigation. Some are upset that his coup failed on Jan. 6.

They set up new groups, hold secret dinners and create new voter suppression laws hoping that we will give up. I’m not sure what gave them that impression. After Trump was defeated in 2020, his team fought dozens of times in court — and lost. We didn’t give up then, and we certainly aren’t giving up now.

NEXT UP

Conservatives Have Been Packing the Courts for Years

We deserve a forward-thinking judiciary filled with movement lawyers who want to see progress for our nation.

---

ref

florida Voter Suppression Bill (LWV)

League of Women Voters of Florida v. Lee

Filed: May 5, 2021

:{:{}:

Lawsuit brought by the League of Women Voters of Florida, Black Voters Matters Fund, Florida Alliance for Retired Americans and individual voters against all 67 Florida counties challenging voter suppression law Senate Bill 90. The case claims that S.B. 90’s drop box restrictions, mail-in ballot repeat request requirement, volunteer assistance ban, deceptive registration warning and food and water ban violate the First and 14th Amendments. The Republican National Committee (RNC) and National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) intervened in the case. Four cases challenging S.B. 90 were consolidated for discovery and trial, with this case named as the “parent case.”

A two-week trial began on Monday, Jan. 31. After the trial, the judge struck down multiple provisions of S.B. 90: the drop box restrictions, line-warming ban and warning requirements for third party voter registration organizations. Florida is also placed under preclearance for the next 10 years and must obtain approval from the court before passing any new laws related to drop boxes, line-warming and voter registration organization activities.

The defendants appealed this decision to the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which paused the decision of the district court while the appeal is litigated. This means that the previously-blocked provisions of S.B. 90 are in effect and Florida is no longer under preclearance requirements pending further action by the 11th Circuit. Oral argument is scheduled for Sept. 15, 2022.

---

===

Dated: January 31, 2022 Respectfully submitted:

/s/ Mohammad O. Jazil

Mohammad O. Jazil (FBN: 72556)

mjazil@holtzmanvogel.com

Gary V. Perko (FBN: 855898)

gperko@holtzmanvogel.com

Holtzman Vogel Baran Torchinsky &

Josefiak PLLC

119 S. Monroe St. Suite 500

/s/ George N. Meros, Jr.

Benjamin J. Gibson FBN 58661

bgibson@shutts.com

Daniel E. Nordby FBN 14588

dnordby@shutts.com

George N. Meros Jr. FBN 263321

gmeros@shutts.com

Frank A. Zacherl FBN 868094

---

Tallahassee, FL 32301

(850) 274-1690

(540) 341-8809 (fax)

Phillip M. Gordon (VA Bar: 96521)*

pgordon@holtzmanvogel.com

15405 John Marshall Hwy

Haymarket, VA 20169

(540) 341-8808

(540) 341-8809 (fax)

BRADLEY R. MCVAY (FBN 79034)

General Counsel

Brad.McVay@dos.myflorida.com

ASHLEY E. DAVIS (FBN 48032)

Deputy General Counsel

Ashley.Davis@dos.myflorida.com

Florida Department of State

R.A. Gray Building Suite 100

500 South Bronough Street

Tallahassee, Florida 32399-0250

(850) 245-6536

(850) 245-6127 (fax)

*Admitted pro hac vice

Counsel for Secretary Laurel M. Lee

fzacherl@shutts.com

Amber Stoner Nunnally FBN 109281

anunnally@shutts.com

Tara R. Price FBN 98073

tprice@shutts.com

SHUTTS & BOWEN LLP

215 South Monroe Street, Ste. 804

Tallahassee, Florida 32301

Tel: (850) 241-1717

Tyler Green* Utah Bar No. 10660

tyler@consovoymccarthy.com

Cameron T. Norris* Tenn. Bar No. 33467

cam@consovoymccarthy.com

Steven C. Begakis*

steven@consovoymccarthy.com

Daniel Shapiro

daniel@consovoymccarthy.com

CONSOVOY MCCARTHY PLLC

1600 Wilson Blvd., Ste. 700

Arlington, VA 22209

(703) 243-9423

*Admitted pro hac vice

Counsel for Intervenor-Defendants

Republican National Committee and

National Rep

Last updated: August 17, 2022

NEXT UP

Florida Voter Suppression Bill (NAACP LDF)

Lawsuit challenging Florida voter suppression law S.B. 90.

===

https://news.yahoo.com/attorneys-remade-supreme-court-now-110017179.html

no lnx many

lawyers for Trump: These lawyers remade the Supreme Court. Now they're fighting to limit voting.

Lisa Riordan Seville and Sally Bronston

November 1, 2020·

Way back in February, before the pandemic, the lockdowns and the epic lines at polling places, election officials in the battleground state of Michigan got a letter. It said voter registration in 19 counties was "abnormally" high, indicating that they weren't maintaining their rolls.

"Michigan's failure to provide accurate voter rolls violates federal law [and] jeopardizes the integrity of the upcoming 2020 federal election," the letter warned. If officials didn't clean up rolls "bloated with ineligible voters," they'd be taken to court.

:{:{The group spearheading the letters, called the Honest Elections Project, describes its mission as a nonpartisan effort to fight fraud, protect every American's right to vote and instill faith in the electoral process.}:

"Elections should be above the political fray," Executive Director Jason Snead told NBC News. "We're talking about elections from a point of principles, not politics."}:

Behind Snead's group, however, is a network that includes some of Washington's most powerful conservative figures, with close ties to the Republican Party and the Trump administration. Hundreds of pages of financial records and other documents, some not previously reported, lead back to Leonard Leo, an adviser to President Donald Trump and former executive vice president of the influential conservative legal group known as the Federalist Society.

Although he doesn't hold public office, Leo has spent three decades helping to shift the American judiciary, including the Supreme Court, to the right. Now his network, backed by millions of dollars in untraceable "dark money," is working to reshape the American vote.

Alongside lawyers who also work for the Republican National Committee, Leo and his team during this election cycle have teed up lawsuits about voter rolls, run ads and filed court briefs to support litigation against mail-in voting. Leo is also on the advisory board of Lawyers for Trump, which is recruiting a battalion of lawyers ready to go to court in the wake of the election.

Whatever the outcome of the race, some see Leo's efforts as part of a longer-term strategy by conservatives to hold onto power in the face of demographic shifts that aren't going their way.

"It's a small circle of Republican advisers and donors who are all wrapped up in the same project," said David Daley, the author of "Ratf**ked," a book about gerrymandering, and a senior fellow at FairVote, which advocates for electoral reform. "The project is using redistricting, voting rights and the courts to ensure long-term Republican power."

:{:{Since 1988, Republicans have won the popular vote in a presidential election just once, in 2004. In March, Trump said on Fox & Friends that if the $3.6 billion congressional Democrats had requested to support elections during the pandemic had been approved, "you'd never have a Republican elected in this country again."}:

"The president always says the quiet part out loud," said Sarah Longwell, a veteran Republican political strategist who broke with the party to co-found Republican Voters Against Trump.}:

Longwell pushes back against the idea touted by some liberals that the GOP has been engaged in a long-term effort to disenfranchise voters.

She spent years in Republican circles, she said, and "never heard anybody talk about suppressing the vote." But in this cycle, she said, "the lengths a lot of the Republicans are going to affect voting, those to me do look suppressive. Nakedly suppressive."

'Bloated' voter rolls

In June, the Honest Elections Project made good on its threat over voter rolls, joining a local conservative activist to file suit in Michigan. Trump won the state by just 12,000 votes in 2016, the thinnest margin in the country.

Michigan's Democratic secretary of state, Jocelyn Benson, who is fighting the lawsuit, rejects the characterization of state rolls as "abnormally" high. A spokesperson for her office said the project's methodology, which compares current voter registrations to slightly older population estimates, "misleads the public and misunderstands our nation's laws."

"The goal is 100 percent voter registration, and any suggestion otherwise is antithetical to democracy," the spokesperson said. "Michigan's registration rates are strong because we have had one of the best motor-voter systems in the country."

Snead rejected claims that the suit seeks to suppress the vote, pointing out that Michigan now allows same-day voter registration.

"I would strongly object to the notion that we're trying to stop people from voting when we're talking about cleaning up voter rolls," Snead said. "What we're talking about should be no more controversial than throwing out a spoiled container of yogurt."

Michigan is among at least six swing states that have faced litigation this year over their voter rolls from conservative groups who said keeping voter rolls "clean" protects against election fraud. Voting rights advocates describe them as "purges" that disenfranchise low-income, minority and young voters, who tend both to move more and to vote Democratic.

In a statement, the Trump campaign's deputy national press secretary, Thea McDonald, said: "President Trump has clearly and consistently advocated for stable, understandable rules that will give every American faith in the election's results.

"Democrats have duped the mainstream media into advocating for states to ignore the fact that their voter rolls are inaccurate and outdated," McDonald said, "so that there are tens of thousands unclaimed ballots out there for harvesters to snatch and illegally cast, diluting the will of every eligible voter."

The rolls should be kept up to date, experts said, but officials need to weigh the risk of fraud against that of disenfranchisement.

"There's very, very little evidence of voter fraud based upon voter rolls," said Paul Rosenzweig, a security expert and senior fellow at the R Street Institute, a right-leaning think tank. "There's a lot of evidence that purging voter rolls ends up purging legitimate voters."

Claims of widespread voter fraud have been largely debunked by experts, including Trump's own commission. The organization perhaps best known for asserting them is the Heritage Foundation, whose voter fraud database Snead managed before he moved to the Honest Elections Project. Last year, he was also in Heritage's private election fraud briefing with Republican secretaries of state and active members of the Justice Department, as ProPublica first reported.

While Snead insists that his organization doesn't fight for either party, the lawyers working with him are also leading the Republicans' legal battle over rules for the 2020 contest.

:{:{}:

William S. Consovoy, a former clerk to Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, is the head of a boutique Washington, D.C., law firm whose clients include the Republican National Committee and the Trump campaign. His firm has been paid $2 million this year for legal work on behalf of the Republican National Committee and the campaign, according to election filings, which included litigation against mail-in voting in Wisconsin.He is also one of Trump's private attorneys.}:

Before helping Trump with his fight to keep his financial records secret, Consovoy was on the winning side of the Supreme Court case that gutted a key section of the Voting Rights Act,which had prevented areas with histories of racial discrimination from changing their voting rules without federal approval.

Jason Torchinsky, listed as a plaintiff's counsel on the Michigan lawsuit with Consovoy, is a well-known lawyer for conservative dark money groups, including several linked to Leo. He has also represented the Republican National Committee in the past, and he is general counsel for the National Republican Redistricting Trust, the GOP group gearing up to do battle over redrawing state legislative and House district maps in 2021. In September, he represented Pennsylvania's GOP state senators in their unsuccessful Supreme Court petition to block the state's counting of late mail-in ballots.

Further behind the scenes is Leo. A dapper Washington figure who wears distinctive round glasses, he has played a role in placing every one of the six conservative justices on the Supreme Court. In 1991, two years out of law school, he helped prep Thomas for his confirmation hearings.

This year, Leo's network helped to push the confirmation of the court's newest member, Justice Amy Coney Barrett. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died Sept. 18, creating a vacancy. Leo's network immediately pledged to spend millions to advocate for Trump's right to fill the vacancy before the election.

The White House said in a statement that Barrett and Leo didn't speak "after the vacancy arose."

"As President Trump has said, he has no more solemn obligation and no greater honor than to appoint Supreme Court Justices and, as such, it was his decision alone to nominate this well-qualified jurist," White House deputy press secretary Judd Deere said.

Should the election go to the high court, as many think it will, the justices Leo helped to seat will decide it.

Soft power

Leo's influence came from his position at the top of the Federalist Society, which he was instrumental in building. Thirty years ago, the organization was a scrappy island for conservatives in what they viewed as a sea of left-leaning legal institutions. Today, its 70,000 members range from law school students and leading legal scholars to Supreme Court justices and Trump's personal attorneys.

The Federalist Society doesn't litigate or take policy positions. It doesn't have to, because its members have come to occupy positions of power across the legal landscape, said Steven Teles,a political science professor at Johns Hopkins University who wrote a book about the conservative legal movement.

"That's where a lot of the power comes from," he said. "It can coordinate, even in an informal way, across boundaries that government often tends to stovepipe."

Leo moved smoothly across those borders. When a seat on the Supreme Court opened up under a Republican president, he'd take leave from the Federalist Society to organize "the outside coalition efforts," as he did with the confirmations of Justice Samuel Alito and Chief Justice John Roberts.

Until recently, he worked largely "behind the scenes," said Amanda Hollis-Brusky, an associate professor of politics at Pomona College in Claremont, California, and the author of a book about the Federalist Society. "Leo's influence really hasn't been fully felt until the Trump administration."

It began during the 2016 campaign, after the death of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia that February.

Don McGahn, a longtime Federalist Society member who served as the Trump campaign's counsel and would become the White House counsel, realized early that the judiciary could help rally a fractured Republican Party behind a controversial candidate. He pulled together a tight team to talk with Trump about who should fill Scalia's seat.

In March 2016, Leo had a quiet meeting with Trump at McGahn's D.C. law firm, Jones Day. Soon after, the Trump campaign did something unheard of: It released a list of potential Supreme Court nominees, a signal to conservatives that he would do right by them with the judiciary.

"It ended up being the single biggest issue that brought Republicans home to someone they were largely troubled by," Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., told The New York Times.

Leo has always insisted that his mission is intellectual.

"I'm engaged in the battle of ideas, and I care very deeply about our Constitution and the role of courts in our society," Leo told The Washington Post in the paper's investigation into his work. "And I don't waste my time on stories that involve money and politics."

But money and politics have been crucial to his success.

The network

Not long after Trump's victory, Leo stood in the gilded lobby of Trump Tower after a meeting with the president-elect.

Beside him was Kellyanne Conway, Trump's campaign manager and counselor. Leo and Conway knew each other well. Her husband, George, was a longtime Federalist Society member; he has since become one of the right's most ardent "Never Trumpers." And according to ethics filings, in the year before she joined the administration, she did consulting work for at least seven companies and nonprofits with close ties to Leo.

In addition to Leo's role at the Federalist Society, where tax filings show he made about $400,000 a year, he was involved in a constellation of nonprofits and companies supporting conservative causes, fueled by tens of millions of dollars of largely untraceable cash.

For years, Leo's presence in this tangled web "was visible, but it wasn't official," said Anna Massoglia, a researcher at the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics, who first wrote about Leo's connection to the Honest Elections Project. "He's been effectively leaving breadcrumbs all over. It's just a matter of finding them and putting it together."

One of the most prominent of the interconnected groups was the Judicial Crisis Network, a Washington, D.C., nonprofit that has been the public relations machine supporting the nomination of conservative, originalist judges to the country's courts. The group has an office in the same building as the Federalist Society.

:{:{After Scalia died, the Judicial Crisis Network kicked into gear. Its $7 million campaign helped block President Barack Obama's nominee, keeping Scalia's seat open for the next president to fill.}:

In January 2017, the group announced that it would spend $10 million to back Trump's pick, who was soon revealed as Neil Gorsuch. Working with the Judicial Crisis Network were several figures who are now official partners in Leo's consolidated dark money network.}:

There was Greg Mueller, the head of powerful CRC Public Relations, who ran point, according to a news release. He serves with Leo on the board of the anti-abortion rights group Students for Life of America. Leo would later join Mueller at the firm.

There was also Gary Marx, a political strategist and Judicial Crisis Network senior adviser, who worked to build support in key states. Marx now leads the two main tax-exempt groups in Leo's new network, corporation filings show.

In 2018, the network rallied around the nomination of Judge Brett Kavanaugh, which survived the most contentious set of hearings since Thomas faced Anita Hill in 1991. McGahn, the White House counsel at the time, coached Kavanaugh, who disputed accusations that he had assaulted Christine Blasey Ford as a teenager.

Leo's network threw millions at the cause, including buying ads to pressure Democratic senators in red states to vote for confirmation.

CRC reached out to reporters offering quotations from former Kavanaugh clerks. The PR firm was, according to Politico, also behind an ultimately embarrassing effort to exonerate Kavanaugh by claiming that someone else might have assaulted Ford.

After Kavanaugh was confirmed, supporters gathered in the Senate's Mansfield Room for a private reception, Politico reported. Leo, Marx and Jonathan Bunch, Leo's right-hand man at the Federalist Society, were there.

Their quest undoubtedly was driven by a shared vision of the law and limited government. But it was also lucrative.

:{:{}:

All told, at least $330 million flowed through nonprofits linked to Leo from 2015 to 2018, according to an analysis by NBC News that built on a Washington Post tally done last year.}:

Millions flowed back to the men behind it. A company Leo owns in part received nearly $9 million, according to the tax filings of various nonprofits from 2016 through 2018. CRC, Mueller's company, brought in $9.3 million in that period.

During Trump's first term, Leo's network helped him confirm more federal judges than any other administration had done since Jimmy Carter's. In addition to three Supreme Court justices, Trump appointed 220 federal judges, including 1 of every 4 circuit court judges.

No compromises

Leo's network is prepared for whatever follows Election Day.

He began consolidating the existing strands this year. In January, he announced that he was leaving the Federalist Society to officially head up a push to spread "big money and expertise across the conservative movement," as Axios put it.

Leo implied that his effort was an answer to dark money groups on the left, which in 2018 outspent the conservative groups for the first time.

He surrounded himself with a familiar list of names, essentially making his role official in a network he'd helped create.

Leo became chairman of the newly branded CRC Advisors, Mueller's public relations firm. Bunch joined him.

:{:{To move the "big money," they revamped two tax-exempt organizations already in their network, with Marx at the helm.}:

One became The 85 Fund, the fiscal sponsor of the Honest Elections Project.}:

"The conservative movement is finally adopting some of the left's tactics, but the left is still spending far more," Marx said in a statement, pointing to the Arabella Advisors network, one of the largest left-leaning dark money networks. Like the Honest Elections Project, Arabella has said it is nonpartisan.

The Judicial Crisis Network became an entity underneath The Concord Fund.It has given more than $2 million to the Republican Attorney Generals Association, financial disclosures show. Some of that money has gone to pay consulting and research fees to CRC.

The Republican Attorney Generals Association backed Barrett's nomination to the Supreme Court. Several Republican attorneys general are also part of Lawyers for Trump, the group marshaling legal power for the election, which also includes Leo and Consovoy, the attorney for the Honest Elections Project suit in Michigan.

Leo didn't respond to an interview request or a detailed list of questions. Neither did Consovoy or Torchinsky, the other attorney on the Michigan suit.The Republican National Committee, for which both Consovoy and Torchinsky have worked, didn't respond to a query.

The Federalist Society, where Leo remains co-chairman of the board, reiterated that it doesn't "take a position on legislation, litigation, candidates for office or judicial nominees." The spokesman who sent that response is a senior vice president at CRC Advisors.

The support for conservative attorneys general could also be a sign of what's to come.

Attorneys general have mounted aggressive political challenges to Washington over the past decade. Republicans in Oklahoma and Texas challenged Obama's environmental regulations and the Affordable Care Act. Their Democratic counterparts banded to block Trump policy changes on immigration and cuts to food stamps.

"If Biden wins, Republican AGs in general are going to be a real thorn in the side of a Democratic administration, much like Democratic AGs have been for the Trump administration," said Paul Nolette, an associate professor of political science at Marquette University who runs a database that tracks litigation by attorneys general.

If they rally together to file multistate litigation, as state attorneys general increasingly do, they will have an advantage — the ability to "forum shop" for like-minded judges, choosing which states and which federal courts in which to file their cases. The Trump administration's appointments have broadened their options.

In a politically polarized landscape in which Congress is often gridlocked, policy fights are likely to land at the judiciary's feet. Some may like it that way.

"For partisans, it's an appealing avenue," Nolette said. "It doesn't force the two sides to come to a compromise."

Like an election, he said, a lawsuit is "largely win or lose."

===

:{:{===}:

:{:{}:

voter felon suppression 2020, pal of ginni and jok?

:{:{}:

Cash matters, but O’Keefe’s personal connectionsare where the depth and seamlessness of this coordination with the Republican Party become truly apparent. They also offer a glimpse into the vast network that has formed to suppress the vote this fall—a network years in the making, of which Project Veritas is but a humble node.

Take litigator William Consovoy, the legal point man on many of the conservative-funded election integrity cases pursued during the Trump era. He is, like O’Keefe, a New Jersey native with a long history in local Republican politics. A former law clerk for Clarence Thomas, Consovoy is also reportedly a friend of Federalist Society Executive Vice President Leonard Leo, whose nephew David Maxham has been a friend of O’Keefe’s since their undergraduate years at Rutgers. (Maxham, naturally, was also invited to O’Keefe’s wedding.)

This year, Leonard Leo has stepped aside from day-to-day management of the Federalist Society to run a new conservative donor group, CRC Advisors, that is pouring money into Consovoy’s legal challenges in key battleground states across the country. CRC has been steering money into something called the “Honest Elections Project,” a fictitious name filed in Virginia for Leo’s old group the Judicial Education Project,now officially called the 85 Fund. As The Guardian reported, 99 percent of the Judicial Education Project’s funding in 2018 was a single $7.8 million donation funneled through Donors Trust.guk?

With generous assistance from the Honest Elections Project and the RNC, Consovoy’s firm Consovoy McCarthy PLLC has recently brought cases against the re-enfranchising of felons in Florida and sued to block California’s plans to deliver absentee ballots to all of the state’s registered voters.Consovoy has contributed to related motions filed in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Nevada, Michigan, and Texas, where Ken Paxton’s victory against mail-in voting in May earned praise from President Trump on Twitter.

William Consovoy: 5 Fast Facts You Need to Know

By Kate Prengel

Updated Apr 5, 2019

William Consovoy is a partner at the law firm Consovoy McCarthy Park PLLC. Since March 2018, the firm has been representing President Trump as Trump faces a federal lawsuit over his undivested business interests. Consovoy has been acting as the president’s personal lawyer. On April 5, Consovoy sent a letter to the Treasury Department, arguing that the House Ways and Means Committee has no “legitimate committee purpose” for requesting the president’s income tax returns. Consovoy requests that forcing the president to hand over his income tax returns would set a “dangerous precedent.” Here’s what you need to know:

1. Consovoy Said Democrats Were Using the Tax Return Issue as a Way to ‘Intimidate’ & ‘Harass’ their Political Enemies

Earlier this week, Democrats in the House formally requested the past six years of the president’s income tax returns. Democrats say that the request had nothing to do with politics. But Consovoy, who said the president would not be handing over his tax information, said the request amounted to an “abuse of power.” He wrote,

“It would be a gross abuse of power for the majority party to use tax returns as a weapon to attack, harass and intimidate their political opponents. Once this Pandora’s box is opened, the ensuing tit-for-tat will do lasting damage to our nation.”

2. Consovoy Represented the Plaintiffs in a Recent Affirmative Action Case Against Harvard

Consovoy represented the nonprofit group Students for Fair Admissions Inc in a lawsuit filed against the president of Harvard University. The lawsuit charged that Harvard had violated the Civil Rights Act by discriminating against Asian Americans in their admissions policy. The plaintiffs were backed by the Department of Justice and also by the Federalist Society. Harvard was backed by the American Civil Liberties Union and other groups. The university claimed that it had a right to take race into consideration as part of its admissions policy, since, it argued, providing a diverse environment benefited all its students.

:{:{}:

3. Consovoy’s Firm Represented ‘Speech First,’ a Group Fighting What They Called ‘Restrictions on Free Speech’ on College Campuses

Consovoy’s law firm represented a group called “Speech First,” a non-profit organization that filed a lawsuit last year against the University of Michigan. Speech First charged that the university’s anti-harassment rules violated free speech and freedom of expression. The group also charged that the University of Michigan’s “Bias Response Team” — a campus group which investigates bias complaints — had oversteppedand was making it difficult for many members of Speech First to express themselves. The group wrote, in a press release last year:

“In light of these policies, Speech First members enrolled at Michigan have abstained from speaking on topics including immigration, identity politics, and abortion because they fear their speech will be anonymously reported as offensive, biased, and/or hateful to university authorities through the bias response system. The complaint alleges that these hopelessly vague policies chill student speech and expression – a clear First Amendment violation.”

4. Consovoy Specializes in Constitutional Law & Once Clerked for Clarence Thomas

Consovoy specializes in constitutional law and federal law. He’s argued several cases before the Supreme Court, including argued Spokeo v. Robbins and Evenwel v. Abbott—before the Supreme Court of the United States.

Consovoy served as a law clerk to Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, and also clerked for Judge Edith H. Jones of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit of Virginia. Consovoy has won a number of accolades for his work; he’s been named a “rising star” by Law 360 and has been ranked one of the leading appellate lawyers in the nation by Chambers and Partners.

5. Consovoy Represented the Plaintiff in a Case that Led to Provisions of the Voting Rights Act Being Struck Down

:{:{}:

In 2013, Consovoy was a member of the legal team that challenged the constitutionality of some provisions of the Voting Rights Act. In the case of Shelby County vs Holder, officials in Shelby County filed a lawsuit asking a federal court to declare Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act unconstitutional. Section 5 requires certain voting districts — the districts with a history of discrimination — to formally submit any changes in voting procedures to the U.S. Department of Justice or to a federal district court before the change went into effect. The idea was to make sure that the proposed change would not harm minority voters.

The case was argued all the way to the Supreme Court, which eventually struck down the provision.

Consovoy teaches occasional classes at the Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason Univerisity, where he is a co-director of the Administrative Law Clinic and the Supreme Court Clinic. He is also a frequent speaker at the Federalist Society.

Mr. Consovoy earned his B.A. from Monmouth University, and his law degree from George Mason University School of Law.

Published Apr 5, 2019

===

off bs

:{:{}:

. Consovoy assists clients on a broad range oflitigation and appellate issues primarily before the Supreme Court of the United States and federal appellate and district courts, as well as before federal agencies. Mr. Consovoy represents clients in cases involving constitutional issues, interpretation and enforcement of federal statutes, administrative law, civil rights disputes, and a variety of other civil litigation issues. Mr. Consovoy recently argued two cases—Spokeo v. Robbins and Evenwel v. Abbott—before the Supreme Court of the United States.

Mr. Consovoy is a former law clerk to Supreme Court JusticeClarence Thomas, Judge Edith H. Jones of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, and the 17th Judicial Circuit of Virginia. Mr. Consovoy is a member of the Edward Coke Appellate Inn of Court and was named by Law360 as a “rising star” in appellate law for 2013. Chambers and Partners has ranked him as one the leading appellate lawyers in the nation. Since 2011, Mr. Consovoy has been the co-director of the Supreme Court Clinic at the Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason University,where he also is the co-director of the Administrative Law Clinic.

Mr. Consovoy earned his B.A. from Monmouth University, and his J.D. magna cum laude from George Mason University School of Law. Mr. Consovoy is a member of the Virginia and District of Columbia bars.

:{:{}:

---

:{:{}:

r. Strawbridge provides clients with advice and representation at the pre-litigation, trial, and appellate stages. He has represented a broad range of individual and institutional clients on matters of constitutional law, financial and securities regulation, environmental laws, complex commercial disputes, and consumer protection statutes. His experience includes arbitrations, trial and appellate litigation, and administrative and regulatory proceedings.

Mr. Strawbridge served as a law clerk to Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, Judge Morris Sheppard Arnold of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, and Justice Howard Dana of the Supreme Judicial Court of Maine. Previously, Mr. Strawbridge was a partner at two large international law firms. He worked as a newspaper reporter for four years before attending law school. Mr. Strawbridge is an adjunct professor for the Supreme Court Clinic at the Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason University.

Mr. Strawbridge earned a Bachelor of Journalism from the University of Missouri, and his J.D. summa cum laude from Creighton University School of Law. Mr. Strawbridge is a member of the Connecticut, Maine, and Massachusetts bars.

:{:{}:

----

Harris is an experienced litigator who focuses on constitutional, appellate, and regulatory matters. In 2015, he was named to the Legal Times list of “D.C.’s Rising Stars,” which identified “some of the most accomplished young attorneys in the D.C. area.” Mr. Harris previously served as Associate Administrator of theOffice of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA). In that role, he was second in charge of the 50-person office within the Executive Office of the President that reviews all significant federal regulatory actions and coordinates regulatory policy across the federal government.

Before his government service, Mr. Harris was a partner at Bancroft PLLC and Kirkland & Ellis LLP, where his practice focused on Supreme Court, appellate, and complex litigation.Mr. Harris has extensive experience litigating before the U.S. Supreme Court.He has been the lead drafter of nearly 100 merits briefs, amicus briefs, and certiorari-stage briefs, and he has contributed to nine wins in cases before the Court.

Mr. Harris has also litigated numerous high-profile cases in the federal courts of appeals, federal and state trial courts, administrative agencies, and arbitral tribunals. He has successfully argued before the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the Sixth, Eleventh, and D.C. Circuits, achieving wins on behalf of airlines, telecommunications providers, and pro bono clients. He has also argued numerous dispositive motions in federal district court and has participated in the trial of a significant voting rights case.

Mr. Harris served as a law clerk to Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr., of the U.S. Supreme Court, and Judges David Sentelle and Laurence Silberman of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. He earned his J.D. magna cum laude from Harvard School and his A.B. magna cum laude from Georgetown University. He is a member of the District of Columbia ba

:{:{}:

encompassing a wide array of subject areas, including constitutional law, administrative law, and commercial litigation. Mr. Weir has represented clients in cases raising novel and complex issues involving the First, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, and Fourteenth Amendments, as well as the Administrative Procedure Act, the Communications Act, the FederalTort Claims Act, the Sherman Act, class actions,and state tort and contract law. Mr. Weir frequently represents parties and amici in the U.S. Courts of Appeals and the Supreme Court of the United States.

Mr. Weir is a former law clerk to Judge Carlos T. Bea of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and Judge Anthony J. Trenga of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia. Mr. Weir is also an adjunct professor for the Supreme Court Clinic at the Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason University.

Mr. Weir earned his A.B. cum laude from Georgetown University and his J.D. summa cum laude from George Mason University School of Law. Mr. Weir is a member of the Virginia and California ba

:{:{}:

Mascott assists clients on a range of litigation and appellate issues before the Supreme Court of the United States, federal appellate and district courts, and agencies. Ms. Mascott also is an Assistant Professor of Law at George Mason’s Antonin Scalia Law Schoolwhere she teaches Administrative Law and serves as the Faculty Director of the Supreme Court and Administrative Law clinics. Ms. Mascott has particular expertise in the areas of administrative and constitutional law and statutory interpretation, and she has written extensively on these topics. Her scholarship has been cited by the Supreme Court and the well-known Legal Theory Blog has called her work “path breaking.” Ms. Mascott is a permanent commentator at the Yale Journal of Regulation Notice and Comment blog.

Ms. Mascott is a former law clerk to Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and Judge Brett M. Kavanaughof the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. She also previously served as an Olin/Searle Fellow in Law affiliated with Georgetown University Law Center and the George Washington University Law School.

Ms. Mascott graduated summa cum laude from the George Washington University Law School, where she served as Senior Projects Editor of the George Washington Law Review. During her time in law school, Ms. Mascott interned for Judge Richard J. Leon of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. Before attending law school, Ms. Mascott held various staff positions in the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate, including that of Press Secretary for former Congressman Eric Cantorof Virginia and former Congresswoman Anne Northup of Kentucky.

Ms. Mascott is a member of the Virginia and Maryland bar

Reuters) - More than two dozen elite private law firms filed amicus briefs Friday backing Hawaii in its U.S. Supreme Court challenge to President Trump’s executive order barring people from several Muslim majority countries from entering the United States. Among the Big Law firms representing Hawaii’s amici are Jones Day, the former home of Trump’s solicitor general, Noel Francisco, and Gibson Dunn & Crutcher, whose star litigator, Theodore Olson, declined an invitation last month to join the president’s defense team in Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation.

Elite firms’ show of force on behalf of opponents of the travel ban contrasts starkly with their absence from Trump’s defense in the Mueller probe. In that case, the president is relying primarily on Jay Sekulow of the American Center for Law and Justice and Washington outsider Andrew Ekonomou.

Nor are big firms representing the Justice Department’s amici in the travel ban case. DOJ backers, including a coalition of state attorneys general and several conservative public interest groups, filed 15 amicus briefs at the Supreme Court, according to the docket in the Hawaii case. The best-known private firm appearing as counsel of record for a travel ban supporter is Consovoy McCarthy Park,an appellate boutique that filed an amicus brief for the Southeastern Legal Foundation. Last week, Consovoy Park also signed on as President Trump’s personal counsel in an emoluments suit in federal court in Greenbelt, Maryland.

The travel ban case, as you surely recall, involves the Trump administration’s third executive order barring entry to the U.S. to residents of eight countries - North Korea and seven nations with majority Muslim populations - deemed to pose a risk to national security. The Justice Department contends the president has both constitutional and statutory authority to impose such restrictions to advance security and foreign policy objectives.

Hawaii argues the government is advancing an “unprecedented” theory of the president’s unilateral power to control immigration, at odds with separation of powers doctrine, religious freedom and the Immigration and Naturalization Act.

Both the 4th and 9th U.S. Circuit Courts of Appeal have upheld injunctions against the travel ban but last December, the Supreme Court ruled the executive order could take effect until the court ultimately rules on its legality.

Why are private firms so seemingly eager to stand up against the Trump administration’s signature policy? It’s certainly true that big firms’ pro bono practices usually skew left, so it’s not surprising to see firms representing civil and religious rights organizations. Firms may also be considering the interests of their paying clients, since a lot of big businesses, especially in the tech industry, are worried about the impact of immigration restrictions. (You can read about that in an amicus brief Mayer Brown filed for 115 businesses and non-profits that oppose the travel ban.)

Hawaii’s lead Supreme Court counsel (and unabashed Trump critic) Neal Katyal of Hogan Lovells has an additional theory: Lawyers, he said, are sticklers for the rule of law. “The reason you have more than 30 major law firms filing amicus briefs is because they stand for the rule of law against a president who has done something outrageous,” Katyal said.

Katyal said not a single law firm he talked to expressed any concern about bucking the president over the travel ban. If anything, he said, Hawaii’s problem was exactly the opposite: He didn’t want to overwhelm the justices with briefs, so he tried to encourage like-minded amici to team up instead of filing individual briefs. Katyal told me the “overwhelming enthusiasm” for Hawaii’s travel ban opposition was a far cry from his scrabble for amicus support in challenges to Guantanamo Bay policies during the George W. Bush years.

Katyal highlighted a couple of briefs by travel ban opponents who haven’t appeared in previous iterations of the case. Former Bush State Department legal adviser John Bellinger of Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer filed an amicus brief for one-time Republican National Committee chair Michael Steele, conservative radio host Charlie Sykes and several other conservative thinkers who believe the travel ban “is inconsistent with longstanding American values and principles of law.”

Debevoise & Plimpton represents another group of first-time amici, 26 retired flag officers – high ranking generals and admirals – of the U.S. Armed Forces, who contend the travel ban “jeopardizes the stability of the support that the United States receives from its allies, erodes essential goodwill, makes it more difficult for the United States to win hearts and minds abroad and otherwise undermines the ability of the United States to pursue strategic partnerships and objectives.”

I emailed the Justice Department to ask about the gap in amicus filings by outside firms in the travel ban case, as well as Katyal’s assertion that law firms were standing up for the rule of law. DOJ sent a statement: “The safety and security of all Americans is top priority for this administration. The constitution gives the president the responsibility and power to protect the United States from all threats foreign and domestic, and this lawful travel order remains critical to accomplishing those goals. We look forward to resolution at the Supreme Court.”

I also reached out to Consovoy Park - the boutique appellate firm representing a DOJ amicus - to test Katyal’s theory but didn’t immediately hear back. Many of the firms whose lawyers have reportedly declined invitations to represent President Trump, such as Winston & Strawn, Williams & Connolly, Kirkland & Ellis and Sullivan & Cromwell, are not representing amici on either side in the travel ban case.

For the record, in addition to Mayer Brown, Arnold & Porter and Debevoise, the private firms that filed briefs backing Hawaii’s opposition to the travel ban were, in alphabetical order:

Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld, for the Fred T. Korematsu Center for Law and Equality and other civil rights groups

Altshuler Berzon for labor organizations

Bernabei & Kabat for civil rights groups

Boies Schiller Flexner for former Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and other former officials

Crowell & Moring for the Tahirih Justice Center

Davis Polk & Wardwell for art museums and galleries

Davis Wright Tremaine for PEN America and others

Foley Hoag for the Massachusetts Technology Leadership Council

Frankfurt Kurnit Klein & Selz for the Anti-Defamation League and other Jewish groups

Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer for the Cato Institute

Gibson Dunn for the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops

Hangley Aronchick Segal Pudlin & Schiller for immigration, family and constitutional law professors

Hillis Clark Martin & Peterson for Episcopal bishops

Harris Wiltshire & Grannis for the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee

Jenner & Block with briefs for U.S. colleges and universities and federal courts scholars

Jones Day for professors of federal courts jurisprudence, constitutional law and immigration law

Kaplan & Company for constitutional law scholars

Keker, Van Nest & Peters for Khizr Khan

Linklaters for the American Jewish Committee

Manatt Phelps & Phillips for several Muslim groups

Mayer Brown for more than a dozen major U.S. companies

McDermott Will & Emery for both the National Asian Pacific American Bar Association and the Association of American Medical Colleges

Morrison & Foerster for an interfaith group of religious and interreligious organizations

Munger Tolles & Olson for the American Council on Education and other higher-ed groups

Orrick Herrington & Sutcliffe for former executive branch officials

Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler for the National Association of Muslim Lawyers

Paul Weiss Rifkind Wharton & Garrison for Ohio State prof Eblal Zakzok

Perkins Coie for international law scholars and NGOs

Proskauer Rose for New York University

Sidley Austin for the National Immigrant Justice Center and The American Immigration Lawyers Association

Simpson Thacher & Bartlett for immigrant rights organizations

Skadden Arps Slate Meagher & Flom for Immigration Equality and other LGBT groups

Wiggin & Dana for former Congressman Mickey Edwards and Harvard professor Einer Elhauge

Willkie Farr & Gallagher for William Webster, John Danforth, Carter Phillips and other former federal officials

Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale & Dorr for immigration law scholars

blum ~ AA:

Big Donors, Elite Lawyers

For much of the year, Mr. Blum works out of a gray-shingle house in South Thomaston, Me., overlooking Penobscot Bay, in a stark landscape famously painted by Andrew Wyeth. He has a consulting business analyzing esoteric municipal bonds for a handful of wealthy families.

But hiring lawyers for his kind of litigation takes a lot of money, and Mr. Blum has found it.

The DonorsTrust, which distributes money from conservative and libertarian contributors to various causes, and nonprofits related to DonorsTrust gave almost $2.9 million to support Mr. Blum’s work from 2010 to 2015, said Lawson R. Bader, the trust’s president, citing the most recent publicly available figures.

Most of that money came from the Searle Freedom Trust, according to tax records and Kimberly O. Dennis, the president and chief executive of the trust, which was founded by Daniel C. Searle of the Searle pharmaceutical company.

The goals of the Searle trust, as stated on its website, are to create “an environment that promotes individual freedom and economic liberties, while encouraging personal responsibilities and a respect for traditional American values.” The Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, another small-government group, gave $100,000 to the DonorsTrust for Mr. Blum’s causes in 2014 and $50,000 in 2012, tax records show. For Mr. Blum’s first suit, the racial gerrymandering case in 1993, he hired a real estate lawyer who agreed to represent him for six months for $7,000, Mr. Blum recalled. But when the case went to the Supreme Court, he knew he needed a Washington lawyer, and found a rising young lawyer willing to take it for nothing at the prestigious Wiley Rein law firm.

Since then, Wiley Rein has been practically his house counsel. Fisher and Shelbywere argued by Bert Rein, an antitrust and commercial litigator who was a State Department appointee in the Nixon administration. Mr. Rein described Mr. Blum as a client like any other, but one who believed in legal activism, and said his cases were not done pro bono but for a fee, which may be negotiable. “We are not a ‘cause’ law firm,” Mr. Rein said. (In some cases Mr. Blum has won, his side has been able to recoup legal fees from the losing side.)

The Harvard case is being argued by William Consovoy,a younger partner who recently split away. He clerked for Justice Clarence Thomas, whom he has called “my hero.”

Some civil rights activists think that in suing Harvard, Mr. Blum is picking the wrong fight. Armand Derfner, a civil rights lawyer and constitutional law scholar in residence at the Charleston School of Law in South Carolina, said that admission to the Ivy League was arbitrary for reasons that had little to do with race.

...

The legal team challenging Harvard’s admissions policy as racially discriminatory will be comprised of four former law clerks to U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, the court’s only African-American member. Adam Mortara and John Hughes, both partners at Bartlit Beck Herman Palenchar & Scott, are joining WilliamConsovoy andPatrick Strawbridge, partners at Consovoy McCarthy Park, in the case Students for Fair Admissions v. President and Fellows of Harvard College.

The lawyers declined to comment. Strawbridge filed a motion on Wednesday with the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts seeking pro hac vice admission for Mortara and Hughes to appear in the trial set to begin Oct. 15. A team from Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr represents Harvard, which has denied it discriminates against any group in the admissions process. The plaintiffs claim Harvard’s policy discriminates against Asian-American students in favor of African-American and other applicants, in violation of civil rights laws. Mortara clerked for Thomas in 2002 and 2003, and Hughes did so from 2005 to 2006. Consovoy and Strawbridge clerked for Thomas in 2008 and 2009. Mortara clerked for Thomas during the term in which the court issued the landmark affirmative action case Grutter v. Bollinger.

The majority ruled that “narrowly tailored” use of race in university admissions was constitutional. In a partial dissent, Thomas expressed his long-standing opposition to affirmative action. “I believe blacks can achieve in every avenue of American life without the meddling of university administrators,” he wrote. “A university may not maintain a high admission standard and grant exemptions to favored races. … Racial discrimination is not a permissible solution to the self-inflicted wounds of this elitist admissions policy.”

Thomas voiced similar views in Fisher v. University of Texas, litigation that was backed by the Project on Fair Representation, the same organization that is behind the challenge to Harvard and, in a separate suit, the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. In the University of Texascase, the justices in 2016 upheld policies that permitted the consideration of race in admission decisions. Thomas has drawn from his own experience at Yale Law School in asserting that affirmative action programs stigmatize black students, though starting in 2011 he began a reconciliation with the school.

===

daily siegheil

Here Are 8 Lawyers in the Thick of Trump’s Election Fight

Fred Lucas / @FredLucasWH / November 18, 2020

Former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi, one of the Trump campaign's lawyers, talks to reporters Nov. 5 alongside Trump campaign adviser Corey Lewandowski, right, outside the Pennsylvania Convention Center in Philadelphia. (Photo: Kena Betancur/AFP/Getty Images)

As postelection litigation rages in multiple battleground states, lawyers representing President Donald Trump include big and small names.

Several lawyers withdrew after reporting pressure from anti-Trump activists that included posting the lawyers’ names and contact information on social media. Twitter removed such information posted on its platform.

Of the lawyers who remain, some are litigating in court while others largely play a media role. Here are eight of them:

Justin R. Clark

Interestingly enough, Justin Clark began a career in politics working for one of the last two candidates—a Democrat—caught up in a contested presidential election, then-Vice President Al Gore.

Clark did accounting work for Gore’s 2000 presidential campaign, NPR reported, on his path to taking the role of deputy campaign manager and senior counsel on the Trump 2020 reelection campaign.

Clark, 45, grew up as a centrist Democrat in Connecticut. Another centrist, Sen. Joe Lieberman, D-Conn., was Gore’s vice presidential pick in 2000.

Clark later evolved into a Republican, and in 2010 and 2014 he managed the unsuccessful Connecticut gubernatorial campaigns of GOP nominee Tom Foley.

He was also political director of pro-wrestling executive Linda McMahon’s failed U.S. Senate race in Connecticut in 2012.

In 2018, Politico put Clark on its “Power List.”

Clark was deputy national political director for Trump’s 2016 campaign, then became director of the Office of Public Liaison in the White House after the New York developer was elected president.

He worked with presidential adviser and Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner on criminal justice reform and with presidential adviser and first daughter Ivanka Trump on apprenticeships and workforce development. Clark transitioned to the reelection campaign in late 2018.

Marc A. Scaringi

Marc Scaringi, a lawyer in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, is leading the Trump campaign’s legal effort in that state. Scaringi, 51, focuses his practice on business and corporate law and has about 20 years of experience.

Scaringi worked on then-Rep. Rick Santorum’s campaign for U.S. Senate in Pennsylvania. After Santorum won in 1994, Scaringi became his legislative correspondent in Washington.

Scaringi returned to Pennsylvania to work for Mike Fisher’s campaign for state attorney general, and served as an executive assistant to Fisher as attorney general from 1997 to 2001.

While still working for the Pennsylvania Attorney General’s Office, he attended Widener University Delaware Law School in 2001.

In 2016, Scaringi was a delegate to the Republican National Convention in Cleveland. He writes a biweekly column for The Patriot-News/PennLive and was a talk radio host in Harrisburg.

According to his law firm’s website, Scaringi’s specialties include contracts, commercial lease agreements, employer/employee relations, employment law, administrative law, federal and state employment and business regulatory matters, and human resources. He also is involved in real estate issues.

Scaringi is a member of the American Bar Association, Section of Business Law. He graduated Georgetown University in 1993 with a bachelor’s degree in history. He received his law degree from Widener University Delaware Law School in 2001.

Jesse R. Binnall

“Donald Trump won … after you account for the fraud and irregularities that occurred,” Jesse Binnall, who is representing the Trump campaign in Nevada, said Tuesday.

Binnall, 41, normally practices law in Alexandria, Virginia,outside Washington, and is experienced in political cases. But he also handles business and commercial litigation, First Amendment and civil rights disputes, white-collar criminal defense, and defamation suits.

He is a partner at Harvey & Binnall PLLC and president of Parliamentary Strategies, which the law firm owns. The company provides clients such as professional associations, political parties, candidates, with procedures for meetings, bylaw drafting, and interpretation.

Binnall is president of the Alumni Association for the Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason University, according to his bio at the Republican National Lawyers Association.

:{:{}:

4. Sidney Powell

Sidney Powell made news recently by calling out potential problems with voting machines made by Dominion Voting Systems and suggesting that enough evidence will emerge to overturn election results in several states.

Powell, 65, became a public figure by representing Trump’s former national security adviser, Michael Flynn.

Powell was a federal prosecutor from 1978 through 1988, serving as an assistant U.S. attorney for the Western and Northern Districts of Texas. In the Western District, she helped win the conviction of organized crime leader Jimmy Chagra for continuing criminal enterprises.

Powell became chief of the appellate sections for both court districts and represented the federal government in about 350 appeals cases. She went on to serve as an assistant U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia.

Powell is now a defense attorney who practices federal appeals cases in the 2nd, 4th, 5th, 9th, 10th, and 11th Circuits, as well as before the Supreme Court, according to her website. She represented Merrill Lynch executives in the Enron Corp. litigation.

Powell was president of the American Academy of Appellate Lawyers in 2001 and 2002.

She received her law degree from University of North Carolina School of Law after attending UNC as an undergraduate.

Powell became an outspoken critic of the Justice Department, writing the book “License to Lie: Exposing Corruption in the Department of Justice,” published in 2014.

5. William S. Consovoy

William Consovoy, who has experience arguing before the Supreme Court, represented Trump in recent New York state court cases.

Consovoy, 46, works primarily on appellate cases. He has been involved in cases on constitutional issues, interpretation and enforcement of federal statutes, administrative law, civil rights disputes, among others.

Two recent cases he argued before the Supreme Court were Spokeo Inc. v. Robins and Evenwel v. Abbott.

Consovoy, a former law clerk to Justice Clarence Thomas, also clerked for Judge Edith H. Jones of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit and for the 17th Judicial Circuit of Virginia.

In 2013, the legal news service Law360 named Consovoy a “rising star” in appellate law.

In 2011, he became co-director of the Supreme Court Clinic at the Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason University, where he also is co-director of the school’s Administrative Law Clinic.

Consovoy received his bachelor’s degree from Monmouth University and hislaw degree from George Mason University School of Law.

Pam Bondi

Pam Bondi is a former two-term Florida attorney general, elected in 2010 and again in 2014.

Bondi, 55, already familiar to viewers of Fox News Channel, became a familiar figure early in 2020 as one of Trump’s lawyers during his Senate impeachment trial.

She made strong arguments for the president on the Senate floor, but is largely a spokesperson for legal arguments, according to The Washington Post.

Bondi gained national prominence while Florida’s attorney general as one of the key Republican state attorneys general who sued to overturn the Affordable Care Act, better known as Obamacare. The Supreme Court upheld the law in 2012.

Also as Florida attorney general, Bondi filed litigation as part of the national opioid crisis. She led a legal fight in the national mortgage settlement case, and sued BP over the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, settling for more than $2 billion in economic relief for Florida.

Bondi is a member of the firm Ballard Partners, where she heads its corporate regulatory compliance practice, according to the Federalist Society. In this position, she helps Fortune 500 companies implement policies to address matters such as human trafficking, opioid abuse, and personal data privacy.

7. Rudy Giuliani

Rudy Giuliani has become a controversial figure as Trump’s personal lawyer and a central player in the impeachment controversy because of his investigations in Ukraine.

That’s a significant change from Giuliani’s status as national hero as New York mayor during the 9/11 terrorist attacks, adding to a reputation as a tough-on-crime executive and prosecutor.

Giuliani, 76, primarily serves the president as a media spokesman rather than a litigator, according to The Washington Post. Before serving as mayor, though, he had a distinguished legal career as a federal prosecutor.

Giuliani, a native of New York, went to work for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Washington in 1973; he was appointed the attorney in charge of police corruption cases resulting from the high-profile Knapp Commission.

He returned to New York in 1977 to go into private practice, but in 1981, President Ronald Reagan appointed him as associate attorney general, the No. 3 position in the Justice Department.

In 1983, Reagan appointed Giuliani as U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York. In this role, he gained national prominence for taking on drug dealers and the Mafia. He scored 4,152 convictions, of which only 25 were reversed on appeal.

8.Jay Sekulow

Jay Sekulow became a prominent public face in defending Trump as his personal lawyer during special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation and during the Senate impeachment trial.

Sekulow, 64, is chief counsel of the American Center for Law and Justice, a conservative legal group. He has argued 12 cases before the U.S. Supreme Court, many of them religious liberty cases.

One case was about allowing public school students to voluntarily belong to Bible clubs at school.

More recently, in the case Pleasant Grove City v. Summum, he won a unanimous ruling from the high court to allow governments to accept permanent monuments, such as Ten Commandments monuments, in public parks.

Sekulow founded the European Centre for Law and Justice based in Strasbourg, France, the seat of the European Court of Human Rights. He opened ECLJ offices in France, Russia, Zimbabwe, Pakistan, and Israel.

Legal Times named Sekulow to a list called “The 90 Greatest Washington Lawyers of the Last 30 Years.” Time magazine put him on its list of the “25 Most Influential Evangelicals.”

The Daily Signal depends on the support of readers like you. Donate now

===

duck 6 22

https://www.nytimes.com › 2020 › 06 › 15 › us › elections › voting-william-consovoy-trump.html

The Rising Trump Lawyer Battling to Reshape the Electorate

Jun 15, 2020A leading legal champion of this effort has been Mr. Consovoy, 45, a Trump lawyer who mixes Jersey guy affability with an affinity for some of the most divisive culture-wars legal disputes. He and...

https://www.dailysignal.com › 2020 › 11 › 18 › here-are-8-lawyers-in-the-thick-of-trumps-election-fight

Here Are 8 Lawyers in the Thick of Trump's Election Fight

Nov 18, 2020William Consovoy, who has experience arguing before the Supreme Court, represented Trump in recent New York state court cases. Consovoy, 46, works primarily on appellate cases. He has been involved...

https://www.newyorker.com › magazine › 2019 › 11 › 18 › trumps-frantic-fight-for-immunity

Trump's Frantic Fight for Immunity | The New Yorker

In those oral arguments, Judge Denny Chin, of the Second Circuit, asked the President's lawyer William Consovoy if he was actually arguing that, owing to Presidential immunity, Trump really could...

===

Consovoy McCarthy Park

Wiley Rein & Fielding

CHIEF CRITIC

WHAT TO WATCH FOR

TANGENT

FURTHER READING

Constellation of Anti-Voting Groups Threaten Democracy

These right-wing groups work closely with the RNC and with state legislatures to advance anti-voting legislation.

It’s not just what these groups do, but who runs them.

Notably, the infrastructure on the right is eclipsing the organizations on the left.

NEXT UP

Conservatives Have Been Packing the Courts for Years

florida Voter Suppression Bill (LWV)

CASE DOCUMENTS (DISTRICT COURT)

TRIAL DOCUMENTS

CASE DOCUMENTS (11TH CIRCUIT)

MORE READING

NEXT UP

Florida Voter Suppression Bill (NAACP LDF)

Big Donors, Elite Lawyers