Leonard Leo, the influential right-wing activist behind an array of dark-money groups powering the conservative movement, is tired of policy seminars and self-indulgent, big-idea conferences. Now he wants to see some action by the groups he’s helped bankroll to “weaponize our conservative vision” and graft it onto key national institutions — or he’ll withhold the $1 billion he has stored across his money network.
“Vastly insufficient funds are going toward operationalizing and weaponizing those ideas and policies to crush liberal dominance at the choke points of influence and power in our society,” Leo wrote in a grant review letter on behalf of the 85 Fund, a dark-money organization that participated in efforts to overturn the 2020 election. While the letter doesn’t call out any groups by name, the message is clearly intended to put slackers on high alert. According to Axios, Leo is now undertaking a “comprehensive review” of his grant-making process.
Leo, a longtime former vice-president of the Federalist Society, a conservative legal network, began his political ascent as a key figure in reshaping the federal judiciary to fit a right-wing image and advised former President George W. Bush on judicial nominations. When former President Donald Trump occupied the White House, Leo used his influence to lobby for his preferred nominees, acting as a conduit to all three Supreme Court justices Trump put on the court. In 2020, Leo teamed up with Greg Mueller to lead CRC Advisors, which counts the Federalist Society and Chevron Corporation, a multinational energy corporation, among its clients.
But Leo’s vision isn’t just about helping the GOP win elections and appointing conservative judges, though he has done plenty of both. In the letter, he expressed a desire to “identify, recruit, educate, and elevate a new generation of leaders” who can wield influence in “the courtroom, the Hollywood box-office, or the corporate C-Suite of the Fortune 500” and “operationalize the conservative movement’s objectives, shaping decisions and blocking threats at the highest levels of influence.”
Money has been Leo’s chief weapon in this endeavor: The New York Times reported that a $1.6 billion donation by an electronics manufacturer to one of Leo’s groups is perhaps the largest single financial contribution to a political nonprofit in American history. Final decisions over who gets to eat from his trough will be revealed to relevant groups by the end of November, another sign that he’s thinking beyond one election cycle.
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