Career
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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
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]
