A Catholic fundamentalist who controls a network of right-wing groups funded by dark money has put three justices on the court. He’s about to get a fourth.
By Jay Michaelson
When President Donald Trump nominates a justice to the Supreme Court
on Monday night, he will be carrying out the agenda of a small,
secretive network of extremely conservative Catholic activists already
responsible for placing three justices (Alito, Roberts, and Gorsuch) on
the high court.
And yet few people know who they are—until now.
At
the center of the network is Leonard Leo of the Federalist Society, the
association of legal professionals that has been the pipeline for
nearly all of Trump’s judicial nominees. (Leo is on leave from the
Federalist Society to personally assist Trump in picking a replacement
for Justice Anthony Kennedy.) His formal title is executive vice
president, but that role belies Leo’s influence.
Directly or
through surrogates, he has placed dozens of life-tenure judges on the
federal bench; effectively controls the Judicial Crisis Network, which
led the opposition to President Obama’s high court nominee, Judge
Merrick Garland; he heavily influences the Becket Fund law firm that
represented Hobby Lobby in its successful challenge of contraception;
and now supervises admissions and hires at the George Mason Law School,
newly renamed in memory of Justice Antonin Scalia.
“Leonard Leo
was a visionary,” said Tom Carter, who served as Leo’s media relations
director when he was chairman of the U.S. Commission on International
Religious Freedom (USCIRF), in an exclusive interview with The Daily
Beast. “He figured out twenty years ago that conservatives had lost the
culture war. Abortion, gay rights, contraception—conservatives didn’t
have a chance if public opinion prevailed. So they needed to stack the
courts.”
Amazingly, said Carter, Leo has succeeded in this mission with few people taking notice.
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Source: The Daily Beast
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