It has wide latitude to spend directly on elections as well as on ideological projects such as funding issue-advocacy groups, think tanks, universities, religious institutions and organizing efforts. The Marble Freedom Trust is a so-called dark money group that is not required to publicly disclose its donors. In a statement to the Times, Leo said it was “high time for the conservative movement to be among the ranks of George Soros, Hansjörg Wyss, Arabella Advisors and other left-wing philanthropists, going toe-to-toe in the fight to defend our constitution and its ideals.” Leo and representatives for Seid did not immediately respond to requests for comment. “Leonard Leo is already incredibly powerful, and now he is going to have over a billion dollars at his disposal to continue upending our country’s institutions.” “To my knowledge, it is entirely without precedent for a political operative to be given control of such an astonishing amount of money,” said Brendan Fischer, a campaign finance lawyer at the nonpartisan watchdog group Documented. Now, Leo, 56, is positioned to finance his already sprawling network with one of the largest pools of political capital in American history. Thus, he maximized the amount of money at Leo’s disposal. The structure of the donation allowed Seid to avoid as much as $400 million in taxes. In practical terms, there are few limitations on how Leo’s new group, the Marble Freedom Trust, can spend the enormous donation. The gift immediately vaults him into the ranks of major funders like the Koch brothers and George Soros. Seid, who led the surge protector and data-center equipment maker Tripp Lite for more than half a century, has been almost unknown outside a small circle of political and cultural recipients.
Yet the biggest funders of Leo’s operation have long been a mystery. Leo derives immense political power through his ability to raise huge sums of money and distribute those funds throughout the conservative movement to influence elections, judicial appointments and policy battles. Leo, a conservative Catholic, has both helped select judges to nominate to the Supreme Court and directed multimillion dollar media campaigns to confirm them.
#LEOS FORTUNE MOGA SERIES#
Our reporting sheds additional light on how the two men, one a judicial kingmaker and the other a mysterious but prolific donor to conservative causes, came together to create a political war chest that will likely supercharge efforts to further shift American politics to the right.Īs President Donald Trump’s adviser on judicial nominations, Leo helped build the Supreme Court’s conservative supermajority, which recently eliminated Constitutional protections for abortion rights and has made a series of sweeping pro-business decisions.
The Lever and ProPublica confirmed the information from documents received independently by the news organizations. The donation was first reported by The New York Times on Monday. Through a series of opaque transactions over the past two years, Barre Seid, a 90-year-old manufacturing magnate, gave the massive sum to a nonprofit run by Leonard Leo, who co-chairs the conservative legal group the Federalist Society. history - worth $1.6 billion - and the recipient is one of the prime architects of conservatives’ efforts to reshape the American judicial system, including the Supreme Court. Sign up for The Big Story newsletter to receive stories like this one in your inbox.Īn elderly, ultra-secretive Chicago businessman has given the largest known donation to a political advocacy group in U.S. ProPublica is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative newsroom.
0 kommentar(er)
