02 January 22
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In her confirmation hearings, Amy Coney Barrett feigned ignorance of dark money groups. But she should be very familiar with such groups: new documents show that dark money bankrolled her Supreme Court nomination.
The new tax returns shed light on how Barrett’s successful, last-minute confirmation campaign was aided by a flood of dark money. They also reveal the rapid growth of Leo’s already highly successful dark money network and its tentacles in the broader conservative movement.
Corporate interests with access to nearly unlimited money have a huge stake in tilting the court to the right: in recent years, the court has played a pivotal role not only in swaying social policy, but also in shifting economic policy and corporate regulations. In Barrett’s first year, she has already sided with corporate interests on a landmark climate case involving an oil giant that employed her father for decades, and she refused to recuse herself in a donor transparency case involving a foundation tied to a dark money group that backed her confirmation.
“I Am Unaware of Any Outside Groups”
Leo is a longtime executive at the Federalist Society, a group for conservative lawyers. He formed the Rule of Law Trust (RLT) in 2018, and the group quickly raised nearly $80 million. RLT finally started spending that money in 2020, donating $21.5 million to the Judicial Crisis Network (JCN), another group steered by Leo that played a key role in Republicans flipping the Supreme Court and building a conservative supermajority.
JCN spent millions pressing Republican senators to block Barack Obama’s 2016 Supreme Court pick, Merrick Garland, and subsequently spent millions boosting each of Trump’s high court nominees — Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Barrett — all while Leo was advising Trump’s judicial strategy.
In 2017, when Barrett was nominated to serve on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, Senator Dick Durbin, Democrat from Illinois, asked her: “Do you want outside groups or special interests to make undisclosed donations to front organizations like the Judicial Crisis Network in support of your nomination?”
Barrett responded:
I am unaware of any outside groups or special interests having made donations on my behalf. I have not and will not solicit donations from anyone. Indeed, doing so would be a violation of my ethical responsibilities as a judicial nominee.
When Durbin asked whether she would “discourage donors from making such undisclosed donations” or “call for the donors to make their donations public,” Barrett referred him to her previous answer.
The 85 Fund
Leo also helps direct the 85 Fund, a charitable organization being used to fiscally sponsor a host of conservative nonprofits, including the Judicial Education Project, which has long been JCN’s sister arm.
The 85 Fund reported bringing in nearly $66 million in 2020, according to its latest tax return. That’s a huge increase over the roughly $13 million the organization raised in 2019, per OpenSecrets, which found the majority of the 85 Fund’s 2020 money came from DonorsTrust, a group known as a “dark money ATM,” for its use as a pass-through vehicle.
The 85 Fund donated big sums last year to groups that backed Barrett’s confirmation, including: Turning Point USA ($2.7 million), Job Creators Network ($500,000), Independent Women’s Forum ($310,000), the Susan B. Anthony List ($175,000), Concerned Women for America ($100,000), Faith and Freedom Coalition ($100,000), and Heritage Action for America ($50,000).
The 85 Fund disclosed donating to nearly four dozen conservative groups in 2020. It made a substantial donation — $5.6 million — to the Federalist Society, where Leo is a cochairman.
The organization gave $1 million to the New Civil Liberties Alliance, a group that fought in court to end the Joe Biden administration’s federal COVID-19 pandemic eviction ban. It contributed another $1 million to Passages Israel, a group known as “Christian birthright” for bringing American Christian students on trips to Israel.
The 85 Fund also donated $750,000 to RealClearFoundation, a conservative nonprofit tied to the political news aggregator RealClearPolitics. And it contributed $100,000 to the CO2 Coalition, a conservative climate denial group.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., joins fellow anti-abortion activists in front of the U.S. Supreme Court as the justices hear hear arguments in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health, a case about a Mississippi law that bans most abortions after 15 weeks, on Dec. 1, 2021 in Washington, D.C. (photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
In an email to NPR, a spokesperson for the social media company said Twitter "had been clear that, per our strike system for this policy, we will permanently suspend accounts for repeated violations of the policy."
On Saturday, Greene tweeted a screed about the public health measures imposed during the pandemic, criticizing many of the efforts health officials say were critical in preventing more deaths from the virus and slowing its spread in the U.S.
The Georgia Republican's official government Twitter account is still active, the company confirmed.
Greene, in a statement following her Twitter suspension, said Twitter was an "enemy to America and can't handle the truth."
"That's fine, I'll show America we don't need them and it's time to defeat our enemies," she said.
"Social media platforms can't stop the truth from being spread far and wide. Big Tech can't stop the truth. Communist Democrats can't stop the truth," she added.
Twitter accounts with five or more "strikes" face a permanent suspension from the platform, according to Twitter policies.
Greene was temporarily suspended from Twitter in January 2021 for violating the company's "civic integrity" policy, which the company had used to remove thousands of QAnon-related accounts. Greene has endorsed the QAnon conspiracy theory in the past.
In May she faced criticism from her own party and beyond after comparing COVID-19 safety measures to the treatment of Jews during the Holocaust.
The House of Representatives removed Greene from her committee assignments in February. She'd been condemned for promoting racist, antisemitic and false conspiracy theories and for encouraging violence against Democratic officials before she took office.
Twitter permanently suspended former President Donald Trump from the platform following the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.
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