Leonard Leo is a small religious fanatic who ties to the Russia Orthodox Church. Money is being funneled into his 42 shell companies from all over the world. Those companies are all under 501 (3) (c) which gives tax exemptions for churches. One of those “religious” companies is owned by none other than Ginni Thomas!! Leo, Kevin Roberts, Russsell Vought, the Koch’s, the Mercers, etc. are the contributors to Project 2025. Don’t think that Alito and Thomas didn’t know about it. They most certainly did as both have been treated to expensive trips, meals and favors by these monsters.
He's just the only one featured in this article. You're right, there are plenty more dodgy folks, foundations, and other entities that need to be reviewed.
Marlene, you make an excellent point. Religion is the reason all these Christian evangelical nutjobs in gov't are Pro-Putin and Pro-Russia because of Putin's deep ties to the Russian Orthodox church and why they loved going to Russia. The religion and money 💰 Which is so ironic, because Russia was basically athiest as the USSR. I knew LL was a fanatic, but did not know his ties to the Russian Orthodox Church but there you go! They probably all have that twisted messianic version of the 2nd coming and Armegeddon. This is the very reason why the framers wanted Separation of Church and state. And now look at us. I don't know why religious institutions don't get taxed. I don't care what religion. Jewish---Christian-Muslim just naming these 3.
Robin, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse has the goods on the Leo. He has been tracking him for over 10 years. People thought he was talking out of his ass but he has been vindicated. Jane Mayer, who wrote the book “Dark Money”, also had been following him and many others. All there in black and white.
Some very good points, except that Leonard Leo is a member of the Roman Catholic Church, as is Kevin Roberts, CEO of The Heritage Foundation and mastermind of Project 2025, and JD Vance, who converted in 2019, and all three are involved with Opus Dei, a radical Catholic group. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/jul/26/kevin-roberts-project-2025-opus-dei
I have spent the last few months researching Leo, who has spent the last 30 years, paying millions of dollars to support right-wing judicial candidates. He provided lists of right-wing judges to Trump. He also was responsible for the conservative supermajority on SCOTUS. He advised Trump on the nominations of Neil Gorsuch (he attends an Episcopal church, but was raised Catholic), Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett. Before that, Leo helped pick or paid to confirm the court’s three other conservative justices: Clarence Thomas, John Roberts and Samuel Alito. One of Leo's goals was to get enough conservative Catholic justices on SCOTUS to overturn Roe v Wade.
Trump's recent attack against Leo is quite amazing. LEO, more than anyone else, except Kevin Roberts, SCOTUS, Elon Musk, Mitch McConnell and billionaires, is responsible for enabling Trump to pursue his desire for an imperial presidency.
In 2021, Leo was given a gift of $1.6 billion from a ultra conservative donor, and now is using his power to do even more. He gave $50 million to some of the 100 conservative organizations, Roberts recruited, who have supported Project 2025. The link from The Catholic Reporter is a very honest look at the damage he has done.
I agree with you, but I find it truly offensive that a highly educated and successful woman, like Usha Vance, now acts like a quasi-Stepford wife. "She is a former trial lawyer, who has worked with leading law firms, and clerked with SCOTUS Justices. She also is the first Asian American and first Hindu American second lady."
Usha could have been a wonderful role model. Instead, she remains silent about all the terrible things that her husband and Trump say and do. Still, I was stunned when Trump said in front of Black journalists that his opponent Kamala Harris always said she was Indian, but now she wants to known as Black. "So I don’t know, is she Indian or is she Black?” And, JD Vance found that to be hysterically funny.
For me, the problem with Usha Vance is that she's an opportunist, like her husband. They both were anti-Trump. In 2016, Vance sent a message to his law school roommate in which he wrote that he went “back and forth between thinking Trump is a cynical asshole…or that he’s America’s Hitler. And, there are many more quotes equally as bad in a July 16, 2024 article by Bess Levin in Vanity Fair.
A former friend recalled that “Usha found the incursion on the Capitol and Trump’s role in it to be deeply disturbing. She generally was appalled by Trump, from the moment of his first election.” But, then JD Vance wanted to be senator, he needed Trump's endorsement, so they turned into Trump supporters, and were ultimately rewarded by Vance's vice presidential nomination. Still, Usha's Harvard friends were surprised when, at the GOP National Convention, Usha was in sync with her husband "who rose to power by punching down on trans folks and immigrants," but that's what opportunists do.
I believe she probably was. Surely, she is not as clueless as her husband. The very fact that they and their three children went to the Vatican when the pope was dying, shows a level of selfishness, I can’t even imagine. The only thing about it that made me smile was that Pope Francis did not attend the official meeting, but had Vance meet with Cardinal Pietro Parolin, whom he told to lecture Vance on compassion. I forgot about the Kennedy Center reception, but just looked it up, and it certainly was fitting, and restrained…given how MAGAs and Vance have publicly behaved.
SB, Donny’s big reveal that Leo was the culprit behind manipulating SCOTUS, was in fact, a confession! Proves just how stupid he really is because he kept denying that he knew nothing about P2025 or Leo. This brings me to the Catholic Opus Dei organization, which you mentioned. Leo, through OP, wants his deceased young daughter to be canonized. He has a painting by an artist who is connected to OP, of his daughter with wings. What did his daughter do to get that honor? Nothing!
I know a number of researches have been done also on Alito, Barrett, Gorsuch, Roberts, and Kavanaugh. Who do you think paid Kavanaugh’s debts off to zero? Leo! Who told the three judges, when questioned by Dems, that they should just agree with them and then lie? LEO! They are all complicit and so is Roberts. It sucks and yes, overturning of Roe v. Wade was a slap in the face of every single woman. So this regime is overwrought with Christian Nationalists, wealthy out-of-touch with real people, Jewish Nazis, drug addicts, insurrectionists, and criminals.
Marlene, yes it is a big reveal, but I imagine Democrats did nothing about it. And, anyone with half a brain, who is not a member of Trump's cult, knows he is a moron! I am aware of Leo's daughter, and what she did to get wings was to die. Ordinarily, I have great empathy for anyone who has lost a child, but once she died, he became more "religious," and to him that evidently means inflicting cruelty and pain on so many adults and children with his dark money contributions, and his sadistic views on abortion, and contraception.
I wasn't aware Leo paid off Kavanaugh's debt. I'm not surprised Leo told justices to lie, but wasn't aware of that either. Thanks for both. The reason there are so many Christian Nationalists in the White House is because Kevin Roberts has a data file on 20,000 right-wing politicians, some of whom Trump, Vance or Stephen Miller picked for White House jobs.
There is no question (with thanks to the illuminative detail of this article) that Leonard Leo is a power-mad manipulative individual with an an agenda of judicial control. However, unilaterally he couldn't have been so successful without a patsy. Trump bought all of his advice and pushed for those named to be nominated and appointed. So they don't always give him what he wants, and Trump, as usual, is whining victimhood. As a matter of fact, he has been given more leeway and power than any other president, and more than he needs or deserves.
Don't forget Mitch McConnell. I curse that turtle🐢 with every fiber of my being what he unleashed on this country. He is the one responsible for remaking the judiciary. Making his own rules like Obama not being able to appoint a SC justice a year before an election yet shoved in Amy Coney Barrett immediately after RBG died in Sept 2020 before the Nov election. He is the one responsible for not seeing that Trump was impeached twice by the Senate. One thing about LL and the Heritage Society. They played the long game. It took them 50 years to get their puppet installed and then blew up the world and our country in 5 days after his inauguration. No one expected Elon and his $290 million in the mix.
You are so right. The McConnell senate had Trump handed to them, not once but twice. The House impeached him (also twice) and the Republican Senators failed to convict and remove him. Everything that transpired after that would have been avoided. SHAME.
Unfortunately, before anything can and will be done about the current "supreme" court, all power will be in the executive's hands. Congress will find itself powerless, which they have to thank themselves for. Republicons have all gone maga and Democrats are lacking in leadership.
the Roberts court, acting on its emergency (“shadow”) docket, issued an unsigned order paving the way for Trump to fire two independent agency commissioners without cause, thereby handing Trump yet more executive power.
Well, what goes around, comes around. In 2028 when (from my keyboard to The Lord's eyes) a Democrat captures the White House, the next President can unceremoniously show the boot to the heads of those allegedly "non-partisan" boards, and there'd be nothing to stop it!
he’s doing a good job of fucking himself up let’s face it. You’ve got Wall Street caught a taco can’t make up his fucking mind about the tariffs. He’s got foreign countries canceling their orders from Milwaukee. Martin and other military suppliers is trashing our country so he actually is throwing himself under the bus. It may take him a while to realize it or he may never realize it, but he is
Trump has an unwavering belief that anyone who makes a commitment or recommendations to him, are made with an unbreakable fiat that those commitments and recommendations include total and absolute fealty to him. It is part and parcel of his delusional, addled world view.
Whatever one thinks about Leonard Leo (which can't be much as 99.9% of Americans don't know who he is), the article again informs us that political and legal policy in America is made primarily by Washington insiders, and not the interests of the average American. How can one not think that? And YET, we are told time and again that we can influence policy by contacting our various representatives and making our voice heard. It does not take a whole lot of critical thinking skill to recognize that Americans general skepticism toward Washington is valid. And why the problem exists on both sides of the political spectrum. Good luck convincing Americans that this is a Republican (MAGA) thing - and not something Democrats would ever do. And did I forget to mention cynicism?
I don't think that the TACO president realizes he's the one being used by the likes of Leo Leonard to fulfill and realize their rightwing "religious" agenda.
TACO thinks he's the boss but the Leo's (Federalist Society) and Vought's (Heritage Foundation - Project 2025) are the ones calling the shots.
The TACO fellow is nothing but the presidential reality figure who shouts "YOU ARE FIRED!" from time to time.
The TACO guy is correct about one thing thou. The Federalist Society is a "sleazebag - bad person - America hating" group as it gave the world the not-really-likable Ted Cruz and many others.
It galls me that McConnell collaborated in this assault on our Constitutional mandate for the separation of church and state. Given the Leo-Putin-Stalinist-state link, we now understand why McConnell is deservedly called Moscow Mitch.
Leonard Leo is a small religious fanatic who ties to the Russia Orthodox Church. Money is being funneled into his 42 shell companies from all over the world. Those companies are all under 501 (3) (c) which gives tax exemptions for churches. One of those “religious” companies is owned by none other than Ginni Thomas!! Leo, Kevin Roberts, Russsell Vought, the Koch’s, the Mercers, etc. are the contributors to Project 2025. Don’t think that Alito and Thomas didn’t know about it. They most certainly did as both have been treated to expensive trips, meals and favors by these monsters.
Leo's 501c status needs to be reviewed. If he's using tax-free contributions to engage in political activities and influence, he should be taxed.
No Shit! He isn’t the only one, you know.
He's just the only one featured in this article. You're right, there are plenty more dodgy folks, foundations, and other entities that need to be reviewed.
Marlene, you make an excellent point. Religion is the reason all these Christian evangelical nutjobs in gov't are Pro-Putin and Pro-Russia because of Putin's deep ties to the Russian Orthodox church and why they loved going to Russia. The religion and money 💰 Which is so ironic, because Russia was basically athiest as the USSR. I knew LL was a fanatic, but did not know his ties to the Russian Orthodox Church but there you go! They probably all have that twisted messianic version of the 2nd coming and Armegeddon. This is the very reason why the framers wanted Separation of Church and state. And now look at us. I don't know why religious institutions don't get taxed. I don't care what religion. Jewish---Christian-Muslim just naming these 3.
Robin, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse has the goods on the Leo. He has been tracking him for over 10 years. People thought he was talking out of his ass but he has been vindicated. Jane Mayer, who wrote the book “Dark Money”, also had been following him and many others. All there in black and white.
Thank you Marlene. I love Sheldon Whitehouse
I do too.
Some very good points, except that Leonard Leo is a member of the Roman Catholic Church, as is Kevin Roberts, CEO of The Heritage Foundation and mastermind of Project 2025, and JD Vance, who converted in 2019, and all three are involved with Opus Dei, a radical Catholic group. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/jul/26/kevin-roberts-project-2025-opus-dei
I have spent the last few months researching Leo, who has spent the last 30 years, paying millions of dollars to support right-wing judicial candidates. He provided lists of right-wing judges to Trump. He also was responsible for the conservative supermajority on SCOTUS. He advised Trump on the nominations of Neil Gorsuch (he attends an Episcopal church, but was raised Catholic), Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett. Before that, Leo helped pick or paid to confirm the court’s three other conservative justices: Clarence Thomas, John Roberts and Samuel Alito. One of Leo's goals was to get enough conservative Catholic justices on SCOTUS to overturn Roe v Wade.
Trump's recent attack against Leo is quite amazing. LEO, more than anyone else, except Kevin Roberts, SCOTUS, Elon Musk, Mitch McConnell and billionaires, is responsible for enabling Trump to pursue his desire for an imperial presidency.
In 2021, Leo was given a gift of $1.6 billion from a ultra conservative donor, and now is using his power to do even more. He gave $50 million to some of the 100 conservative organizations, Roberts recruited, who have supported Project 2025. The link from The Catholic Reporter is a very honest look at the damage he has done.
https://www.ncronline.org/news/leonard-leo-architect-conservative-supreme-court-takes-wider-culture
I think all ultra-orthodox religions have fixed ideas on the inferior place of women and patriarchal/doctrinal control.
I agree with you, but I find it truly offensive that a highly educated and successful woman, like Usha Vance, now acts like a quasi-Stepford wife. "She is a former trial lawyer, who has worked with leading law firms, and clerked with SCOTUS Justices. She also is the first Asian American and first Hindu American second lady."
Usha could have been a wonderful role model. Instead, she remains silent about all the terrible things that her husband and Trump say and do. Still, I was stunned when Trump said in front of Black journalists that his opponent Kamala Harris always said she was Indian, but now she wants to known as Black. "So I don’t know, is she Indian or is she Black?” And, JD Vance found that to be hysterically funny.
For me, the problem with Usha Vance is that she's an opportunist, like her husband. They both were anti-Trump. In 2016, Vance sent a message to his law school roommate in which he wrote that he went “back and forth between thinking Trump is a cynical asshole…or that he’s America’s Hitler. And, there are many more quotes equally as bad in a July 16, 2024 article by Bess Levin in Vanity Fair.
A former friend recalled that “Usha found the incursion on the Capitol and Trump’s role in it to be deeply disturbing. She generally was appalled by Trump, from the moment of his first election.” But, then JD Vance wanted to be senator, he needed Trump's endorsement, so they turned into Trump supporters, and were ultimately rewarded by Vance's vice presidential nomination. Still, Usha's Harvard friends were surprised when, at the GOP National Convention, Usha was in sync with her husband "who rose to power by punching down on trans folks and immigrants," but that's what opportunists do.
Yes. I hope she was thoroughly chastened by her reception at the Kennedy Center, Greenland, and the Vatican.
I believe she probably was. Surely, she is not as clueless as her husband. The very fact that they and their three children went to the Vatican when the pope was dying, shows a level of selfishness, I can’t even imagine. The only thing about it that made me smile was that Pope Francis did not attend the official meeting, but had Vance meet with Cardinal Pietro Parolin, whom he told to lecture Vance on compassion. I forgot about the Kennedy Center reception, but just looked it up, and it certainly was fitting, and restrained…given how MAGAs and Vance have publicly behaved.
SB, Donny’s big reveal that Leo was the culprit behind manipulating SCOTUS, was in fact, a confession! Proves just how stupid he really is because he kept denying that he knew nothing about P2025 or Leo. This brings me to the Catholic Opus Dei organization, which you mentioned. Leo, through OP, wants his deceased young daughter to be canonized. He has a painting by an artist who is connected to OP, of his daughter with wings. What did his daughter do to get that honor? Nothing!
I know a number of researches have been done also on Alito, Barrett, Gorsuch, Roberts, and Kavanaugh. Who do you think paid Kavanaugh’s debts off to zero? Leo! Who told the three judges, when questioned by Dems, that they should just agree with them and then lie? LEO! They are all complicit and so is Roberts. It sucks and yes, overturning of Roe v. Wade was a slap in the face of every single woman. So this regime is overwrought with Christian Nationalists, wealthy out-of-touch with real people, Jewish Nazis, drug addicts, insurrectionists, and criminals.
Marlene, yes it is a big reveal, but I imagine Democrats did nothing about it. And, anyone with half a brain, who is not a member of Trump's cult, knows he is a moron! I am aware of Leo's daughter, and what she did to get wings was to die. Ordinarily, I have great empathy for anyone who has lost a child, but once she died, he became more "religious," and to him that evidently means inflicting cruelty and pain on so many adults and children with his dark money contributions, and his sadistic views on abortion, and contraception.
I wasn't aware Leo paid off Kavanaugh's debt. I'm not surprised Leo told justices to lie, but wasn't aware of that either. Thanks for both. The reason there are so many Christian Nationalists in the White House is because Kevin Roberts has a data file on 20,000 right-wing politicians, some of whom Trump, Vance or Stephen Miller picked for White House jobs.
Calling Leonard Leo a “sleazebag” is rich coming from FF47. It takes one to know one.
There is no question (with thanks to the illuminative detail of this article) that Leonard Leo is a power-mad manipulative individual with an an agenda of judicial control. However, unilaterally he couldn't have been so successful without a patsy. Trump bought all of his advice and pushed for those named to be nominated and appointed. So they don't always give him what he wants, and Trump, as usual, is whining victimhood. As a matter of fact, he has been given more leeway and power than any other president, and more than he needs or deserves.
Don't forget Mitch McConnell. I curse that turtle🐢 with every fiber of my being what he unleashed on this country. He is the one responsible for remaking the judiciary. Making his own rules like Obama not being able to appoint a SC justice a year before an election yet shoved in Amy Coney Barrett immediately after RBG died in Sept 2020 before the Nov election. He is the one responsible for not seeing that Trump was impeached twice by the Senate. One thing about LL and the Heritage Society. They played the long game. It took them 50 years to get their puppet installed and then blew up the world and our country in 5 days after his inauguration. No one expected Elon and his $290 million in the mix.
You are so right. The McConnell senate had Trump handed to them, not once but twice. The House impeached him (also twice) and the Republican Senators failed to convict and remove him. Everything that transpired after that would have been avoided. SHAME.
More shame to go around than we can possibly imagine, sadly.
Unfortunately, before anything can and will be done about the current "supreme" court, all power will be in the executive's hands. Congress will find itself powerless, which they have to thank themselves for. Republicons have all gone maga and Democrats are lacking in leadership.
the Roberts court, acting on its emergency (“shadow”) docket, issued an unsigned order paving the way for Trump to fire two independent agency commissioners without cause, thereby handing Trump yet more executive power.
Well, what goes around, comes around. In 2028 when (from my keyboard to The Lord's eyes) a Democrat captures the White House, the next President can unceremoniously show the boot to the heads of those allegedly "non-partisan" boards, and there'd be nothing to stop it!
He throws everyone under the bus! Who has he NOT thrown under the bus?
Himself!
he’s doing a good job of fucking himself up let’s face it. You’ve got Wall Street caught a taco can’t make up his fucking mind about the tariffs. He’s got foreign countries canceling their orders from Milwaukee. Martin and other military suppliers is trashing our country so he actually is throwing himself under the bus. It may take him a while to realize it or he may never realize it, but he is
Can’t happen fast enough 🚌
Trump has an unwavering belief that anyone who makes a commitment or recommendations to him, are made with an unbreakable fiat that those commitments and recommendations include total and absolute fealty to him. It is part and parcel of his delusional, addled world view.
Whatever one thinks about Leonard Leo (which can't be much as 99.9% of Americans don't know who he is), the article again informs us that political and legal policy in America is made primarily by Washington insiders, and not the interests of the average American. How can one not think that? And YET, we are told time and again that we can influence policy by contacting our various representatives and making our voice heard. It does not take a whole lot of critical thinking skill to recognize that Americans general skepticism toward Washington is valid. And why the problem exists on both sides of the political spectrum. Good luck convincing Americans that this is a Republican (MAGA) thing - and not something Democrats would ever do. And did I forget to mention cynicism?
I don't think that the TACO president realizes he's the one being used by the likes of Leo Leonard to fulfill and realize their rightwing "religious" agenda.
TACO thinks he's the boss but the Leo's (Federalist Society) and Vought's (Heritage Foundation - Project 2025) are the ones calling the shots.
The TACO fellow is nothing but the presidential reality figure who shouts "YOU ARE FIRED!" from time to time.
The TACO guy is correct about one thing thou. The Federalist Society is a "sleazebag - bad person - America hating" group as it gave the world the not-really-likable Ted Cruz and many others.
Agreed. Trump is their useful idiot. What will happen when he is no longer useful to them?
Looks like they're starting to eat each other. This will get interesting. Trump's ego is flying high. He probably thinks it's all about him.
That oaf will turn on anyone. Leo is the only reason The Grifter isn't in jail right now. Leo helped fix and buy off the SCOTUS.
It galls me that McConnell collaborated in this assault on our Constitutional mandate for the separation of church and state. Given the Leo-Putin-Stalinist-state link, we now understand why McConnell is deservedly called Moscow Mitch.
Proof positive that the old adage, no good deed ever goes unpunished, is true.