0:00

Hello, Trump Inc. listeners. It's Ilya Maritz.

0:03

I am so excited to be talking to you now

0:05

to tell you about episode two in

0:07

a new audio series Andrea Bernstein and

0:09

I have been working on for ProPublica and

0:11

on the media.

0:12

It's called We Don't Talk About Leonard.

0:15

Ever since Trump was president and then

0:18

wouldn't let go of power, Andrea

0:20

and I have been thinking and reporting about

0:22

the stresses on our democracy. About

0:24

a year ago, we started to work with ProPublica,

0:27

unraveling how one of the final backstops

0:29

of our system, the courts, have been

0:31

under pressure. At the center of that

0:33

effort, a conservative legal philosopher

0:36

general named Leonard Leo. You

0:39

might know his name because he was Trump's judge

0:41

whisperer. Leo was responsible for

0:43

the nominations of Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh,

0:46

and Amy Coney Barrett to the US Supreme Court.

0:48

But Leo is so, so much

0:51

more powerful than that. As we

0:53

found, his influence stretches to state Supreme

0:55

Courts and state attorneys general, to the

0:57

whole of American culture, really. To

1:00

report this story, Andrea and I teamed up

1:02

with ProPublica's Andy Kroll, an investigative

1:04

reporter who's been breaking stories on Leo, and

1:07

the three of us dug deep. This is

1:09

the second episode of a three-part series.

1:12

You can find episode one wherever you listen to podcasts.

1:15

Andrea and I think you're really going to like We

1:17

Don't Talk About Leonard.

1:19

Thank you for listening.

1:22

I'm Brooke Gladstone, and this week on the media,

1:25

many of the rulings handed down by the

1:27

Supreme Court start with cases

1:29

brought by the states. And one

1:31

influential conservative group is

1:34

busy working those ramps.

1:36

We're going to have a conversation this morning about

1:38

state attorneys general. And this is

1:40

an issue of great importance to

1:42

the Federalist Society. I think the attorney

1:44

general's offices have gotten more

1:47

interested in national issues over the last 30

1:49

years. A number of them have gone on

1:51

to judgeships, have gone on to other

1:54

high-profile positions within the

1:57

judiciary. Now, like solicitor, that sounds like,

1:59

does he wear a

1:59

Wait, what is that? It's been this wonderful conversation

2:02

about being a state solicitor general. The

2:04

tensions, the conflicts, the fun, the tears,

2:07

the joy, all of it. Like if you're a solicitor

2:09

general or you work in a solicitor general's office, you

2:11

get to sort of have this national practice.

2:15

It's

2:15

all coming up after this. Hi

2:21

there, I'm Rhiannon Giddens and I want

2:23

to take you somewhere special. I got this

2:25

shiver through my entire body. My

2:28

hair stood on end. That's right. We're

2:30

back with a new season of Aria Code, the

2:32

podcast that celebrates the magic of opera.

2:35

From arias that have mesmerized us for centuries

2:38

to the masterpieces of today. This

2:40

is the power of art, art either

2:42

depicting life or inspiring

2:45

life. No tuffs or ticket required.

2:48

Listen to Aria Code wherever you get podcasts.

2:53

From WNYC in New York,

2:55

this is On the Media. I'm Brooke Gladstone.

2:58

And we're one week into the United

3:00

States Supreme Court's new

3:02

term. The justices are returning

3:04

to the bench under a cloud of ethics

3:06

controversies and with public opinion

3:09

of the court at a historic low. About

3:12

that cloud, one news organization

3:14

has done more than most any to expose

3:17

how some members of the bench have violated

3:20

ethics and rejected norms.

3:22

And that organization has been our

3:24

partner in the investigation you're about to

3:26

hear. It's part two of

3:29

our three-part collaboration with ProPublica

3:31

called We Don't Talk About Leonard,

3:34

an investigation into the rise of the conservative

3:37

legal movement and Leonard Leo

3:39

with a secret behind its stunning

3:41

success. In this hour,

3:44

reporters Andrea Bernstein, Ilya

3:46

Merits and Andy Kroll will be

3:48

our guides. Last

3:51

week, Andrea took us back to Leo's

3:53

earliest days. I'm looking for

3:55

his high school

3:56

in New Jersey. I've got the 83

3:58

yearbook. I'm opening it up.

4:00

We heard from a former classmate about

4:03

his deep interest in the law and

4:06

his convictions. He was always

4:08

passionate about being anti-abortion.

4:11

He was very steadfast in that belief.

4:14

We learned about a college professor who was an

4:16

important early influence. The

4:18

law schools are overwhelmingly

4:21

tilted to the left, certainly in the area of

4:23

constitutional law. He charted

4:26

the rise of Leo's influence on

4:28

the conservative movement, his decades-long

4:31

association with the Federalist Society,

4:33

an avid promoter of conservative

4:35

legal doctrine whose mantra is,

4:38

ideas have consequences. But

4:41

more importantly, that policy is people. So

4:43

you have to connect those ideas to the right

4:45

people who have access

4:47

to the levers of power.

4:49

We saw how he built a network

4:51

of nonprofits. What you

4:53

had was kind of a daisy chain

4:55

where donors were giving money

4:57

to one group. The group didn't

4:59

have to disclose its donors. They'd

5:01

give money to another group. That group didn't

5:04

have to disclose

5:04

its donors. And finally, how

5:07

Leo shifted his attention from the U.S.

5:09

Supreme Court to the state Supreme

5:12

Court. It's not enough to own a house

5:14

and own a Senate and own a governor. We kind of

5:16

own courts, too. So that

5:19

is a power grab. There's no question about it.

5:21

That's the way you control a court. Leo

5:23

said as much himself. In fact,

5:26

one can very ably argue, I think,

5:28

that state Supreme Courts are in many

5:30

cases where the rubber really meets the road.

5:33

In this episode, Ilya, Andrea, and

5:35

Andy will explain how Leo, the

5:37

people-as-policy guy, is busily

5:40

constructing pipelines

5:42

of well-placed legal talent

5:44

in state governments, too. Here's

5:47

Ilya. Mike Black

5:49

is an attorney in Montana. He got his degree

5:51

from Cornell Law in the late 1980s,

5:54

which is where he crossed paths with Leonard

5:56

Leo. Leonard Leo was in my law school

5:58

class. He lived in the same dorm

6:01

first year of law school. Black says Leonard

6:03

Leo stood out. For one thing, he looked

6:05

young. He was young. He got

6:07

his undergraduate degree and law degree in

6:09

just six years. I don't even think he was old

6:12

enough to drink. I don't think he was even 21 years

6:14

old at the time. Like other classmates we've

6:16

spoken with, Black remembers Leo

6:18

for wearing suits to class. It was

6:21

a vibe. He had an agenda. He had an

6:23

ideology. And he was very serious

6:25

about it. Leo had founded the Cornell

6:27

Law Chapter of the Federalist Society.

6:29

It was a pretty new organization

6:31

then, and Black didn't see them or Leo

6:34

going far. It was all this talk

6:36

about the original meaning of the Constitution

6:38

at the time the founders wrote it. It wasn't

6:40

something that I personally

6:42

took very seriously. And frankly,

6:44

I was clearly wrong because I should have taken

6:46

it more seriously. After

6:49

Cornell, Mike Black ended up in Montana

6:51

practicing law. For nearly a quarter century,

6:54

he did not think about Leonard Leo. In 2013,

6:58

Mike Black is working for the Montana Attorney General

7:00

as a career employee heading up the

7:02

Civil Division. The AG just changed

7:04

from a Democrat to a Republican. So

7:07

there are a bunch of new people in the office. And

7:10

Black has something to discuss with one of them. So

7:12

he takes a walk down the hall to speak with

7:14

his new colleague. I went into his office and

7:17

on his bookshelf were all these bobbleheads. There

7:20

was like Scalia for sure, and I think

7:22

probably Alito. There were like four or

7:24

five. I don't remember how many there were. And

7:27

then there was this one younger looking guy.

7:29

I said, well, who the heck is this? And he goes, well,

7:32

that's Leonard Leo. Black

7:34

looks at his colleague, a man named Lawrence

7:36

Van Dyke, the Montana Solicitor General.

7:39

He looks at the bobblehead doll, a miniature,

7:42

someone he used to know. I think I laughed.

7:45

And I told Lawrence that, well, I went

7:47

to law school with Leonard and I can't believe

7:49

that there's a bobblehead doll of him. And

7:52

it was clear that Lawrence was

7:54

enamored with Leonard and inserted

7:57

him a friend. And ultimately, I think

7:59

it's been I've worn out that Leonard Leo was

8:01

a patron of Lawrence van Dyke, but at

8:03

the time I just thought it was funny. Leonard

8:06

Leo was on that shelf of bobbleheads alongside

8:08

Supreme Court justices. It's

8:10

a visible manifestation of the work he's done

8:13

to shape the court. But if that's all

8:15

he did, he wouldn't be as influential as

8:17

he is today, because the justices

8:20

would only be hearing those cases that happened

8:22

to get to them. Leo has done something

8:25

maybe more impressive, something not many

8:27

people know about. He's built a system

8:30

that makes it much more likely that the right

8:32

cases get to the high court, the cases

8:34

he and his ideological brethren believe

8:36

are most likely to nudge the law in

8:38

the direction they think it should go. He

8:41

does this by taking an active interest

8:43

in other parts of the legal world, lower

8:46

court judges, state courts, state

8:48

attorneys general, and solicitors

8:51

general, people like Lawrence van Dyke,

8:54

the owner of the Leonard Leo bobblehead

8:56

doll. I was like, solicitor,

8:58

that sounds like, does he wear a wig? What is that?

9:00

This is Lawrence van Dyke, reflecting back

9:02

on the start of his career on a recent podcast.

9:05

I definitely didn't know anything about solicitor generals.

9:08

That was the first time I heard the term and I

9:10

thought it was a funny term at the time.

9:13

It was new to me too when we started this reporting.

9:15

I got interested after speaking with

9:18

a former Republican attorney general. This

9:20

AG told me that solicitors general

9:22

play a pivotal role in Leo's system.

9:26

In most states, the elected attorney general

9:28

chooses his or her solicitor general,

9:31

and it's the solicitor who argues the

9:33

state's big cases in the Supreme

9:35

Court and appeals courts. The

9:37

Supreme Court struck down President Biden's

9:40

plan to cancel up to $20,000

9:42

in student loan debt for millions of Americans.

9:45

Despite growing dangers from climate change,

9:47

tonight the US Supreme Court curbing

9:49

the government's power to fight it. An ideologically

9:52

split US Supreme Court has upheld

9:54

Ohio's controversial use-it-or-lose-it

9:57

voting law. It allows the state to automatically

9:59

purge... people from its list of registered voters

10:02

if they failed to vote for two consecutive

10:04

elections and failed to return a mailed postcard

10:07

confirming their address. A federal

10:09

appeals court has ruled that the Biden administration

10:11

likely overstepped First Amendment protections

10:15

when it urged social media companies

10:17

to remove misleading or false

10:19

content about COVID-19

10:21

and other issues like election integrity.

10:23

The U.S. Supreme Court has blocked President Biden's

10:26

vaccine or test mandate for large private

10:28

companies. Today, it essentially ruled

10:30

that OSHA, the Federal Workplace Safety Agency,

10:33

exceeded its authority with the mandate.

10:35

State solicitors argued and won all of these,

10:38

including the conservative legal movement's biggest

10:41

victory. Roe vs. Wade is

10:43

history.

10:44

That landmark 1973 ruling

10:46

that said a woman had a constitutional right

10:48

to abortion now goes back to

10:50

the states.

10:51

These victories can be traced back

10:53

to the extraordinarily effective long

10:56

game played by Leonard Leo and the groups

10:58

around him. It's

11:00

an effort that unfolded mostly out of sight

11:02

before the first briefs were filed. To

11:05

really see it, you'd need to be plugged into

11:07

the Federalist Society. We're going to have a conversation

11:10

this morning about state attorneys general,

11:12

and this is an issue of great importance

11:14

to the Federalist Society. This is Leonard

11:17

Leo at a Federalist Society gathering

11:19

in 2015 introducing a panel discussion

11:21

on the role of AGs. He's coincided

11:24

with his ongoing push for state Supreme

11:26

Court changes, which we heard about in

11:28

episode one. We're seeing an unprecedented

11:31

amount of activity by state AGs,

11:34

particularly with regards to pushback

11:36

against federal overreach that oftentimes

11:39

comes in the form of litigation. By

11:41

this point, Barack Obama is in his second

11:44

term as president. Conservatives

11:46

are fighting the Affordable Care Act and resisting

11:48

new regulations put in place after

11:50

the 2008 financial crisis. Not

11:52

only are there an unprecedented number of

11:55

lawsuits being brought against

11:57

the federal government by state AGs, but an unprecedented

11:59

number of state AGs. AG is joining in each of those lawsuits.

12:02

It's a very interesting time. What's

12:05

really interesting is what Leonard Leo was

12:07

doing behind the scenes. One,

12:10

and this is classic Leonard Leo, a

12:12

group he had influence over in an informal

12:15

way was pouring money into a group

12:17

that in turn put money into elections for

12:19

state attorneys general. In 2014,

12:21

the AG's campaign group, the Republican

12:24

Attorneys General Association became a

12:26

standalone group called RAGA. The

12:28

first 17 contributions were each for $350.

12:32

Then came a contribution for a

12:34

quarter of a million dollars. It

12:36

was from the Judicial Crisis Network, a

12:39

group formerly known as the Judicial Confirmation

12:41

Network or JCN, a

12:43

Leo connected entity that among other things,

12:46

funnels money into campaigns. Under

12:49

a different name, JCN remains

12:51

RAGA's biggest and most reliable funder

12:53

today. Two, he

12:55

was organizing them. RAGA

12:58

has a sister group dedicated to policy.

13:01

The Judicial Crisis Network also funds it. They

13:04

do weekly calls where solicitors share what they're

13:06

doing. The calls are Thursday afternoons.

13:09

There are regular retreats and seminars. Where

13:11

these days, scholars and activists talk about

13:13

issues like election integrity and woke

13:15

corporations. The effectiveness

13:18

is to draw state AG's attention and

13:20

resources into national policy

13:23

issues. Their more typical bread

13:25

and butter focus would be consumer

13:27

protection or Medicaid fraud. On

13:29

that podcast, Lawrence Van Dyke explained

13:32

it like this. If you have the right position

13:34

in state government, you get to sort

13:36

of have this national practice.

13:38

Lastly, there's personnel. When

13:41

a Republican AG has an opening, I've

13:43

been told by a former state AG, Leo

13:45

has suggested the names of potential staffers

13:48

pre-vetted for ideology and skills.

13:51

He won't say hire this person in

13:54

a bossy way. He'll say, this

13:56

is a good guy. You should check him out.

13:58

One such guy.

13:59

Lawrence Van Dyck, owner of the

14:02

Leonard Leo bobblehead doll. Montana

14:06

is a state that sometimes has a hard time attracting

14:08

the most highly qualified candidates. So

14:11

when Lawrence Van Dyck arrived, people noticed.

14:14

He graduated magna cum laude from Harvard

14:16

Law. He was an editor on the Harvard Law Review.

14:19

On a podcast recently, Van Dyck said

14:21

that put him on a path. While I was in

14:23

law school, there was a combination of being on law

14:25

review and being very interested in religious

14:28

liberties made me more interested in the appellate

14:30

legal issues route. After law school,

14:32

he goes to work at a big Republican-oriented

14:34

law firm in Washington under

14:36

the tutelage of the son of a Supreme Court

14:39

justice. I worked very heavily

14:41

with Gene Scalia doing labor

14:43

stuff, but mostly admin law and of course

14:45

clerking on the DC circuits. Before becoming

14:47

assistant solicitor general briefly in

14:49

Texas. But for all those qualifications,

14:53

attorney Mike Black found there were things Van

14:55

Dyck couldn't or wouldn't do. Obviously,

14:57

very bright, writes well, very

14:59

opinionated, but he wasn't

15:02

very seasoned as a lawyer. He didn't understand

15:04

the nuts and bolts of what we did every day very

15:07

well. Like establishing the facts

15:09

of a case through discovery and depositions.

15:12

Not only did he not understand the nuts and bolts, he

15:14

didn't seem particularly interested in

15:16

learning what they were. Black says,

15:19

and others in the Montana AG's office told us

15:21

the same, if a case didn't line up

15:23

with Van Dyck's views, he didn't want

15:25

to take it. One example was a Montana

15:28

law that restricted political spending in state

15:30

judicial races. And this was a hard case

15:32

to defend, don't get me wrong. I mean, we were

15:35

defending a restriction on

15:37

speech in an election, which is a tough road

15:39

to hoe, but at least with respect

15:42

to the history of Montana and

15:44

the culture of our elections, it

15:46

was an important case. Like the law

15:48

or not, Black thought it was Van Dyck's job as

15:50

solicitor to defend it. He didn't.

15:53

I mean, he literally refused to get involved. Lawrence

15:56

Van Dyck declined to do an interview with us

15:58

and did not answer a detailed question. detailed list of questions.

16:02

We can tell from his emails from that time

16:05

that what lit Van Dyke up were cases

16:07

about national issues involving religion,

16:09

guns, and out-of-state litigants. For

16:12

example, he recommended that Montana join

16:14

a challenge to New York's restrictive gun laws

16:17

passed after the Sandy Hook School massacre,

16:19

adding as an aside in an email, plus

16:22

semi-automatic firearms are fun to hunt

16:24

and elk with as the attached picture attests.

16:27

Smiley face. He liked guns. He

16:30

liked shooting guns. He liked talking about guns. He

16:32

thought that concealed carry should be your right.

16:35

While he was solicitor, Van Dyke served on two

16:37

Federalist Society executive committees

16:40

on religious freedom and separation of powers,

16:43

and he communicated regularly with Federalist Society

16:45

officials and allied law professors. He

16:49

persuaded Montana to join suits and amicus

16:51

briefs that mattered to this crowd.

16:54

Like a contraception and health care case known as

16:56

Hobby Lobby, it resulted in

16:58

the U.S. Supreme Court recognizing for the

17:00

first time a private company

17:03

is having religious rights. I think

17:05

he had aspirations, clearly, to do

17:07

something beyond being the solicitor in Montana.

17:10

Mike Black was older and more experienced. Lawrence

17:13

Van Dyke was young and bright and equal

17:15

to him on the org chart. You could

17:17

chalk up their friction to rivalry or a personality

17:20

thing, but there was something else. They

17:23

seemed to have totally diverging views on

17:26

what Van Dyke was there to do. Lawrence

17:30

Van Dyke arrived in the Montana AG's office

17:32

at a time when his job, solicitor general,

17:35

was dramatically changing. Paul

17:37

Nollet, a political science professor at Marquette

17:39

University, told me that just

17:42

a decade or two ago, not that many

17:44

states had solicitors. It was a dead-end

17:46

job. Something that

17:48

didn't offer a whole lot of career

17:50

advancement was not a way to elevate

17:53

one's name in legal and political circles.

17:56

Mainly, solicitors argued cases that were

17:58

being appealed through state courts. These

18:00

lawsuits typically didn't attract much attention.

18:03

Then state attorneys general started to

18:05

use their solicitors general differently.

18:08

They could appoint and deploy them to make

18:10

big moves on hot button issues. Even

18:12

in those smaller states like Nebraska

18:15

and Kansas, these offices, Oklahoma, amongst

18:18

Republican AGs, these offices have been

18:20

some of the strongest pushback against

18:23

the Obama and now Biden administrations.

18:26

And so these are high profile positions.

18:28

These jobs don't pay anything like what you could

18:30

make at a big law firm. But for

18:33

conservative jurists, Becoming SG

18:35

is a form of early career credentialing

18:38

that can pay off down the road. A number

18:40

of them have gone on to, judgeships

18:42

have gone on to other high profile

18:45

positions within the judiciary.

18:48

Welcome to Advisory

18:49

Opinions. I'm

18:50

Sarah Isger. They talked about this recently

18:53

on the podcast Advisory Opinions. It's

18:56

co-hosted by Sarah Isger, a former Trump

18:58

Justice Department spokesperson and

19:00

former Harvard Law Federalist Society chapter

19:02

president. And

19:03

we've had other state SGs

19:05

on the podcast, former state SGs,

19:08

who all just rave about it as a job.

19:09

In April, she brought Andrew Brasher, the

19:11

former solicitor general of Alabama, on

19:13

her show.

19:14

For this wonderful conversation about being

19:16

a state solicitor general, the tensions,

19:18

the conflicts, the fun, the tears, the

19:21

joy, all of it.

19:22

Brasher gives an insider's perspective on the job

19:24

and how it's changed. I think the attorney general's

19:27

offices have gotten more

19:29

interested in sort of national issues,

19:32

national profile over the last 30 years. We're

19:35

just seeing so much litigation driving

19:38

public policy that anybody

19:41

with kind of a good plaintiff, which the states are in

19:43

the mix, to be involved in national issues and

19:46

a great public policy.

19:47

States are good plaintiffs. They're

19:49

more likely than private parties to have standing to

19:52

bring a case. The Supreme Court is more likely

19:54

to want to hear the case. And if

19:56

they do, the solicitor making arguments

19:59

may be a familiar. face. The current

20:01

crop of Republican state solicitors include

20:04

former clerks to Justices Scalia, Thomas,

20:07

and Alito. Sarah Isger had a

20:09

front row seat to this. Her husband

20:11

was SG in Texas and a former Justice

20:13

Kennedy clerk. He too had a Leonard

20:16

Leo bobblehead doll. There's a photo

20:18

of it in the Texas Tribune.

20:20

So, small world.

20:22

Let's move a little bit more to the career

20:24

side then. Advice you have for

20:26

people who are listening to this and are like, yeah, me too,

20:29

dude. I want to be a state SG.

20:30

Resher says you have to know about the

20:32

job. Know you want it and be a good

20:35

worker. The thing is, these jobs,

20:37

they don't get advertised. It's not like

20:39

there's just a bulletin that's like, we need a new SG

20:42

in Kentucky or something. You just have to really

20:45

want to do it and to know

20:47

the people who are in the position to

20:49

give you the job. Resher went on

20:51

to become a federal judge in Alabama at

20:54

age 37. In an email, he told us,

20:56

I'm not aware of anything

20:59

that Leonard Leo did to advance my career

21:01

at any point. In

21:04

response to our questions, Leonard Leo

21:06

said, yes, he cultivated

21:08

the careers of many young lawyers, among

21:11

them, Lawrence Van Dyke. He said he

21:13

doesn't remember making phone calls on Van Dyke's

21:15

behalf. He didn't comment on

21:17

one former AG's contention that he,

21:20

Leo, sometimes suggests the

21:22

names of possible new hires. Solicitor's

21:25

general, he told us, are, quote, often

21:27

important because they are on the front lines of defending

21:30

the division of power between the states

21:32

and the federal government, as set forth

21:35

in our Constitution. Leo

21:37

became interested in attorneys general. He

21:39

said, quote, upon discovering

21:42

that many of them were not focusing on

21:44

their duty to defend and protect their states

21:46

against unlawful and unconstitutional

21:48

overreach by the federal government. Today,

21:51

unlike in years past, this

21:53

has become a key part of their work.

21:56

End quote.

21:59

very, very big plans for Lawrence Van

22:02

Dyke. But first, what

22:04

do an American billionaire, a

22:06

Supreme Court justice,

22:08

and an Alaskan salmon have

22:10

in common? As we were looking at this, the

22:13

only common thread between

22:15

the prominent guests on that trip was

22:18

that they were all connected to letter the L. This

22:20

is On the Media.

22:29

Hi there. I'm Rhiannon Giddens, and

22:31

I want to take you somewhere special. I got

22:33

this shiver through my entire

22:35

body. My hair still on end. That's

22:38

right. We're back with a new season of

22:40

Aria Code, the podcast that celebrates

22:42

the magic of opera, from arias that have

22:44

mesmerized us for centuries to the masterpieces

22:47

of today. This is the power of art,

22:50

art either depicting or

22:53

inspiring life, no tokes

22:55

or ticket required. Listen to Aria

22:57

Code wherever you get podcasts.

23:00

This is On the Media. I'm Brooke Ladstone.

23:03

You're listening to our series reported

23:05

in collaboration with ProPublica called

23:08

We Don't Talk About Leonard. As

23:10

we just heard, at the same time, Leonard

23:12

Leo was helping to promote and credential

23:15

new legal talent. He was also

23:17

attending to practical matters, fundraising

23:20

and cultivating the kind of relationships

23:22

with wealthy donors that can fuel

23:24

a movement for years and even

23:27

decades. ProPublica's Andy

23:29

Kroll and Andrea Bernstein have this part

23:31

of the story. One illustration

23:34

of how Leo cultivated relationships among

23:36

donors and justices is a fishing

23:38

trip Justice Samuel Alito

23:40

took to Alaska. It happened

23:43

in 2008, but the world didn't learn about

23:45

it until this year.

23:47

It made a

23:48

splash. A

23:50

new report from

23:51

ProPublica claimed Samuel Alito

23:53

accepted a lavish vacation from

23:55

a conservative billionaire with frequent

23:58

business before the high court.

23:59

See the guy in the red in the middle of the picture

24:02

holding the gigantic fish. That is

24:04

Justice Samuel Alito. Now

24:07

in an unusual move, Alito is defending

24:09

himself in the press, writing in Wall Street

24:11

Journal op-ed that the seat on the plane on

24:13

Paul Singer's private jet would otherwise

24:16

have been unoccupied.

24:18

It was our pro-publica colleagues, Justin

24:20

Elliott, Josh Kaplan, and Alex Meyer-Geske,

24:23

who broke the story. They figured

24:26

out that Alito had taken a flight on a

24:28

private plane paid for by a hedge

24:30

fund manager named Paul Singer. Singer

24:33

and Alito stayed at a fishing lodge

24:35

at the invitation of Californian Robin

24:37

Arkley. He owns a mortgage servicing

24:40

company. Josh says,

24:42

at first it wasn't clear what linked

24:44

Alito and Singer

24:45

and Arkley. Then

24:48

it came to them. The only

24:50

common thread between the prominent

24:53

guests on that trip was that they were all

24:55

connected to Leonard Leo.

24:56

Singer was a big-dollar Federalist Society

24:58

donor. Robin Arkley provided seed

25:01

money for the Judicial Crisis Network, the

25:03

Leo-connected group.

25:05

Leonard Leo himself was on the trip. There's

25:09

a photo of Leo with other guests holding

25:11

a big fish in front of a seaplane. Another

25:14

guest on the outing was a federal judge named Raymond

25:17

Randolph. Leo clerked for him after

25:19

law school.

25:19

And as we were digging on this, we

25:21

learned that Leo actually helped

25:23

organize it. He played an important role in

25:26

connecting Alito with this billionaire.

25:28

Leo was the one that invited the billionaire Singer

25:30

on the trip. Leo asked

25:33

Singer if he and Alito

25:35

could fly there on the billionaire's jet.

25:45

That's Josh's co-reporter, Justin Elliott.

25:48

They got their hands on an email chain.

25:49

in

26:00

New York where Singer lives and

26:03

Singer actually sent an

26:05

email to Leo about this half

26:08

jokingly saying the salmon like

26:10

they've escaped and then Leo

26:13

in turn forwarded that along to another

26:15

donor Sky Rob Arkley who

26:17

owned the fishing lodge where they hosted Alito

26:20

where the fishing trip happened to take

26:22

care of it and get Paul Singer his

26:24

salmon.

26:26

Justice Alito has acknowledged the trip

26:28

and said there was no need to inform the public because

26:31

quote accommodations and transportation

26:33

for social events were not reportable

26:35

gifts. If Alito had chartered

26:38

the plane himself people in the industry

26:40

estimate the flight alone could have cost

26:42

him a hundred thousand dollars

26:44

one way.

26:46

Singer told ProPublica he did not organize

26:48

the trip and did not discuss his business

26:51

with Justice Alito.

26:52

This Alaska trip was the first time Singer

26:55

and Alito met and Alito must have impressed

26:57

Singer because by 2010 he was

26:59

introducing the Justice at a black tie

27:02

dinner. Deserved this evening comes with a lecture

27:04

by one of America's greatest and most

27:07

influential legal minds the honorable

27:09

Samuel Alito. Singer

27:12

calls Alito a quote model quote

27:14

justice. Thank you all very much

27:17

thank you thank you for the very

27:19

warm welcome and thank you Paul for

27:21

the very kind introduction

27:24

how's that can you hear me okay. Alito

27:26

and Singer intersect again in 2014 when Singer

27:29

has a case before the US Supreme Court a

27:32

unit of singers hedge fund had purchased distressed

27:35

Argentinian debt years earlier. Argentina

27:38

is repaying its other creditors pennies on the

27:40

dollar.

27:40

Singer insists his fund must

27:43

be repaid in full. Argentina

27:45

will default on its obligation to

27:47

bondholders tomorrow if nothing changes. Argentina's

27:50

president Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner

27:53

blames the brink'smanship on quote

27:55

vulture capitalists picking at the

27:57

bones of Argentina's economy.

27:59

Paul Singer, the billionaire bondholder

28:02

calling in Argentina's loan, says

28:05

any damage is self-inflicted. Singer

28:07

takes the fight all the way to the U.S.

28:09

Supreme Court, and he prevails.

28:12

Justice Alito votes with the 7-to-1 majority

28:15

in favor of the hedge fund. There

28:17

was quite a bit of press coverage at the time. Justice

28:21

Alito has said he didn't know Singer was

28:23

involved, since Singer, as an individual,

28:26

was not an aimed party to the lawsuit. When

28:29

our colleagues asked Leonard Leo about

28:31

the fishing trip, he said of the justices,

28:34

no objective and well-informed observer

28:37

of the judiciary honestly could believe

28:39

that they, the justices, decide

28:41

cases in order to call favor with friends

28:44

or in return for a free-playing seat

28:46

or fishing trip.

28:48

There's another way to look at the Justice Alito-Leonard

28:50

Leo Paul Singer triangle. Getting

28:53

close to a Supreme Court justice, people in

28:55

Washington have told me, is a huge flex.

28:58

Andrea and I spoke to someone who did this, an

29:00

evangelical minister, the Reverend

29:03

Rob Schenk. He was a long-time anti-abortion

29:05

activist, but came to regret some of his

29:07

tactics. Reverend

29:09

Schenk and Leo were not in the same circle,

29:11

though they worked on the same issues. Schenk

29:13

told us how he first got close to Supreme Court

29:16

justices Thomas and Alito. He

29:18

uses the term feet of clay,

29:20

a biblical reference to weaknesses

29:22

in powerful people.

29:25

It didn't take long

29:27

for me

29:29

to see their feet of clay, but

29:31

it was my experience

29:34

in pastoral work, in

29:36

congregations,

29:38

that helped me to appreciate

29:41

that every human is fragile.

29:44

Every human is corruptible.

29:48

Just because someone dons a rope, just

29:51

because they are one of a rare nine,

29:54

just because they sit

29:56

so far removed from

29:58

average

29:59

people.

30:00

does not make them superhuman. They

30:03

are human in every way.

30:06

He could use that closeness, Schenck says,

30:08

to appeal to donors. How many people

30:10

do you know who have said a prayer with a

30:12

justice in chambers?

30:15

How many people do you know who

30:18

have taken a justice

30:21

on a vacation trip and talked

30:23

into the late night hours

30:26

over a drink, traded stories?

30:29

I'm gonna guess none.

30:32

That's what makes our work unique and

30:34

it makes the impact of our work

30:36

unique.

30:37

As ProPublica has learned,

30:40

Leo himself brought wealthy donors

30:42

to the U.S. Supreme Court, a

30:44

secretive group put together by Paul

30:47

Singer.

30:48

It was March of 2017. This

30:51

is actually an organized group of rich Republican

30:53

donors who meet twice a year. That

30:55

spring, they were in Washington, D.C., and

30:58

Leonard Leo arranged a private meeting with Clarence

31:01

Thomas inside the court. Afterwards,

31:04

the donors, including Paul Singer, were

31:06

treated to a gala dinner inside the Library

31:08

of Congress, which is a beautiful historic

31:10

building right next door.

31:12

A year and a half later, this person

31:14

said, when Brett Kavanaugh, Supreme

31:16

Court nomination, was running into trouble, Leo

31:19

turned to the group of wealthy donors to

31:22

raise money for an ad campaign to counter

31:24

all the negative press. Leonard

31:26

Leo acknowledged the meeting with Thomas at

31:28

the Supreme Court.

31:29

In an email, he said some of the people

31:31

in the group were not his donors.

31:33

But they are thought leaders

31:36

who should know more about the Constitution

31:38

and the rule of law. I was happy

31:40

to arrange for them to hear about these topics

31:43

from one of the best teachers on that I know,

31:45

Clarence Thomas.

31:49

Coming up, what Leo did

31:52

when Congress passed a law that one of

31:54

his donors hated.

31:56

This is on the media.

32:07

Hi there, I'm Rhiannon Giddens, and

32:10

I want to take you somewhere special. I got

32:12

this shiver through my entire

32:14

body. My hair stood on end. That's

32:16

right. We're back with a new season of

32:18

Aria Code, the podcast that celebrates

32:20

the magic of opera,

32:22

from arias that have mesmerized us for centuries

32:24

to the masterpieces

32:25

of today. This is the power

32:27

of art, art either depicting

32:29

life or inspiring

32:32

life. No tux or ticket required.

32:35

Listen to Aria Code, wherever you get podcasts.

32:39

This is On the Media. I'm Brooke Ladstone.

32:41

With more of our series, we don't

32:43

talk about Leonard. Before

32:46

the break, we learned how Leonard Leo

32:48

used his closeness to some Supreme Court

32:50

justices to cultivate big donors

32:53

like billionaire Paul Singer and

32:56

how Leo promoted legal talent

32:58

like Lawrence Van Dyke. Those

33:01

two streams, Donor Money

33:03

and Legal Firepower, joined

33:05

forces about a decade ago. Singer

33:08

was angry about policies made in Washington.

33:11

Leo activated his network in the States

33:14

against those policies.

33:18

Here's how it happens. You

33:20

remember the financial meltdown of 2008? Shock

33:23

and panic, evidence on the faces of

33:25

those on the trading floor. In response,

33:27

there was an overhaul of banking rules designed

33:29

to prevent another crisis. These reforms

33:32

represent the strongest

33:34

consumer financial protections in history.

33:37

The new laws spurred a powerful, long-lasting

33:40

counter-reaction. The Tea Party,

33:42

forged in frustration, fed up

33:44

in fighting mad. The Tea

33:46

Party movement embodied the popular

33:48

outcry, but a more targeted

33:50

campaign came from people like Paul

33:52

Singer. Did Doc Frank create

33:55

a safer system? No. He

33:57

created a more brittle system.

33:59

in 2011.

34:01

Singer chops and pinches the air with

34:03

precision. He rarely cracks a joke.

34:06

He assumes his Federalist society audience

34:08

knows exactly what he's talking about, as

34:10

he delivers a broadside against new powers

34:13

granted to regulators, including the FDIC,

34:16

to dissolve financial institutions on the

34:18

brink of failure. That's called

34:21

Orderly Liquidation Authority. Singer

34:23

uses the acronym, OLA.

34:26

The FDIC can seize companies

34:28

that are in danger of default, not which

34:30

have defaulted. The whole process

34:33

of throwing a company into the OLA

34:35

is very truncated, a day or two. It's

34:37

really unreviewable because of that truncation.

34:40

Before the financial crisis, Singer warned

34:43

about the risks of subprime mortgages.

34:46

Now he says the danger is bad

34:48

regulation. What the ironically names

34:50

Orderly Liquidation Authority will do is

34:53

create a much

34:55

more intense and powerful effect

34:58

than even 2008, a black hole

35:00

in the next crisis. I do not look forward

35:02

to if and when this procedure

35:06

is contemplated or thought

35:08

to be on the horizon. That

35:10

was in late 2011. Singer

35:12

didn't just give speeches.

35:15

In 2012, he and Leonard Leo

35:17

scheduled a conference call with the

35:19

then Attorney General of Texas, Greg Abbott.

35:21

He's now the governor. Leo actually

35:23

had three meetings on the calendar with Abbott

35:26

in the space of just a few months. One

35:28

of them was described as phone call,

35:30

Dodd-Frank issue. We

35:33

know all this from records obtained by the group Accountable

35:35

by US. A small Texas

35:37

bank sued to block the Dodd-Frank law.

35:40

Their lawyers were also invited. Not

35:43

long after, Texas joined this

35:45

small bank's lawsuit as a co-plaintiff. 10

35:48

other Republican H.Es went along as well.

35:51

They also added a new argument, Orderly

35:54

Liquidation Authority, Paul Singer's

35:56

bugaboo. They said it violated the Constitution

35:59

on multiple points. including separation

36:01

of powers and the Fifth Amendment, which

36:03

guarantees due process. One

36:06

of the states that joined the suit was Montana,

36:09

which meant Solicitor General Lawrence

36:11

Van Dyke became one of the lawyers on the case.

36:14

A person with knowledge told us that before

36:16

Montana joined, Leonard Leo called

36:18

Attorney General Tim Fox. The

36:21

person who worked for Fox was emphatic

36:23

that Montana would not have joined the challenge

36:26

to the new banking law without Leo's

36:28

push.

36:32

Fox went on

36:34

the radio and said it was about standing up for

36:36

Main Street. What we're seeking to do is

36:38

protect Montana's interests and

36:41

the little guy in all of this. You know, that

36:43

Dodd-Frank bill came out of Congress

36:46

as a reaction to the 2008 financial crisis, and

36:50

many have called it an overreach of the

36:52

federal government.

36:53

Others did not see it that way. One

36:56

Republican AG who didn't join the case told

36:58

us it wasn't critical to his state's

37:00

interests. A high-ranking person in

37:02

Texas said, Greg Abbott's office told us

37:05

they didn't believe the suit was well-founded and thought

37:07

it would likely fail. Other

37:09

parts of Leo's network did get active,

37:11

though. In its annual tax return,

37:14

the Judicial Crisis Network reported spending

37:16

money on media, quote, surrounding

37:18

the filing of a lawsuit over the Dodd-Frank

37:20

law.

37:21

When Indiana's Republican Attorney General

37:23

did not sign on to this lawsuit, The

37:26

Washington Times ran an opinion piece by

37:28

JCN's policy counsel, speculating

37:31

that Indiana's AG may have been

37:33

motivated by, quote, strong alliances

37:36

with Wall Street banks. In 2015,

37:39

the skeptics of this lawsuit were proven right.

37:43

A federal judge tossed the challenge to

37:45

orderly liquidation authority, and

37:47

the AGs dropped out of the case. It

37:49

was a law. But consider

37:51

this. The chief legal officers

37:53

of 11 states, and we know states make

37:56

great plaintiffs, opposed a law

37:58

that a billionaire federalist's side- donor

38:00

despised. The argument against

38:03

orderly liquidation authority was considered

38:05

by a federal appeals court, the last

38:07

stop before the Supreme Court. Paul

38:10

Singer did not respond to our questions

38:12

about this. Greg Abbott, the former

38:14

attorney general and current governor of Texas,

38:17

did not respond to a request for comment. Former

38:20

Montana attorney general Tim Fox declined

38:22

an interview. Leonard Leo wrote in

38:24

response to our questions that he favored a

38:26

challenge to an agency created by the Dodd-Frank

38:29

law, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau,

38:31

quote, because the CFPB violated

38:34

the separation of powers and the checks and balances

38:37

set forth in the Constitution. He

38:39

told us he didn't remember a phone call with Texas

38:41

HE Greg Abbott and Paul Singer. And

38:44

he didn't remember calling Tim Fox to urge

38:46

him to join the suit. I called a former

38:48

aide to Fox to ask about Leo's

38:50

role in setting policy in that office.

38:53

He declined to go on the record. But before

38:56

hanging up on me, he whispered two words,

38:59

puppet master. By

39:03

the time the D.C. Court of Appeals denies 11

39:06

states challenge to orderly liquidation authority,

39:09

the political winds have shifted dramatically.

39:12

Donald Trump is running for president. He's

39:14

well ahead in the race for the Republican nomination

39:17

in February of 2016,

39:19

when Justice Antonin Scalia dies of a heart

39:21

attack while on a quail hunting trip in

39:23

Texas. President Obama

39:25

picks what he regards as a safe choice,

39:28

confirmable even for some Republicans.

39:30

Today, I am nominating Chief Judge Merrick

39:33

Brian Garland

39:35

to join the Supreme Court. Leo's

39:37

judicial clause does not work response by pouring

39:40

money into radio and television ads attacking

39:42

Maryland. Like the ads to support

39:44

Alito and Roberts they ran a decade earlier.

39:47

These messages are meant to define the debate

39:49

before it begins. Obama

39:51

and his liberal allies have been working hard to paint

39:54

Garland as a moderate for the Supreme Court.

39:56

But there is no painting over the truth.

39:59

This would be the tie-breaking

40:00

vote for Obama's big government liberalism.

40:03

The Second Amendment right to keep and bear

40:05

arms? Gutted. Partial

40:07

birth abortion? Legalized.

40:10

The Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell refuses

40:13

to hold a vote. The next president will

40:15

be making this choice. The people will

40:17

decide who should be the

40:20

appointing authority. So no, he will not be

40:23

considered by the Senate.

40:25

A decade earlier, Leonard Leo sharply

40:28

attacked the Missouri plan, a system

40:30

for selecting state court judges in a nonpartisan

40:33

way. That effort failed. This

40:35

time, the strong army, the willingness

40:37

to blow up norms to achieve goals?

40:40

It succeeds.

40:41

The choice of the next Supreme Court justice

40:44

will fall not to the current president,

40:46

but to the next one.

40:48

With his unloyally racist rhetoric,

40:50

candidate Donald Trump makes a lot of people

40:53

in the conservative legal crowd uncomfortable.

40:55

But Leonard Leo meets with Donald Trump. And

40:58

something happens. Trump emerges

41:00

from that meeting with a list. A

41:02

list of judges he says he will draw from in appointing

41:05

the next Supreme Court justice. He

41:07

brags about it, like he himself has

41:09

just been credentialed. In a way

41:12

he has. And I'm appointing, you know, you

41:14

saw the 11 names I gave, and we're

41:16

going to have great judges, conservative, all picked

41:18

by federalist society. With this

41:20

list, Leonard Leo, who for so long

41:23

stayed out of the spotlight, becomes a

41:25

character of interest to the news media. And

41:27

he gives interviews. Joining me now, Leonard Leo,

41:30

attorney, judicial adviser to the president.

41:32

Leonard Leo, welcome to Firing

41:34

Line. There's sort of no

41:37

pulling the wool over the American people's eyes. President Trump

41:39

is quite straightforward. Leonard Leo, can

41:41

you share with us how this list came about

41:43

and how you decide who should make the

41:45

list? Well, the list was the president's idea.

41:47

I told him that no one had ever done it before,

41:50

but it was.

41:50

I think Leonard Leo made

41:52

a calculated

41:53

choice to come

41:55

out in front

41:57

of this issue in 2016.

41:59

professor Amanda Hollis-Bruskey

42:02

is the author of a book about the Federalist Society

42:04

titled Ideas with Consequences.

42:07

And I think that

42:09

choice reflects what he

42:11

and other members on the conservative side

42:14

thought was a fork in the

42:16

road.

42:17

Where if Hillary had won that election and filled

42:20

that Supreme Court seat, we end up with perhaps

42:23

the most progressive court

42:24

since the Warren group. And this

42:26

kind of catastrophic thinking

42:29

led Leonard Leo to

42:32

make the calculation that he would

42:34

get out in front of it because it would

42:36

benefit Trump to have

42:39

folks who would otherwise be never

42:41

Trampers

42:43

see him standing alongside

42:45

the president and know that

42:47

they were

42:47

voting for the courts.

42:50

Trump himself has said the list of judges

42:52

helped him win the presidency, but

42:54

it made some Federalist Society insiders

42:56

queasy. I saw the

42:59

repeated references to

43:01

the Federalist Society list as

43:04

a kind of existential threat to

43:07

the organization. Andrew

43:09

Redleaf goes way back with the founders

43:11

of the Federalist Society. They were his

43:13

close friends in college. I mean,

43:15

that became sort of my primary

43:18

social circle at Yale. Andrew

43:21

Redleaf went on to a successful career

43:23

in finance. In a typical year, he might donate $100,000

43:26

to the Federalist Society with

43:28

his wife, Lynn. Sometimes they'd give as

43:30

much as $300,000. You

43:32

can see Redleaf's name right there with Paul Singers

43:35

in the annual list of top donors. In 2016,

43:39

Lynn and Andrew Redleaf are seriously

43:41

questioning their philanthropic choices. I

43:45

was an original never Trumper.

43:48

So when Trump comes out with the list, the

43:50

Redleafs are horrified. Redleaf

43:52

makes a dinner date to see the president of the

43:54

Federalist Society, Eugene Meyer, who happens

43:57

to be an old friend. And I suggested to

43:59

him.

43:59

that they really needed to

44:02

treat this as a PR crisis. And

44:06

I strongly suggest that

44:08

Leonard couldn't really come back.

44:11

— Redleaf even offers help in hiring

44:13

a crisis PR specialist to distance

44:15

the Federalist Society from Elio's support

44:18

of Trump.

44:19

The Federalist Society do not do

44:21

this. — I suspect that a significant

44:24

portion of their support now wants

44:27

them to be the organization

44:29

that advocates for the confirmation

44:32

of conservative judges or

44:34

that that's staffing

44:37

for various agencies.

44:39

And I think a significant portion

44:42

of their base is there

44:44

because of Leonard. — Redleaf

44:47

asked that his name be removed from the Federalist

44:49

Society

44:49

Board of Visitors. The

44:51

Federalist Society did not respond to our

44:53

questions.

44:55

Leonard Leo told us in a statement,

44:57

the Federalist Society today is

44:59

larger, more well-funded, and

45:01

more relied upon by the media and thought leaders

45:04

than ever before, adding, quote,

45:06

so much for Mr. Redleaf's existential

45:08

threat. Leonard Leo

45:10

did sort of step away from the Federalist

45:13

Society to advise President Trump. Amanda

45:16

Hollis-Bruskey calls this move a

45:18

Jedi Mind Trick.

45:19

— And the Jedi Mind Trick is that

45:22

we're all supposed to believe that he is on leave

45:24

from the Federalist Society and that that is meaningful

45:27

in some way. It means he's not acting

45:30

on behalf of the Federalist Society. It means he is

45:32

not making decisions

45:34

that are consistent with the Federalist Society's

45:37

agenda, principles, and priorities.

45:41

But because we're not subject to

45:43

the Jedi Mind Control, we

45:45

can look with our eyes and see that that's exactly

45:47

what he's doing.

45:48

— Leonard Leo, thank you for being here. We had a

45:51

list that you worked on very hard. — Leo

45:53

never takes a formal role with the Trump administration,

45:56

but he makes his mark early,

45:57

even before Trump is sworn in in December...

45:59

2016, Leo sounds out

46:02

a judge on the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals,

46:04

Neil Gorsuch, to fill the vacant seat

46:06

on the Supreme Court. He was on candidate

46:08

Trump's second list of possible justices.

46:11

Gorsuch wrote in his Senate questionnaire, on

46:14

about December 2nd, 2016, I was contacted by

46:16

Leonard Leo, who was working with the president

46:19

elect transition team regarding the

46:21

Supreme Court vacancy. I had additional

46:23

follow up communications with Mr. Leo shortly

46:26

thereafter.

46:28

After being tapped by Leo, Gorsuch

46:30

is interviewed by incoming White House counsel

46:32

Don McGahn, who himself is a longtime

46:34

Federalist Society member. Then

46:37

he's nominated and confirmed to a

46:39

lifetime seat on the high court by the Senate.

46:42

The pattern repeats. Leo is influencing

46:44

not only Supreme Court nominations,

46:47

but also the choices for federal judges at

46:49

all levels.

46:50

By the end of 2020, Trump has appointed 28%

46:54

of all sitting federal judges. More

46:56

than half of these new judges are Federalist

46:58

Society members. President Trump

47:01

began his term having to fill 150 vacancies

47:03

in the federal

47:05

courts. The Senate confirming it's 200th

47:07

judge of the Trump administration.

47:09

There has been one constant in the

47:11

Trump administration, a steady

47:13

stream of the president's judicial nominees

47:15

to federal courts from one end of the country

47:18

to the other. You know what I got in, we

47:21

had over 100 federal

47:24

judges that weren't appointed. I don't

47:26

know why Obama left that. It was

47:28

like a big beautiful president to all of

47:30

us. Why the hell did he leave him?

47:32

In 2019, Trump

47:33

makes yet another nomination

47:35

to the federal bench. Thank you Chairman Graham,

47:38

Ranking Member Feinstein, and committee members. Thank

47:40

you. The former Solicitor General of Nevada

47:42

and Montana, bobblehead owner, Lawrence

47:45

Van Dyke. I'm deeply honored and grateful

47:47

to be before this committee today, and

47:49

I want to thank the president for the honor of this nomination.

47:52

His path from Montana to here looks

47:54

like this. After complaining that he

47:56

didn't have enough say over what cases to take, Van

47:59

Dyke quit his

47:59

solicitor job to run for state Supreme

48:02

Court. Hi, I'm Lawrence Van Dyke, and I'm

48:04

running for the Montana Supreme Court. You know,

48:06

most Montanans are understandably fed up with

48:08

an overreaching federal government. As a fifth

48:10

generation- The Federalist Society hosted the only

48:12

public forum for candidates. Dark

48:15

money poured into the race, Van Dyke

48:17

lost. But

48:19

he wasn't out of work for long. Leo

48:21

made at least one call to an AG. Van

48:24

Dyke soon became solicitor general in Nevada.

48:27

There, Van Dyke gets a court injunction to block

48:29

expanded overtime pay. He joins a friend

48:31

of the court brief on supporting religion in the

48:33

public square and against greenhouse

48:35

gas regulation. Much more

48:37

than in Montana, Van Dyke is simpatico

48:40

with Nevada's conservative AG. One

48:42

former colleague told us Van Dyke could have done what

48:44

he did in Nevada in any state with

48:47

an attorney general who happened to want

48:49

to push a Federalist Society

48:51

agenda. When that job

48:53

ends, Van Dyke goes to the Department of Justice

48:56

briefly in the Environment and Natural Resources

48:58

Division, where he defends Trump policies,

49:01

undoing earlier efforts to limit

49:03

the emissions that cause climate change. This

49:06

is his job when President Trump nominates

49:09

him to the federal bench. To the Senate

49:11

Judiciary Committee, Van Dyke presents

49:13

himself as a Westerner and a bit of an outsider.

49:15

I followed in my father's footsteps and got degrees

49:17

in engineering and management and worked in the family business.

49:21

And it was only later in life, after Cheryl and

49:23

I had children, that we made the momentous decision

49:25

to drive a U-Haul there across the United States

49:27

to attend Harvard Law School. What

49:29

a culture shock for a family from the rural West.

49:32

He's confirmed to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.

49:35

Thank you all. Congratulations. And that will conclude

49:37

the hearing. Once on the bench, Van Dyke

49:39

quickly gets a reputation for abrasiveness.

49:42

The New Republic calls him the rude

49:44

Trump judge who's writing, the most bonkers

49:46

opinions in America. In

49:48

one COVID lockdown's case, Van Dyke opines

49:50

that in a crisis, access to guns can

49:53

be considered a, quote, strong moral

49:55

check on government power. I kind

49:57

of thought when I became a judge, you know, the days of

49:59

advocacy. advocacy are over.

50:02

Lawrence Van Dyke on the podcast, Regulatory

50:05

Oversight. But there's several things in

50:07

our court that I think actually means that your

50:09

days of advocacy are not over when you become a judge, at

50:11

least on the Ninth Circuit. Like, do you think this case is wrong? And

50:14

you're trying to convince your colleagues of that. So if you

50:16

have people out there like, you know, I

50:17

would try to become a judge, but I just enjoy

50:20

advocacy too much. Well, come to the Ninth Circuit.

50:22

In September of 2020, President

50:24

Trump releases a new list of possible

50:27

nominees for the U.S. Supreme Court. It's

50:29

his fourth. Our chair's rights

50:31

are at risk, including the right

50:34

to life and our great Second Amendment.

50:36

It's now the height of the presidential race. So

50:39

each of these names is a kind of campaign promise.

50:41

The 20 additions I am announcing

50:44

today would be Juris and the Mold,

50:47

Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence

50:50

Thomas, and Samuel Alito.

50:54

Their names are as follows.

50:58

Bridget Bady

51:00

of Arizona, Judge

51:03

on the Ninth Circuit. By the time Trump comes to the

51:05

end of the alphabet, more than a third of the

51:07

names are alumni of state attorney general

51:09

offices. Lawrence Van Dyke

51:11

of Nevada, Judge on

51:14

the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. Lawrence

51:17

Van Dyke had been a federal judge for all

51:19

of nine months. Now he was being talked

51:21

about for the United States Supreme Court.

51:24

And the first thing I thought was, well, I

51:26

thought of Leonard Leo Bobblehead. And

51:28

Leonard Leo. Mike Black, Leo's

51:30

law school classmate and colleague of Lawrence

51:32

Van Dyke in the Montana Attorney General's office.

51:35

You don't end up on that list of

51:38

potential Supreme Court justices put out

51:40

by President Trump without

51:42

Leonard Leo's blessing. Given

51:44

the position that Lawrence is in, I

51:47

mean, it's deductive reasoning. What

51:50

do you got on that list because of water?

51:59

I don't think.

51:59

Leonard Leo moves his family

52:02

to an idyllic coastal village in Maine,

52:04

where his vision for American society

52:07

collides with American society.

52:10

He was writing your name on the sidewalk

52:13

as you were jogging by. Yes.

52:14

Yes. Again, how

52:16

completely surreal is that?

52:18

That's next week, in the final

52:20

episode of We Don't Talk

52:22

About Leonard.

52:25

This series is reported by

52:27

Andrea Bernstein,

52:28

Andy Kroll, and Ilya Merritt,

52:30

and edited by OTM executive producer

52:33

Katja Rogers and ProPublica's Jesse

52:36

Isengar. Molly Rosen is

52:38

the lead producer with help from Sean Merchant.

52:41

Jennifer Munson is our technical director.

52:44

Jared Paul wrote and recorded all the

52:46

original music. Our fact checkers

52:48

are Andrea Marks

52:49

and Hannah Murphy-Winter. We'd

52:51

like to say some thank yous to people who helped us

52:53

to report this series. Anjanette

52:55

Damon, Lynn Donbeck, Doris Burke, Justin

52:58

Elliott, Josh Kaplan, Alex Meyer-Jeski,

53:00

Ken Schwenke, John Adams, Mara Silvers,

53:03

David Armiac in the Center for Media and Democracy,

53:06

the Campaign for Accountability, Accountable.US,

53:10

and many, many people from the world

53:12

Leonard Leo has moved in who didn't wish

53:14

to be named. Tracy Weber is the

53:16

managing editor, and Steve Engelberg

53:18

is the editor-in-chief of ProPublica. I'm

53:21

Ilya Merritt.

53:31

Thank

53:44

you.