Leonard Leo
Born1965 (age 58–59)
Northport, New York, U.S.
EducationCornell University (BA, JD)
Title
Political partyRepublican
MovementAmerican Conservatism
Board member of
SpouseSally
Children7

Leonard Anthony Leo (born November 1965) is an American lawyer and conservative legal activist. He was the longtime vice president of the Federalist Society and is currently, along with Steven Calabresi, the co-chairman of the organization's board of directors. Leo has been instrumental in building a network of influential conservative legal groups funded mostly by anonymous donors, including The 85 Fund and Concord Fund, which serve as funding hubs for affiliated political nonprofits.[1] He assisted Clarence Thomas in his Supreme Court confirmation hearings and led campaigns to support the nominations of John Roberts, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett.

Early life and education

Leonard Anthony Leo[2] was born on Long Island, New York, in November 1965, and raised in suburban New Jersey. His grandfather, an Italian immigrant, was a vice president of Brooks Brothers.[3][4][5] He grew up in a family of practicing Catholics.[3]

His father died when Leo was in preschool. His mother remarried an engineer when he was five years old, and the family moved to Monroe Township, Middlesex County, New Jersey, where he spent most of his childhood.[3][6] He graduated in 1983 from Monroe Township High School.[7]

Leo attended Cornell University,[4] graduating with a bachelor's degree in 1986, and working as an intern in the office of Senator Orrin Hatch.[3] Leo completed a J.D. degree at Cornell Law School in 1989, then clerked for federal judge A. Raymond Randolph of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.[3][4][8]

Career

Judicial nomination work

While studying law at Cornell, Leo founded a student chapter of the Federalist Society in 1989, and subsequently went to work for the Society in 1991 in Washington, D.C.[3] He met Clarence Thomas while clerking in the Appeals Court, and the two became close friends. Leo delayed his start at the Federalist Society to assist Thomas in his Supreme Court confirmation hearings.[4] Leo served at the Federalist Society in various capacities for more than 25 years. In 2019, The Washington Post reported that the Federalist Society had paid Leo an annual salary of more than $400,000 for a number of years.[4]

Bush administration

Leo took leaves of absence from the Federalist Society to assist the Bush administration's judicial nomination and confirmation efforts. This included the unsuccessful nomination of Miguel Estrada to the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, as well as the successful confirmations of John Roberts and Samuel Alito to the U.S. Supreme Court.[4][9][10]

Trump administration

In 2017, legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin wrote that Leo was "responsible, to a considerable extent, for one third of the justices on the Supreme Court".[11] The Washington Post would later write that "few people outside government have more influence over judicial appointments now than Leo."[4]

Nomination of Neil Gorsuch

In 2016, Leo worked with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to block President Barack Obama's replacement appointee, Merrick Garland. Leo's nonprofit, the Judicial Crisis Network reported that it spent more than $7 million to prevent Garland's confirmation.[12] After Donald Trump's election, The New York Times described Leo as playing a "critical role" in reshaping the judiciary through Trump's Supreme Court nominees, first contacting then appellate-judge Neil Gorsuch about potentially nominating him to the vacancy created by Scalia's death.[13][14] Leo's CRC Advisors coordinated "a months-long media campaign" in support of Gorsuch's nomination, including "opinion essays, contributing 5,000 quotes to news stories, scheduling pundit appearances on television," and television and radio advertisements.[12][4][15] Between 2014 and 2017, Leo-affiliated entities raised over $250 million from donors including Charles Koch and Rebekah Mercer.[16][4][17]

Nomination of Brett Kavanaugh

In 2018, Politico reported that Leo had personally lobbied for Brett Kavanaugh's nomination for the Supreme Court seat vacated by Anthony Kennedy, raising upward of $15 million in support of his confirmation.[18] The Judicial Crisis Network ran television and radio advertisements supporting Kavanaugh's nomination, and CRC advisors "hype[d] a theory that Christine Blasey Ford’s accusation—that when they were both in high school, Kavanaugh pushed her on a bed and tried to remove her clothing—was actually a case of mistaken identity".[18]

Nomination of Amy Coney Barrett

In a 2018 interview, when asked about a possible vacancy on the Supreme Court during an election year, Leo stated that "If a vacancy occurs in 2020, the vacancy needs to remain open until a president is elected and inaugurated and can pick. That's my position, period." Leo said he would advise Trump not to act on an election year Supreme Court vacancy, adding that he had never asked Trump about the possible scenario.[19]

After the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in September 2020, The Wall Street Journal reported that Leo was involved in the selection process for Ginsburg's replacement. Ultimately, that process resulted in the appointment of Amy Coney Barrett.[20][21]

Conservative network building

President Trump meets with Leo and others in 2017

Media outlets have described Leo as the "behind-the-scenes leader of a network of interlocking nonprofits that has raised and spent hundreds of millions of dollars to support conservative judges and causes".[22] Groups affiliated with Leo include the Judicial Education Project;[23] the Concord Fund (formerly the Judicial Crisis Network);[23] the Marble Freedom Trust;[24] and the Rule of Law Trust, among others.[25] The Marble Freedom Trust received a $1.6 billion donation from Illinois businessman Barre Seid, described as "the largest known donation to a political advocacy group in U.S. history".[24][26]

An October 2022 article by Kenneth P. Vogel in The New York Times detailed how Leo, who had been best known for his role in conservative judicial appointments, developed a larger coalition on the right. In January 2020, Leo announced that he would be leaving his position as vice president at the Federalist Society to start a new group, CRC Advisors, a conservative political consulting firm.[27][28] Leo remained in his role as co-chairman of the Federalist Society's board of directors.[28]

Vogel wrote that Leo had built "one of the best-funded and most sophisticated operations in American politics, giving him extraordinary influence as he pushes a broad array of hot-button conservative causes and seeks to counter what he sees as an increasing leftward tilt in society."[29] In 2023, ProPublica described Leo's activism, namely through the Teneo Network, as focusing on "'woke-ism' in corporations and education, 'one-sided journalism' and 'entertainment that's really corrupting our youth."[30] The Teneo Network consists of various loosely affiliated non-profit and for-profit entities which spent nearly $504 million between mid-2015 and 2021; two for-profit firms Leo at least partly controls, BH Group and CRC Advisors, are compensated by funding hubs in his network, The 85 Fund and the Concord Fund.[29][1]

In 2011 and 2012, Leo arranged for Liberty Consulting, owned by Ginni Thomas, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, to be paid $80,000 by The Polling Company, owned by Kellyanne Conway and billed through the Judicial Education Project.[31] Leo directed Conway not to mention Ginni Thomas in paperwork, telling The Washington Post, "The Polling Company, along with Ginni Thomas's help, has been an invaluable resource for gauging public attitudes," and that "Knowing how disrespectful, malicious and gossipy people can be, I have always tried to protect the privacy of Justice Thomas and Ginni."[22]

In June 2023, ProPublica reported that Leo helped organize and attended a fishing trip with Justice Samuel Alito and businessman Paul Singer, whose firms later were parties to litigation before the Supreme Court.[32]

Politico reported in August 2023 that the Attorney General for the District of Columbia, Brian Schwalb, was investigating Leo and his network of nonprofit groups.[33] [34]

Religious work

Leo was national co-chairman of Catholic outreach for the Republican National Committee, and as the 2004 Bush presidential campaign's Catholic strategist. He was appointed by President George W. Bush and the United States Senate to three terms on the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom.[35]

He is a board member of the National Catholic Prayer Breakfast.[36][37]

In 2012, Leo served on the boards of the Catholic Association and its affiliate Catholic Association Foundation, which ran campaigns opposing the legalization of same-sex marriage.[4] In 2016, Leo received $120,000 for his work for the Catholic Association.[4]

While Leo was the chairman of the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, a Muslim policy analyst filed a complaint against the group with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission alleging that she had been the victim of anti-Muslim discrimination.[38] Leo denied the claims of discrimination against the organization, and no specific claims were made regarding Leo.[39] The EEOC complaint was dismissed.[39]

Other appointments and work

He has been a US delegate to the United Nations Council and the UN Commission on Human Rights, as well as the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe and World Health Assembly. Leo has been an observer at the World Intellectual Property Organization and as a member of the US National Commission to UNESCO.[40][41]

Leo has been published in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Huffington Post.[42][43][44] He received the 2009 Bradley Prize.[45]

Leo has been on the board of directors of various organizations such as Reclaim New York, a charity with ties to conservative activists Rebekah Mercer and Steve Bannon; Liberty Central, a charity founded by Virginia Thomas, wife of Clarence Thomas; the Catholic Association and an affiliated charity, the Catholic Association Foundation; The National Catholic Prayer Breakfast; the Becket Law Fund; Students for Life; the Napa Legal Institute; the Youth Leadership Foundation; and the Board of Visitors at The Busch School of Business at Catholic University.[4][40][46][47][48][41][49][50]

Leo is a member of the Council for National Policy, whose other members include Virginia Thomas, the wife of Clarence Thomas; Brent Bozell, founder of the Media Research Center; and Ralph Reed, chairman of the nonprofit Faith and Freedom Coalition.[51]

In filings with the Federal Election Commission, Leo listed the BH Group as his employer.[4] In 2018, the Judicial Crisis Network reported paying BH Group $1.2 million in fees.[52][4] In its first two years of existence, the BH Group received more than $4 million from the Judicial Crisis Network, its sister entity the Judicial Education Project and a third nonprofit, the Wellspring Committee.[4] Leo is also the president of the Freedom and Opportunity Fund.[4]

In 2016, after the death of US Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, Leo helped finance the renaming of George Mason University's Law School to the Antonin Scalia Law School.[53]

Personal life

Leo is Roman Catholic.[4] He has seven children with his wife, Sally.[4] Their daughter Margaret died in 2007 at the age of 14 from spina bifida.[3] Leo has spoken about the profound impact her life had on him.[3][54][55] Leo is a knight of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, a Catholic lay religious order.[56][57]

Leo has a summer home in Northeast Harbor, Maine, where he has been the target of periodic protests due to his legal advocacy opposing abortion.[58] In the weeks following the reversal of Roe v. Wade, protests were held there on an almost daily basis.[59]

Works

  • Presidential Leadership: Rating the Best and the Worst in the White House (Simon & Schuster, 2004), co-editor, ISBN 978-0743274081. Leo co-edited this volume with James Taranto.

References

  1. 1 2 Vogel, Kenneth P. (October 12, 2022). "Leonard Leo's Network Is Increasingly Powerful. But It Is Not Easy to Define". The New York Times.
  2. ↑ "The Central New Jersey Home News 15 Oct 1989, page 36". Newspapers.com. Retrieved 2023-06-21.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Toobin, Jeffrey (April 17, 2017). "The Conservative Pipeline to the Supreme Court". The New Yorker. Retrieved September 29, 2017.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 O'Harrow, Robert Jr.; Boburg, Shawn (May 21, 2019). "A conservative activist's behind-the-scenes campaign to remake the nation's courts". The Washington Post.
  5. ↑ Bella, Timothy (2023-05-05). "Who is conservative activist Leonard Leo? A friend of Clarence Thomas". Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286. Retrieved 2023-09-22.
  6. ↑ Olear, Greg. "Leonard Leo's Unheavenly Rewards", Prevail, March 7, 2023. Accessed October 2, 2023. "I don’t begrudge a fellow middle-class Jersey guy—Leo hails from Monroe Township, which is not to be confused with Alpine or Short Hills—from striking it rich."
  7. ↑ Levine, Audrey. "MTHS graduates ready for future", CentralJersey.com, June 30, 2006. Accessed October 2, 2023. "Despite the sweltering heat and humidity, hundreds of parents, friends, relatives, teachers and administrators gathered on the football field at Monroe Township High School, craning their necks to see the more than 300 graduates as they paraded down the track at the graduation ceremony for the Class of 2006 on June 22..... Leonard Leo, Class of 1983, now the executive vice president of the Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies, traveled from his home in Washington, D.C., to share some thoughts with the graduates."
  8. ↑ Lipton, Eric; Peters, Jeremy (March 18, 2017). "In Gorsuch, Conservative Activist Sees Test Case for Reshaping the Judiciary". The New York Times. Retrieved September 29, 2017.
  9. ↑ Kirkpatrick, David (July 22, 2005). "A Year of Work to Sell Roberts to Conservatives". The New York Times. Retrieved 21 May 2014.
  10. ↑ Cook, Robin (Fall 2006). "Confirmation of High Court Justices Akin to Political Campaign, Leo Says". UVA Lawyer. Retrieved 21 May 2014.
  11. ↑ "How One Man Brought Justices Roberts, Alito And Gorsuch To The Supreme Court". NPR. April 12, 2017. Retrieved June 10, 2019.
  12. 1 2 "It's true: millions in dark money has been spent to tilt courts right". PolitiFact. Retrieved 2020-10-20.
  13. ↑ Lipton, Eric; Peters, Jeremy (2017-03-18). "In Gorsuch, Conservative Activist Sees Test Case for Reshaping the Judiciary". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2023-06-23.
  14. ↑ Flegenheimer, Matt; Hulse, Carl; Savage, Charlie; Liptak, Adam (March 20, 2017). "Six Highlights From the Gorsuch Confirmation Hearing". The New York Times. Retrieved March 20, 2017.
  15. ↑ "Case Studies". CRC Advisors. Archived from the original on June 10, 2019. Retrieved June 22, 2023.
  16. ↑ Massoglia, Anna; Perez, Andrew (February 27, 2019). "New 'dark money' group led by Trump judicial adviser tied to network promoting his court picks". OpenSecrets.
  17. ↑ Boburg, Shawn; O'Harrow, Robert Jr. (May 21, 2019). "Five takeaways from The Post's report on Leonard Leo". The Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286. Retrieved October 15, 2020.
  18. 1 2 Johnson, Eliana (2018-09-25). "Kavanaugh's friends promoted him. Now they have to rescue him". POLITICO. Retrieved 2023-06-23.
  19. ↑ "Leonard Leo". Firing Line with Margaret Hoover. Retrieved 2020-10-22.
  20. ↑ Restuccia, Andrew; Bender, Michael C. (September 19, 2020). "Trump's Supreme Court Nomination Strategy Steered by White House Counsel, Others". The Wall Street Journal. ISSN 0099-9660. Retrieved October 20, 2020.
  21. ↑ "How Dark Money Bought A Supreme Court Seat". The Lever. 2021-12-20. Retrieved 2023-06-23.
  22. 1 2 Brown, Emma; Boburg, Shawn; O'Connell, Jonathan (May 4, 2023). "Judicial activist directed fees to Clarence Thomas's wife, urged 'no mention of Ginni'". Washington Post. Retrieved 5 May 2023.
  23. 1 2 O’Brien, Rebecca Davis (2023-05-12). "Group Tied to Influential Conservative Activist Spent $183 Million in a Year". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2023-06-23.
  24. 1 2 Elliott, Andrew Perez, Andy Kroll, Justin (2022-08-22). "How a Secretive Billionaire Handed His Fortune to the Architect of the Right-Wing Takeover of the Courts". ProPublica. Retrieved 2023-06-23.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  25. ↑ McGreal, Chris (September 4, 2022). "Leonard Leo: the secretive rightwinger using billions to reshape America". The Guardian. Archived from the original on September 10, 2022. Retrieved 10 September 2022.
  26. ↑ Tsai, Robert L.; Ziegler, Mary (25 June 2023). "Why the Supreme Court Really Killed Roe v. Wade". Politico. Retrieved 25 June 2023.
  27. ↑ "Leonard Leo to Keep Judicial Advocacy Focus in New Venture". Bloomberg Law. Retrieved 2020-01-09.
  28. 1 2 Cassens Weiss, Debra (January 8, 2020). "Federalist Society official Leonard Leo embarks on a new conservative venture". ABA Journal. Retrieved January 9, 2020.
  29. 1 2 Vogel, Kenneth P. (October 12, 2022). "Leonard Leo Pushed the Courts Right. Now He's Aiming at American Society". The New York Times.
  30. ↑ Surgey, Andy Kroll, Andrea Bernstein, Nick (2023-03-09). "Inside the "Private and Confidential" Conservative Group That Promises to "Crush Liberal Dominance"". ProPublica. Retrieved 2023-06-23.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  31. ↑ Brown, Emma; Boburg, Shawn; O'Connell, Jonathan (2023-05-08). "Judicial activist directed fees to Clarence Thomas's wife, urged 'no mention of Ginni'". Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286. Retrieved 2023-06-23.
  32. ↑ Mierjeski, Justin Elliott, Joshua Kaplan, Alex (2023-06-20). "Justice Samuel Alito Took Luxury Fishing Vacation With GOP Billionaire Who Later Had Cases Before the Court". ProPublica. Retrieved 2023-06-23.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  33. ↑ Przybyla, Heidi (August 22, 2023). "D.C. Attorney General is probing Leonard Leo's network". Politico.
  34. ↑ "D.C. attorney general hits back at Jordan, Comer in Leonard Leo probe". politico. 13 November 2023.
  35. ↑ Leo, Leonard; Prodromou, Elizabeth (July 1, 2011). "Protecting Religious Freedom Abroad". Harvard International Review. Archived from the original on 2014-03-04. Retrieved 2023-06-27.
  36. ↑ Leo, Leonard (May 11, 2017). "A Judicial Renaissance? The Trump Administration & the Future of the Federal Judiciary". Acton Institute. Retrieved August 20, 2018.
  37. ↑ "Leonard Leo receives religious liberty's highest honor". Becket Fund for Religious Liberty. May 5, 2017. Retrieved August 20, 2018.
  38. ↑ Boorstein, Michelle (February 17, 2010). "Agency that monitors religious freedom abroad accused of bias". The Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286. Retrieved October 20, 2020.
  39. 1 2 "U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom earns dismissal of EEOC's religious discrimination claims | Experience". www.jonesday.com. December 2010. Retrieved 2020-10-21.
  40. 1 2 "Board". Becket. Retrieved 2020-10-26.
  41. 1 2 "NLI Website". www.napalegalinstitute.org. Retrieved 2020-10-27.
  42. ↑ Leo, Leonard (January 9, 2006). "Thirty Questions for Alito: Finality and Fallibility". The New York Times. Retrieved 21 May 2014.
  43. ↑ Leo, Leonard; Argue, Donald (April 12, 2010). "Nigeria's Descent Into Religious Strife". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 21 May 2014.
  44. ↑ Leo, Leonard (January 19, 2011). "Confronting China's Failure on Religious Freedom". The Huffington Post. Retrieved 21 May 2014.
  45. ↑ "Bradley Prize recipient Leonard Leo begins chairmanship of religious-freedom commission". Bradley Foundation. July 2009. Archived from the original on 21 May 2014. Retrieved 21 May 2014.
  46. ↑ "Our Board". Students for Life. March 1, 2019. Retrieved October 26, 2020.
  47. ↑ "About". National Catholic Prayer Breakfast. Retrieved 2020-10-26.
  48. ↑ "Our Board". Students for Life. March 1, 2019. Retrieved 2020-10-27.
  49. ↑ "Bush names well known Christians to International Religious Freedom Commission". Catholic News Agency. Retrieved October 27, 2020.
  50. ↑ "Leonard Leo". The Catholic University of America. Retrieved October 27, 2020.
  51. ↑ O'Harrow, Robert Jr. (October 14, 2020). "Videos show closed-door sessions of leading conservative activists: 'Be not afraid of the accusations that you're a voter suppressor'". The Washington Post. Retrieved 31 October 2020.
  52. ↑ Biesecker, Michael; Slodysko, Brian. "Barrett ads tied to interest groups funded by unnamed donors". The Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286. Retrieved 2020-10-29.
  53. ↑ Sloan, Karen (March 31, 2016). "George Mason Law School To Become Antonin Scalia School of Law". The National Law Journal. Retrieved 6 June 2016.
  54. ↑ Quinn, Melissa (January 28, 2018). "Inside the mind of Leonard Leo, Trump's Supreme Court right-hand man". The Washington Examiner. Retrieved June 10, 2019.
  55. ↑ Savage, David G. (July 6, 2018). "Leonard Leo of the Federalist Society is the man to see if you aspire to the Supreme Court". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved June 10, 2019.
  56. ↑ Michaelson, Jay (July 9, 2018). "The Secrets of Leonard Leo, the Man Behind Trump's Supreme Court Pick". The Daily Beast. Retrieved October 20, 2020.
  57. ↑ "Bilateral relations". Order of Malta. Retrieved March 9, 2022.
  58. ↑ "Man arrested during abortion-rights protest outside conservative judicial activist's MDI home". August 2022.
  59. ↑ Broom, Dick (September 8, 2022). "What do the Leonard Leo protesters want?". Mount Desert Islander. Archived from the original on September 14, 2022. Retrieved 14 September 2022.
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