Trying to figure out why Leonard Leo organized the Rule of Law Trust, registered as a 501c4 in '18, as a trust. If I'm reading the instructions for Form 1023 correctly, IRS rules permit a trust to apply w/o being registered as a business entity in the state it is domiciled in...
...Spoke to a lawyer re different types of trusts but it's out of my league. If one of Leo's reasons for registering ROL as a trust was to keep the 5014c4 w $79M in donations in '18 under wraps, why did he register it in VA in April '20?....
...Whatever Leo's reason for registering the trust as a business in April 2020, you can bet it was on advice of counsel since the Rule of Law Trust spent $3.8M on legal fees in '19 (includes the Barton Group LLC registered in VA in June '19 by Jason Torchinsky, member)...
...The Rule of Law Trust's registered agent in VA, Cogency Global in Midlothian VA, resigned in Dec 2020 & in April 2021, the trust's registration was automatically cancelled. If you looked up ROL w VA SoS now, Leonard Leo isn't listed as a principal...
...My theory is Leonard Leo was trying to hide the existence of the Rule of Law Trust to avoid questions about who donated the $79M. One, it was initially set up as a trust & not registered as a business in any state...
...Two, the dollar amount of the initial donation, $79,999,550, was set to make it look like there was more than one donor but I suspect there was only one...
...Even the name, Rule of Law, was meant to be confused w the Rule of Law Project, another NFP registered by Leonard Leo in VA in 2014 & voluntarily terminated in May '16 (bit of trivia - Bill Kristol was a director)....
...This is somewhat amusing. Leonard Leo didn't register Rule of Law Trust as a not-for-profit w the state of VA but look who did- Steve Bannon's pal, Guo Wengui. In fact, Bannon was a ROL IV board member...
cnbc.com/2021/08/16/ste…
...Be a hoot if the $79M did come from Guo Wengui. It would explain the measures Leonard Leo took to obscure the existence of the Rule of Law Trust & why the trust paid Baker Botts $1M in 2019...
...Would also explain why Guo Wengui named his two NFPs, registered in NYS in Jan '19, w Rule of Law in their names. The ROL Foundation is a 501c3 & the ROL Society is a 501c4...
...As I said, it'd be a hoot if the Guo Wengui did donate $79M to Leonard Leo's Rule of Law Trust but to be clear, I have zero concrete evidence that happened. More later...
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