WaPo LTTE: Leonard Leo's surge of dark money for conservative judicial nominees (Federalist Society)

[Celerity]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/leonard-leos-surge-of-dark-money-for-conservative-judicial-nominees/2019/05/28/5c563592-7e44-11e9-b1f3-b233fe5811ef_story.html

The masterful, brazen manipulation of the U.S.?tax code in favor of financial support for aspiring conservative nominees seeking judicial appointments was brilliantly described in the May?22 front-page article “The activist behind the push to reshape U.S.?courts.” The Federalist Society purports to be a charity, and as a charity says it doesn’t support specific nominees. Yet its executive vice president is deeply engaged in creating and manipulating tax-exempt organizations to channel millions of dollars from unknown sources to support the installation of conservative judges. Congress and professional oversight groups need to investigate the moral and ethical behavior of Leonard Leo and his cohort.

Charles Leo Sykes, Reston

The article about Leonard Leo described how the nonprofit groups he coordinates collected more than $250 million in contributions between 2014 and 2017, many of them anonymous, to support a process that is sharply politicizing the federal judiciary. In a video accompanying the article online, Mr. Leo said, “I think it’s a good thing” that wealthy donors can have this sort of secret influence. Mr. Leo’s hero Antonin Scalia might have disagreed.

In a concurrence to a Supreme Court decision allowing the public disclosure of the names of people who signed a Washington state referendum petition, Scalia opined: “Harsh criticism, short of unlawful action, is a price our people have traditionally been willing to pay for self-governance. Requiring people to stand up in public for their political acts fosters civic courage, without which democracy is doomed. For my part, I do not look forward to a society which, thanks to the Supreme Court, campaigns anonymously. .?.?. This does not resemble the Home of the Brave.”

James W. Conrad Jr., Alexandria



The activist behind the push to reshape U.S.?courts


Leonard Leo helped conservative nonprofits raise $250 million from mostly undisclosed donors in recent years to promote conservative judges and causes

https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/investigations/leonard-leo-federalists-society-courts/?utm_term=.2f99e876a40e


Leonard Leo stepped onto the stage in a darkened Florida ballroom, looked out at a gathering of some of the nation's most powerful conservative activists and told them they were on the cusp of fulfilling a long-sought dream.

For two decades, Leo has been on a mission to turn back the clock to a time before the U.S. Supreme Court routinely expanded the government’s authority and endorsed new rights such as abortion and same-sex marriage. Now, as President Trump’s unofficial judicial adviser, he told the audience at the closed-door event in February that they had to mobilize in “very unprecedented ways” to help finish the job.

“We’re going to have to understand that judicial confirmations these days are more like political campaigns,” Leo told the members of the Council for National Policy, according to a recording of the speech obtained by The Washington Post. “We’re going to have to be smart as a movement.”

“No one in this room has probably experienced the kind of transformation that I think we are beginning to see,” Leo said. At a time when Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell are rapidly reshaping federal courts by installing conservative judges and Supreme Court justices, few people outside government have more influence over judicial appointments now than Leo.

He is widely known as a confidant to Trump and as executive vice president of the Federalist Society, an influential nonprofit organization for conservative and libertarian lawyers that has close ties to Supreme Court justices. But behind the scenes, Leo is the maestro of a network of interlocking nonprofits working on media campaigns and other initiatives to sway lawmakers by generating public support for conservative judges.

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