12/ Leo is a big supporter of the Catholic Information Center, an Opus Dei-affiliated outreach group that says it’s the closest tabernacle to the White House.
That political power speaks to the nexus of politics & religion in Leo’s work.
Leo is a big CIC donor — see this photo
13/ More than any other person, Leo stands at that nexus of the conservative legal movement and the religious right.
He’s involved w/ Students for Life, the Becket Fund, and Catholic University.
His faith also helped forge those connections with several Supreme Court justices.
14/ There’s something else our story illuminates in a new way:
Leonard Leo’s influence at the state level.
I think this paragraph in our story absolutely nails it in a way no other story has:
15/ Leo is not afraid to play bare-knuckle politics.
We shed new light on a time he lit into a GOP governor over a judicial pick he disagreed with.
He threatened that governor with “fury from the conservative base, the likes of which you and the Governor have never seen.”
16/ He's also not infallible.
He's suffered defeats. In Missouri, he and his team's efforts to defeat Breckenridge and sink the so-called "Missouri Plan" failed.
He's lost in Wisconsin too.
But he's learned from the defeats as much as the victories, people told us.
See this:
17/ One of the biggest questions we tried to answer was:
What does Leo do next?
What are his plans for the future? His next targets?
18/ Top of his list: He wants to expand the strategy he used at the Federalist Society to shape…
…all of *American* society.
He sees a nation plagued with ills: “wokism” in education, “one-sided” journalism, misguided ideas like environmental, social and governance policies.
19/ He views the broader American culture as increasingly hostile to people of faith.
In a 2022 speech, he blasted a “progressive Ku Klux Klan” and “current-day barbarians, secularists and bigots” who move America further from a “natural order.”
Watch:
20/ And he has the money to fuel these growing ambitions:
In 2021, the Chicago businessman Barre Seid put his fortune — $1.6 billion — into a trust.
Then Seid gave Leo control over that money.
The guy nicknamed "Moneybags Kid" in high school is now a mega-donor of his own.
21/ He's investing in projects like the Teneo Network, a “confidential” network of young conservatives and libertarians.
Teneo wants to create a “talent pipeline for the future of America.”
22/ After months of talks, Leo agreed to be interviewed on the condition we NOT ask him about his financial activities or relationships w/ SCOTUS justices.
We declined & sent a list of Qs & facts we planned to report.
His responses are in the story. Here are a few key quotes…
23/ In response to the main thrust of our story, Leo told us:
“The work I have done in the legal culture has been shaped by the conviction that respecting and enforcing limits on the power of the state are essential to advancing the dignity and worth of all individuals.”
24/ We also asked Leo about his fundraising talents, and whether his relationships with judges, justices, and other influential figures helped him raise huge amounts of money.
Here was our question and his response:
25/ And when we asked Leo about arranging the meeting for the Singer-affiliated donors with Justice Thomas at the Supreme Court, he sent this response:
(Singer declined to comment. Thomas didn't respond.)
26/end
OK, that’s plenty of tweeting — X-ing? — for now.
Thanks for following along.
One final plea:
If you liked this 🧵
Please listen to our three-part podcast with @onthemedia about Leo, his life, and his power.
As someone who reported extensively on Fox News's high-profile settlement with Seth Rich's parents, I wanted to share a few observations about today's news.
The $787 million sum is massive.
This is a huge win for Dominion Voting Systems.
A win for truth? Not so much...
🧵
Settlement agreements — even 11th-hour ones — usually emerge from many hours of grueling negotiations.
The dollar figure, public remarks, and what the plaintiffs & defendants can — and can't — say afterward is agreed to by all parties.
It's usually quite choreographed. 2/x
The $787 million Fox will pay as part of the settlement is hardly a rounding error.
But remember that law firms in cases like this often work on contingency. They get a cut of the settlement, likely 30 to 35%.
Ballpark: that's $250 million going to DVS's law firms.
3/x
BIDEN at 1st press conf: "My Republican colleagues are going to have to determine whether we want to work together or decide if they want to proceed to just divide the country, continue the politics of division."
He adds: "I've been hired to solve problems, not create division."
BIDEN: From 1917 to 1971, there were 58 motions to break a filibuster.
In 2020 alone, he says, there were five times that many.
"It's been abused in a gigantic way. People got tired of talking and tired of collapsing."
Says he "strongly" supports talking filibuster reform.
That said, Biden went even further in his comments about the filibuster.
He said he had an open mind about restoring the talking filibuster.
But he left the door open to further changes to the filibuster on "fundamental" issues like voting rights.