A conservative activist’s behind-the-scenes campaign to remake the nation’s courts
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.
, 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.
Nine of the groups hired the same conservative media relations firm, Creative Response Concepts, collectively paying it more than $10 million in contracting fees in 2016 and 2017. During that time, the firm coordinated a months-long media campaign in support of Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, Neil M.
In another case, a nonprofit Leo launched in 2016, the Freedom and Opportunity Fund, gave $4 million over two years to a nonprofit called Independent Women’s Voice, about half the group’s revenue, tax filings show. Leaders of Independent Women’s Voice last year spoke at rallies, wrote online commentary and appeared regularly on Fox News to promote another of Trump’s Supreme Court nominees, Brett M. Kavanaugh.
“I have a very simple rule, which is, I’m engaged in the battle of ideas, and I care very deeply about our Constitution and the role of courts in our society,” he said. “And I don’t waste my time on stories that involve money and politics because what I care about is ideas.” of himself. On a bookshelf is a photo of Leo and Kavanaugh in tuxedos. A nameplate on the shelf reads,"The Real Boss."in suburban New Jersey, where his high school yearbook lists his nickname as the “Moneybags kid” and shows a photograph of him holding a handful of cash.
At the Federalist Society, Leo took a leading role in the conservative legal movement, part of a burgeoning effort to counter the influence of the 1960s and liberals on education, law and politics. Leo came to be known in the White House as coordinator of “all outside coalition activity regarding judicial nominations,” according to a 2003 email by a White House aide to Kavanaugh and others.
In 2005 and 2006, Leo served as the leader of the campaigns supporting Supreme Court nominees John G. Roberts Jr. and Samuel A. Alito Jr. He and other members of an advocacy coalition spent about $15 million in donations from undisclosed donors on ads, telemarketing and the mobilization of “grass roots” groups, Leo later told a Federalist Society chapter at the University of Virginia.
Documents show that Leo never assumed a formal position at JCN, which eventually changed its name to the Judicial Crisis Network. But he told The Post he is “very supportive” of the group.The ties between JCN and Leo are opaque.
Leo told The Post that Casey has been “a highly skilled provider of strategic consulting services in the legal policy space for over 30 years.” “I’m very familiar with the media,” Leo wrote to Tom Carter, then a spokesman for the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, a government agency created to promote religious liberty abroad. “I spend probably close to $800,000 annually on a PR team at the Federalist Society, and we generate press that has a publicity value of approximately $146 million each year.”
The two Catholic nonprofits launched a third organization called Catholic Voices. Its stated mission was to train Catholic lay members to advocate for religious and conservative causes, some of whom later wrote letters for publication in major newspapers condemning the Affordable Care Act andThe next year, Leo joined forces with wealthy conservative donor Rebekah Mercer and Stephen K. Bannon, then the chairman of Breitbart News, on the board of a small charity known as Reclaim New York.
As Leo tells it, Trump was open to one of his long-held goals: A federal court system dominated by conservative judges who believe the Constitution must be interpreted literally. The groups — called BH Fund, the Freedom and Opportunity Fund and America Engaged — were formed by an employee at Holtzman Vogel Josefiak Torchinsky, a Warrenton, Va., law firm with deep ties to the conservative movement.
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