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30 Jul, 6 tweets, 3 min read
Leonard Leo, co-chairman of the Federalist Society, was a key player in guiding the Trump administration’s federal judicial nominations .

Records we obtained show Leo’s influence during Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court. #FoiaFriday
americanoversight.org/document/doj-c…
Donald Trump nominated Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court in July 2018. In early September, the Senate Judiciary Committee held hearings on his appointment; later that month, the committee reopened the hearings to discuss sexual assault allegations against Kavanaugh.
On Sept. 15, 2018, Senate Judiciary Chief Counsel Michael Davis emailed a “Nominations Strategy” email group and indicated he spoke to Leonard Leo. Davis wrote: “He is pushing [Kavanaugh] to call on us to reopen the hearing, so [Kavanaugh] can address allegations.”
Davis said that he thought that was a “recipe for disaster” and that he asked “Abegg” to call Leo to relay the same message. “Abegg” is possibly a reference to John Abegg, then Sen. Mitch McConnell’s chief legal counsel.
Ultimately, the Senate did reopen Kavanaugh’s nomination hearings to address Christine Blasey-Ford’s allegations of sexual assault.

These documents show the influence wielded by Leo and the behind-the-scenes efforts to preserve Kavanaugh’s nomination.
We’ve previously written about Leonard Leo’s influence pushing a conservative judicial agenda. Learn more here:
americanoversight.org/new-records-il…

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More from @weareoversight

American Oversight Profile picture
30 Jul
During the first months of the pandemic, the absence of a clear federal leadership structure hampered the response of health agencies & state officials. We’ve been investigating the coordination problems that beset health departments last spring.
americanoversight.org/investigation/…
Emails we obtained show that in February 2020, a senior adviser at the Dept. of Veterans Affairs cautioned in an email thread among senior federal health officials that the nation was “flying blind” in the face of early coronavirus cases in California and elsewhere.
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American Oversight Profile picture
29 Jul
NEW: We obtained more of former Attorney General William Barr’s call logs and text messages from 2019 and 2020. Here’s what we learned from the documents:
americanoversight.org/document/doj-t…
On Sept. 17, 2019, just days before House Speaker Pelosi’s announcement of a formal impeachment inquiry, Barr had a 35-minute call with Sen. Pat Toomey’s office.
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American Oversight Profile picture
29 Jul
NEW: We obtained additional records that shed light on the potential influence wielded in spring 2020 by members of the private sector on the federal government’s pandemic response.
americanoversight.org/records-reveal…
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Records we obtained show Mnuchin exchanged emails with top executives at large corporations, including General Electric and Ford.

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American Oversight Profile picture
29 Jul
NEW: We obtained new records that offer additional insight into the pandemic’s spread in prisons. The records include communications between the GEO Group, one of the largest private prison contractors in the country, and Florida officials.
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American Oversight Profile picture
28 Jul
As Covid-19 spread through crowded and already dangerous meatpacking plants, companies sought to avoid closures and to reduce important safety regulations. We’re investigating the meat industry's influence at federal agencies during the pandemic.
americanoversight.org/investigation/…
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American Oversight Profile picture
28 Jul
We recently published an in-depth report that looks at why potential findings of Arizona’s sham “audit” are compromised.

One key issue is contact between “audit” leaders, Donald Trump, and Rudy Giuliani after the November election.
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On Dec. 28, 2020, Fann responded to a constituent’s email by writing that she had “been in numerous conversations” with Giuliani “over the past weeks trying to get this [forensic audit] done.”
Read 8 tweets

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