Thread by @AceBearstrom

🧵Over the last three decades, radical conservative billionaire Leonard Leo has created an interconnected series of institutions designed, behind the curtain, to quietly reshape the American judiciary and in turn America itself into an extremist right-wing hell.

#Kleptofascism

🧵Leo's new infusion of 1.6 billion dollars is going to solidify this radical reactionary effort in a way that will be hard for anyone to counter, in part thanks to new election law rules created by the judiciary he has helped shape.

#Kleptofascism

🧵While much of the reporting has focused on the means by which the transaction was fixed to avoid paying at least $400 million in taxes, the results for American democracy are truly dire: America is becoming the personal property of billionaire fascists to rule.

#Kleptofascism

🧵Leo has been very active as a fundraiser and disseminator of money supporting the election of extreme Republican candidates, most often raising money and directing the contributions without full disclosure of the ultimate source of the money.

#Kleptofascism

🧵In turn, the same congressional Republicans that his empire tries to get into Congress help to perpetuate Leo’s political power. For years, they have hobbled the IRS’s ability to limit the political activities of “social welfare” 501(c)(4) political groups.

#Kleptofascism

🧵The Marble Freedom Trust is legally organized as a trust, rather than as a corporation. That means it did not have to publicly disclose basic details like its name, directors and address in any public database of business, tax or securities records.

#Kleptofascism

🧵The conservative judiciary that Leo is creating has been central to crafting new legal rules which help elect more Republicans to office. Cases like Citizens United have opened the floodgates to fund large outside political groups such as Super PACs.

#Kleptofascism

🧵Leo’s groups have been raising almost incredible sums of money. A WaPo analysis found Leo and his allies raised $400 million between 2014 and 2017, not counting the Marble money, from undisclosed donors.

#Kleptofascism

🧵Leo’s empire begins with the Federalist Society, which Leo led and remains co-Chairman. The Federalist has been the incubator to create jurisprudential theories such as originalism and textualism that, >

#Kleptofascism

🧵> at least in the hands of radicals such as the Federalists, often lead to deeply reactionary anti-Democratic results. Yet the Federalist Society calls itself "a neutral forum for airing competing ideas".

#Kleptofascism

🧵This fake neutrality provides cover to showcase, vet and prep future judges. Judges and S.Ct. Justices use it to recruit judicial clerks who will make far-right-wing rulings, in order to skirt the laws barring judges from engaging in political activities.

#Kleptofascism

🧵But a propaganda factory alone would not have been enough for Leo. He also has run an extensive political operation to elevate conservative judges and justices onto the bench and to block liberal nominees whenever possible.

#Kleptofascism

🧵This includes the organization that used to be known as the “Judicial Crisis Network” now called the Concord Fund, headed by former Clarence Thomas clerk Carrie Severino. It does not disclose its donors.

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🧵The Concord Fund runs advertising and operates as a political entity that, among other things, defends FedSoc judicial nominees such as Neil Gorsuch and Amy Barrett and uses its platform to successfully oppose Democratic appointees such as Merrick Garland.

#Kleptofascism

🧵Leo’s judicial operation also includes a public relations firm, CRC Advisors, to run the public relations campaign for judges he wants to promote. An earlier iteration of CRC teamed up with former Scalia clerk Ed Whelan to advance a lie >

🧵> for then-S.Ct. nominee Brett Kavanaugh when Christine Blasey Ford came forward to share a story of how he sexually attacked her, claiming it had been someone else. Whelan later apologized for advancing the argument.

#Kleptofascism

🧵Leo's Judicial Crisis Network/Concord Fund has reportedly given Republican State Leadership Committee (RSLC) at least $5.24 million since RSLC launched what it weirdly calls the "Judicial Fairness Initiative" (JFI) to spend money in state judicial elections.

#Kleptofascism

🧵According to its own site, by launching JFI, RSLC became the only national political organization focused exclusively on the electoral process of judicial branches at the state level.

#Kleptofascism

🧵These efforts will fundamentally sabotage state judicial races by infusing them with unusual levels of cash. The recipients of these funds will help advance the same radical causes pushed by Leo’s federal judges.

#Kleptofascism

🧵Cases like Americans for Prosperity Foundation v. Bonta are making it easier for that large money to be contributed anonymously or through entities that can mask the identity of those who are pulling the strings, >

#Kleptofascism

🧵> providing an easier path to influence without giving voters valuable information about who is trying to influence them and elected officials.

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🧵This term, the S.Ct. will hear Moore v. Harper, a case that stands to empower Republican state legislators against Democratic-majority state supreme courts that have been enforcing voting rights protections contained in state constitutions.

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🧵The Leo-backed Orwellian-named “Honest Elections Project” has been involved in efforts to get the Court to embrace a theory in Moore of the “independent state legislature” that would rob state courts of the power to protect voters’ rights.

#Kleptofascism

🧵These election law rulings are just a means to an end. The end includes rulings like Dobbs on abortion, the dismantling of Social Security and the EPA, and reading the religion protections in the First Amendment in ways that will serve radical fascism.

#Kleptofascism

🧵Leonard Leo, who incredibly sits on the board of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, peddles his sabotage of democracy with outrageous claims that "this is good for democracy."

#Kleptofascism

slate.com/news-and-polit…

🧵Leonard Leo is already incredibly powerful, and now he is going to have over a billion dollars at his disposal to continue, shrouded in secrecy, destroying our country’s institutions.

#Kleptofascism

propublica.org/article/dark-m…