0:00

Hello, Trump Inc. listeners. It's Andrea Bernstein.

0:02

It's been great to be back with you. And now,

0:05

drumroll please, episode

0:07

three of We Don't Talk About Leonard, the

0:10

new audio series Ilya Meretz and I have been working

0:12

on for ProPublica and on the media. It's

0:15

about a conservative legal philosopher general

0:17

named Leonard Leo. You

0:20

might know his name because he was Trump's judge

0:22

whisperer, but Leo is so,

0:25

so much more powerful than that. As

0:27

we found, his influence stretches

0:29

to state Supreme courts and attorneys

0:32

general to the whole of American

0:34

culture. To report

0:36

this story, Ilya and I teamed up with ProPublica's

0:39

Andy Kroll, an investigative reporter

0:41

who's been breaking stories on Leo. And

0:44

the three of us dug deep.

0:46

If you haven't listened to episodes one and

0:48

two, well, go back and listen.

0:50

Here's the final installment. We

0:53

begin with on the media's Brooke

0:55

Gladstone.

0:57

Millions of dark

1:00

money dollars are pouring into judicial races

1:02

across the country, changing the

1:04

way judges are elected and

1:07

how they preside. Suddenly

1:09

there were millions of dollars being put

1:11

in.

1:11

Bad for the system. It's

1:13

bad for democracy. From WNYC

1:16

in New York. This is on the media. I'm Brooke

1:18

Gladstone. This week, what conservative

1:21

power broker Leonard Leo is

1:23

doing with one of the largest political

1:25

donations in American history.

1:27

After one lunch, you

1:30

can put different kinds of capital together to

1:32

go out into the world and basically wreck shop.

1:34

And Leo's vision for American

1:37

society collides with American

1:40

society. And there is

1:43

Leonard Leo himself with a security guard

1:45

standing there, chalking my name. He

1:47

was writing your name on the sidewalk as

1:49

you were jogging by. Yes. How

1:51

completely surreal is that? It's

1:54

all coming up after this.

1:58

From WNYC in New. This

2:00

is on the media. I'm Brooke Gladstone.

2:05

The first week in October, the liberal

2:07

majority on Wisconsin's state Supreme

2:10

Court agreed to hear a case about the

2:12

state's legislative districts, drawn

2:14

up by Republican lawmakers back in 2011.

2:18

And in agreeing to hear one of

2:20

the most disputed gerrymandering

2:23

cases in the country, they also

2:25

reignited a simmering threat. Wisconsin

2:28

Supreme Court Justice Janet Protosewicz

2:30

remains under the threat of impeachment by

2:32

legislative Republicans and Assembly Speaker

2:35

Robin Voss, who has now created

2:37

a secret panel of former

2:38

Supreme Court justices to

2:40

study the legal issues surrounding the process

2:43

of impeachment. Justice Protosewicz

2:45

was elected to the Wisconsin Supreme

2:47

Court last April and started her term

2:50

in August. Before she was elected,

2:52

she'd made some public comments suggesting

2:55

that the current electoral mops were

2:57

rigged. Absolutely positively

2:59

rigged. They do not reflect

3:02

the people in the seat. And now.

3:05

Republicans are saying if she agrees

3:07

to hear a redistricting case but

3:09

does not recuse herself that that would constitute

3:12

corrupt conduct in office.

3:14

This week, two former Wisconsin

3:16

Supreme Court justices were asked

3:18

to weigh in on the legality of

3:20

the impeachment plan. Their opinion,

3:23

Protosewicz had not committed

3:25

a crime or corrupt conduct

3:27

that would warrant such an extreme measure.

3:30

So, state Republicans

3:32

were thwarted, for now, in

3:34

their efforts to unseat the justice. But

3:37

the threat of impeachment has loomed

3:40

ever since her short tenure began.

3:43

What's happening in Wisconsin is

3:45

an especially stark example of how

3:48

state courts are becoming increasingly

3:51

theaters of political war. But

3:53

in Wisconsin, the judiciary has

3:55

long been a partisan battlefield.

4:00

third and final installment of

4:02

We Don't Talk About Leonard, our

4:05

series made in collaboration with ProPublica.

4:07

We examine the corrosive influence

4:10

of money on judicial races and

4:12

ponder what's Leo planning

4:15

for the future? The reporters

4:17

Andrea Bernstein and Andy Kroll are

4:20

our guides for this episode. Andrea

4:22

is at first

4:23

with more on the Wisconsin situation.

4:28

Leonard was one of the first states Leonard, Leo

4:30

and the Federalist Society got involved with

4:33

in around 2007. That

4:35

was the same time they were unsuccessfully

4:38

trying to upend Missouri's nonpartisan

4:41

judicial selection plan. It

4:43

was designed to take politics out of

4:45

judicial selection. The plan

4:47

pushed the court to the center, something

4:50

Leo opposed. Leo

4:52

lost in Missouri, but he did not

4:55

give up on state courts. They were

4:57

too tempting a target. In

4:59

contrast to the power they wield, for

5:01

example, ruling on voting districts,

5:04

on gubernatorial edicts and abortion

5:06

bans, they're pretty low profile.

5:10

A little can go a long way when you want

5:12

to change the composition of the courts.

5:13

Take

5:15

Florida, where Leo

5:17

did figure out how to influence state judicial

5:19

selections. As soon as he

5:21

was elected in 2018, Governor

5:23

Ron DeSantis, a Federalist

5:25

Society member since law school, brought

5:27

in Leo to lead a secret panel that

5:30

reviewed recommendations by the state's

5:32

public judicial commission. The

5:34

Florida Supreme Court now has a six

5:36

to one conservative

5:37

majority. So that's judicial

5:40

selections. In this episode,

5:42

we're looking at judicial elections. These

5:45

are what Pomona College professor, Amanda

5:47

Halas-Bruski, author of Ideas with Consequences,

5:51

the Federalist Society in the Conservative Counter-Revolution,

5:54

describes as low-information elections.

5:57

These are ripe for influence.

5:59

from outside parties who would like to

6:02

see certain decisions go certain ways and

6:05

can use these judicial elections

6:07

to populate the state with judges

6:10

who are going to rule the way they want them to rule.

6:12

Judicial elections have led to results

6:14

that have helped erode democracy in some

6:16

states already. According to a University

6:19

of Washington study that ranks the health

6:21

of democracies in individual

6:22

states, in the last

6:24

two decades, North

6:25

Carolina and Wisconsin

6:27

have plummeted from

6:29

two of the highest scoring states to

6:32

scraping the bottom. Leonard

6:34

Leo played his part in making that

6:36

happen. When you have a policy

6:38

agenda and a policy platform

6:41

that is not appealing to the majority

6:43

of Americans, then the courts become

6:45

a very attractive venue

6:47

for carrying out your policy agenda.

6:50

Like an abortion. It's not just policymaking

6:53

through the courts. It's policymaking

6:55

through the courts

6:56

that then feeds back into

6:59

the machinery of democracy in ways

7:01

that favor Republican electoral

7:04

outcomes. I'm going to describe

7:05

a recent event, one that looked like

7:07

a defeat for Leo.

7:09

And it was, but it was also

7:12

a victory. Stay with me. You'll

7:15

see why. The

7:18

most expensive case Supreme

7:21

Court race in US history ended

7:23

the night of April 4th,

7:25

At least $51 million were

7:28

spent, including millions

7:30

from groups associated with Leo. Because

7:33

of IRS rules, we won't know how much for years.

7:36

We may not ever know exactly who

7:38

gave all that money, but we do

7:40

know that Leonard Leo personally

7:42

donated $20,000, the maximum allowable. To

7:46

the campaign of the conservative candidate, Dan

7:48

Kelly. Kelly had served once

7:51

before as a justice. And his opinion

7:53

set the profile of the kind of candidate Leo

7:55

supports against

7:56

abortion and same sex marriage against

7:59

restriction.

7:59

on businesses and gun ownership. Kelly

8:03

had also aligned himself with those

8:05

rejecting the outcome of the 2020 presidential

8:07

election. I wish that in a circumstance like this,

8:10

I would

8:11

be able to concede to a worthy opponent.

8:13

That early night in April, the night

8:15

of the election in Wisconsin, Kelly

8:17

takes the podium with a tight smile

8:20

that

8:20

looks like a frown. But I do

8:22

not have a worthy opponent to

8:24

which I can concede. I threw that.

8:25

Kelly gives

8:28

an unusual concession speech, one

8:30

that accuses his opponent of

8:33

doing what critics said he had done, threatening

8:36

the nature of the judiciary and

8:38

democracy itself.

8:39

My opponent is a serial

8:42

liar. She's disregarded

8:45

judicial ethics. She's

8:47

demeaned the judiciary with

8:50

her behavior. And this is the

8:52

future that we have to look forward to in Wisconsin.

8:56

No partisan labels were attached to the candidates,

8:59

but both the Republican and Democratic parties

9:01

made clear who they were supporting. It

9:04

was understood that if Kelly won, he would

9:06

likely join opinions outlawing abortion,

9:08

uphold political maps that

9:10

favored Republicans,

9:10

and possibly rule

9:13

for the GOP in a case determining the

9:15

outcome of the 2024 presidential

9:17

election. And that if his

9:19

opponent, Janet Proteziah, was won,

9:22

she would likely do the opposite. He

9:25

wraps up his speech,

9:25

sighing and pursing his

9:27

lips. And I wish Wisconsin would drop

9:30

the block.

9:32

So I think it's going to do. Thank

9:34

you.

9:37

For years,

9:38

Leo had made a project of Wisconsin in

9:40

general, and Dan Kelly in particular.

9:44

It started when Leo and the Federalist Society

9:47

launched the State Courts Project and

9:49

metaphorically put a red circle around

9:51

the state of Wisconsin. The Federalist

9:53

Society said in a 2007 annual report that

9:57

Wisconsin faced an election of some

9:59

consequence.

10:00

In early 2008, a Wisconsin

10:02

conservative named Michael Gableman challenged

10:05

a sitting justice,

10:06

Lewis Butler.

10:08

Butler had voted on a lead paint

10:10

liability case that outraged

10:12

a big Wisconsin business group, Wisconsin

10:15

Manufacturers and Commerce. Yeah,

10:17

I just thought it was an awful race. It was so

10:20

different than what we had seen. This

10:22

is Justice Janine Gaski. Now,

10:24

she's a professor at Marquette University Law

10:27

School. But back in the 90s, she

10:29

served as a Wisconsin State Supreme

10:31

Court Justice. I'm conservative

10:33

in the sense that I don't think we should

10:36

be uprooting laws and changing

10:38

precedent unless there's

10:39

a huge reason to do it, and

10:42

we should do it carefully and slowly.

10:44

Like many Wisconsin justices, Gaski

10:47

was named to fill a vacancy, in her case,

10:49

by a Republican governor. She says

10:51

the Gableman-Butler race was a real turning

10:53

point for Wisconsin. Suddenly there were

10:56

millions of dollars being put in. That

10:58

was new. The race was fraught, racially

11:01

charged. Gableman

11:02

supporters targeted Butler, who is black,

11:05

with a barrage of ads suggesting he was soft

11:07

on crime. Lewis Butler worked

11:10

to put criminals on the street. One commercial

11:12

run by Gableman's

11:13

own campaign showed the mugshot

11:15

of a convicted rapist next to

11:17

a picture of Justice Butler. Can

11:19

Wisconsin families feel safe with Lewis

11:21

Butler on the Supreme Court?

11:24

To have those two pictures of black men

11:26

right next to each other, one sex

11:28

offender, one a justice on the Wisconsin

11:30

Supreme Court, took our breath

11:33

away most of

11:33

us looking at that thinking, what have we

11:35

descended to? Among Gableman's

11:38

backers,

11:39

Leonard Leo.

11:42

These were early days for Leo. He was just building

11:45

his network. And it was years before

11:47

Citizens United unleashed rivers

11:49

of money into campaigns. But

11:51

according to a person close to Gableman's campaign,

11:55

Leo had a big influence. This

11:57

person told me Leo had a list of wealthy

11:59

donors.

11:59

owners passed along to the campaign.

12:02

The list came with instructions to call

12:04

the donors and quote, tell them Leonard

12:07

told you to call each donor

12:09

on the list. This person said, gave

12:11

the maximum. When we asked

12:13

him about this, we have declined to comment.

12:20

Gableman won. This was

12:22

the first time a state Supreme Court challenger

12:24

had unseated an incumbent in Wisconsin

12:27

in 40

12:27

years. Lewis Butler blames

12:30

his loss in part on the negative

12:32

attack ads from third party groups.

12:34

It's my hope and my prayer

12:37

that Wisconsin never has to see a race

12:39

like we just went

12:41

through. In 2010, Republicans turned to

12:43

Leo again, according to emails.

12:46

This time it was to help elected justice who

12:48

could back Governor Scott Walker.

12:49

We've heard it before. Liberal

12:52

judges letting criminals off on technicalities.

12:54

Here's an ad from that race for judge.

12:57

This man had a long criminal history, including

13:00

beating his wife in front of their two year old.

13:02

The conservative judge won

13:05

Walker state in power.

13:06

Leo declined to comment on his involvement

13:08

in this

13:09

race. By this time

13:11

Democrats are responding in kind, running

13:14

their own attack

13:14

ads. What did David Prosser call

13:17

one of America's most respected judges?

13:19

He called her a total.

13:22

The year after that race record show

13:24

money from Leo related groups

13:27

finds its way to Wisconsin. The judicial

13:29

crisis network, JCN,

13:32

the dark money group that's been so closely

13:34

tied to Leo's ambitions gives

13:36

hundreds of thousands of dollars to conservative

13:39

and business groups that spend heavily on Wisconsin

13:41

court fights. Leo says he

13:44

doesn't remember this happening. Around

13:46

this time is when Dan Kelly enters the scene,

13:49

a graduate of the devoutly Christian Regent

13:51

University Law School and an attorney

13:53

for an anti-abortion group and the Republican

13:56

party. Kelly becomes president

13:58

of the Milwaukee lawyers chapter of the Federalist

14:00

Society. He travels to Washington

14:02

for Federalist Society conferences. He

14:04

becomes close to Leo and his team.

14:07

When we asked Leo about this, he said,

14:10

quote, I have known Dan Kelly

14:12

for a number

14:12

of years.

14:16

In 2016, there's a vacancy

14:18

on the Wisconsin

14:19

Supreme Court, and

14:20

Republican Governor Scott Walker gets

14:22

to choose who fills out the term. There

14:25

are three finalists, two Court of Appeals judges,

14:27

and Kelly, who at the time had never

14:30

been a judge.

14:31

Then Leo stepped in and said, it's

14:33

going to be Dan Kelly, a person

14:35

familiar with the selection process told me, adding,

14:38

there is zero question in my

14:40

mind. The Federalist Society put

14:42

the hammer down.

14:46

Two

14:46

other Wisconsin Republicans who learned

14:48

of the intervention at the time confirmed this

14:50

account to me. Walker told

14:52

me in a voicemail message that he never discussed

14:55

judicial appointments with Leonard Leo while

14:57

he was governor. Leo says he

14:59

doesn't remember

14:59

if he urged Walker to appoint Kelly. Kelly

15:02

did not respond to requests for comment.

15:05

Dan Kelly

15:06

gets the job. Thank

15:08

you, Governor Walker, specifically for the

15:10

appointment. This is an exceptional

15:13

honor.

15:13

In 2017, 2018, 2019, really big money from Leo's judicial crisis network

15:21

starts to flow into multiple Wisconsin

15:23

Supreme Court races, millions

15:26

of dollars. Some of it ends up in

15:28

TV ads

15:29

aimed at swaying Wisconsin voters.

15:32

Radical out

15:32

of state special interest groups are pouring

15:35

millions into

15:35

Wisconsin trying to buy. J.C. and Dan

15:37

respond to our questions.

15:40

Go vote for Justice Daniel

15:42

Kelly to defend the

15:44

rule of law in Wisconsin. Daniel

15:47

Kelly. In April of 2020, it's time

15:49

for Kelly to run for election

15:51

for the seat he was given by appointment.

15:54

It's a complicated political year.

15:56

Kelly loses. Then

15:58

he goes to work for the state Republican Party.

15:59

is their attorney.

16:01

When Trump loses his second run for

16:03

the presidency,

16:03

Kelly gets involved in Trump's

16:06

efforts to overturn the election. Wisconsin's 10

16:08

Republican electors secretly met

16:11

at the Capitol in December 2020, trying

16:13

to submit false paperwork claiming Donald

16:16

Trump won Wisconsin instead of Joe

16:18

Biden.

16:18

Then Kelly starts running for Supreme Court

16:21

justice again. He boasts openly

16:23

about being the conservative candidate who can pull

16:25

in tens of millions of dollars in money

16:28

from outside the state.

16:29

Money that translates to ads.

16:31

Justice Kelly supports enforcing the rule

16:34

of law and keeping our communities safe. As

16:36

a Milwaukee judge, Janet Protasewitz

16:39

has a long history of letting dangerous criminals

16:41

off easy.

16:41

Kelly does pull in the money,

16:43

including from Leonard Leo. But

16:46

the candidate backed by the Democrats also

16:48

raises big bucks. The airwaves are

16:51

flooded with ads from liberal candidate

16:53

Janet

16:53

Protasewitz, who's

16:54

outspending conservative candidate

16:57

Daniel Kelly. After the Supreme Court

16:59

Dobbs decision sent abortion rights

17:01

to the states, there's a 19th century

17:03

law banning abortion that could go

17:06

into effect in Wisconsin. Abortion

17:08

rights groups and voters rise up.

17:11

Judge Janet, she's called, wins

17:14

handily.

17:15

Leo's candidate lost twice. But

17:18

the idea that Leo had all those

17:20

years ago, that idea is

17:22

winning. That judges could be a prize

17:24

for a political party rather

17:27

than an independent branch of government. Former

17:30

Justice Janine Geske says it's

17:32

like the candidates were running to be, quote,

17:34

super legislators,

17:36

rather than independent arbiters of

17:38

the facts and the law. Third branch

17:41

was sort of losing its judicial

17:43

hat and putting on a legislative hat.

17:45

They were making

17:46

legislative decisions.

17:47

And that's not what they do. And I

17:50

know that's not what they do. But I think

17:52

that's what many voters think. Current

17:54

and former state Supreme Court justices

17:56

that I spoke with from all around the country

17:59

are deeply dismounted.

17:59

After the election, it was disturbed by the overt partisanship

18:02

and boatloads of money that was

18:04

spent in Wisconsin.

18:04

That's

18:07

bad for the system. It's bad for democracy.

18:10

It's a very dangerous path

18:12

to tread down. This is one of those

18:15

judges. My name is Bob Orr, and I was

18:17

the Justice on the North Carolina

18:19

Supreme Court.

18:20

When he was elected, Orr was the first

18:22

Republican to serve on the bench in North Carolina

18:25

for almost a century. It

18:29

was kind of a sense of, if

18:32

you're the underdog, it's us against them.

18:59

And so all of a sudden we started seeing these, what

19:00

I would consider,

19:02

misleading and distorted

19:06

sort of traditional political ads we

19:08

all knew in politics. But we'd never seen those in judicial

19:11

races. Over the

19:13

next decade, JCM, the group that Leo launched and raised

19:15

money

19:16

for, kept sending money

19:18

to another organization, the

19:23

Republican State

19:26

Leadership Committee,

19:26

or RSLC. Some

19:29

years, Leo's JCM was

19:31

RSLC's biggest donor. And

19:34

that group spent

19:35

more and more money on state judicial

19:37

races. Daggering amounts,

19:40

according to the Legal Institute, the Brennan Center for

19:42

Justice.

19:44

Bob Orr says all of this money

19:46

coming in has had a clear

19:47

impact. If

19:50

I don't rule a certain way in certain

19:52

cases, this is going to come back to

19:55

really hurt my career. Like

19:58

Justice Janine Gesky in Wisconsin.

19:59

Justice Orr told me that the rank

20:02

politics in court races confuses

20:04

the public about the role of the justice

20:07

system in civic life, about

20:09

what judges are supposed to do.

20:10

The whole confidence

20:13

in the judiciary is

20:16

critical in the sense of that's

20:18

supposed to be the umpire. But if you

20:20

have no confidence in the courts, then

20:23

you undermine the whole process.

20:26

He says that's what the ads are doing.

20:28

Well the ads are going to be Judge

20:31

so-and-so voted to

20:33

release a

20:34

child molester who did this or

20:36

that.

20:37

There was actually an ad about

20:39

child molesting? I'm

20:42

trying to remember. After all, you want

20:44

to put them out of your mind.

20:45

Negative ads have long focused on Democratic

20:48

judges being soft on crime. In 2020,

20:51

Chief Justice Cherie Beasley was running

20:53

to retain her seat.

20:55

I mean, I felt powerless to

20:57

fix the trajectory of my race.

21:00

I could do the very best I was

21:02

going to do, but I also understood that

21:04

the impact of outside money

21:06

in my race was going to be determinative

21:09

in so many ways.

21:10

Unlike in Wisconsin, judges run on

21:12

party lines in North Carolina. Beasley

21:15

ran as a Democrat, and for a long time, her

21:17

party controlled the majority in North Carolina

21:19

Supreme Court. She really says,

21:22

even though she raised a lot of money and even though

21:24

Democrats are now spending in judicial

21:26

races, conservatives have had

21:28

a huge head start.

21:30

Democrats and moderate-leaning

21:33

groups long delayed being

21:35

informed around the importance of

21:37

judicial elections and why

21:39

it was important to make sure that the electorate

21:42

is informed about these races.

21:45

In 2020, Chief Justice Beasley

21:48

lost her race to Republican Justice Paul Newby

21:51

by 401 votes.

21:51

Then,

21:54

more money comes in from Leo's groups.

21:57

In 2021, according to tax returns,

21:59

Nearly all of JCN's funding

22:02

came directly from a group, Leo

22:04

Controls.

22:05

JCN donates millions to RSLC.

22:08

RSLC spends record-breaking amounts

22:11

on state court races. In

22:13

November of 2022, a year

22:16

that was generally unfavorable to Republicans,

22:19

RSLC and JCN and

22:21

Leo Win Big.

22:24

The North Carolina court is flipped

22:26

from 4 to 3 Democrats to 5

22:29

to 2

22:29

Republicans.

22:35

In early February of 2023, the

22:38

newly Republican controlled court did something

22:40

extraordinary.

22:42

It said it would re-hear two

22:44

voting rights cases that the court had decided

22:47

just two months earlier when it was controlled

22:49

by Democrats. Same court, same

22:51

facts, same law,

22:53

different partisan makeup.

22:55

This is the logical outcome

22:58

of the court system Leonard Leo

23:00

helped create.

23:03

After the first hearing in a windswept

23:06

plaza between the court and the Capitol,

23:08

voting rights advocates looked grim,

23:11

staring at the ground. Good afternoon. My

23:13

name is Sam Hirsch, H-I-R-S-C-H.

23:15

I traveled to Raleigh to watch the hearings

23:18

in the two cases, which were held on

23:20

two unusually cold mid-March

23:22

days. The first to be heard

23:24

was Harper v. Hall, which just a few months

23:26

earlier had green-lit electoral

23:29

maps that more closely reflected the state's

23:31

roughly even partisan division. The

23:34

lawyer for the plaintiffs in that case didn't even

23:36

pretend things had gone well.

23:38

In the state of North Carolina and in

23:41

the United States of America, elections

23:43

are supposed to matter. They're

23:45

the way that we translate the popular will,

23:47

the sovereignty of the people, into

23:50

government power. But

23:53

if the Supreme Court of North Carolina

23:57

overrules the Harper decisions from last year.

24:01

It will be saying to the people of North Carolina that only

24:03

one election matters, and that's the election

24:06

for the seven members of that court. That's

24:08

not our democratic system.

24:10

Can you tell us how it felt to be in the court today?

24:12

Quick.

24:18

Some of the justices did

24:20

not seem to want to spend time hearing

24:22

about the key issues.

24:24

The next day wasn't any better

24:26

for the plaintiffs.

24:27

This case was over whether voter ID

24:29

laws discriminated against black voters.

24:33

Plaintiff lawyer Paul Brockman cited case

24:35

law showing that to prove voter

24:37

ID laws discriminate, you don't

24:39

need to have someone explicitly saying

24:42

they're meant to discriminate. We

24:44

are fortunately well past the time

24:46

where we expect to find blatant statements

24:49

of racially discriminatory motive

24:51

in the legislative record. I hope we can look

24:53

back there. I'm sorry, counsel, if I understand you

24:56

are indicating that there is no direct evidence

24:58

of racial animus in Senate bill

25:01

or the legislative bill 824.

25:04

This is Justice Bill Berger Jr., a Republican.

25:07

He disregards what Brockman says. He

25:09

wants the direct

25:10

evidence.

25:11

Brockman tries again. We

25:14

hope in 2023 that we are well past the point

25:17

where legislators are going to stand up

25:19

on the floor

25:20

of

25:21

the General Assembly and proclaim

25:23

an intent to disenfranchise

25:25

African-American voters. And you agree

25:28

that the legislation on its face is based

25:31

on it? In April, Berger Jr. wrote

25:33

the 5-2 decision overturning

25:35

a precedent that had stood for just five

25:38

months. He wrote, quote, plaintiffs

25:41

here have failed to prove beyond a reasonable

25:43

doubt

25:44

that SB 824 was enacted

25:47

with discriminatory intent

25:49

or that the law actually produces a meaningful

25:52

disparate impact

25:53

along racial lines.

25:55

The prior opinion is withdrawn.

25:59

Republicans today. Yeah, the state Supreme Court

26:02

issuing big rulings with major implications

26:05

on how North Carolina votes. The

26:07

North Carolina Supreme Court has reinstated

26:09

the voter ID law. This

26:10

5-to-2 decision likely means that a photo

26:13

ID mandate will be enforced in the 2024

26:15

election. Neither

26:17

the Judicial Crisis Network nor the Republican

26:19

State

26:20

Leadership Committee

26:21

nor Justice Philberger Jr. had any

26:23

comment. Leonard Leo wrote

26:25

an answer to our questions. I think the

26:27

state Supreme Courts are more independent

26:30

and impartial today than they were

26:32

when trial lawyers and unions dominated

26:34

state judicial races without any

26:37

counter. If the name Philberger

26:39

Jr. is ringing a bell, here's why.

26:42

He was among the justices who attended the big

26:45

party in Leonard Leo's mansion in

26:47

June of 2022. The

26:49

one by the Cove, protected by U.S. Marshals

26:51

and the Coast Guard. The one where

26:53

the mood was jubilant, where guests drank

26:55

champagne and whiskey and consumed a three-course

26:58

meal. The party that came at the end

27:00

of a U.S. Supreme Court term, where

27:02

conservatives made games on gun rights,

27:04

on religious rights, and the

27:06

day after the party, abortion.

27:09

Now there was something else to celebrate. Decisions

27:14

that could protect Republican majorities

27:16

in the North Carolina state legislature for

27:18

years to come. Coming

27:22

up, Leo is hard at work

27:25

building the quote, Federalist Society

27:27

for Everything. This is

27:29

on the media.

27:49

This is on the media. I'm Brooke Gladstone.

27:51

You're listening to our investigative

27:53

collaboration with ProPublica. We

27:56

don't talk about Leonard.

27:59

2020 the news website Axios

28:02

reported a story with the headline Leonard

28:04

Leo to shape new conservative

28:07

network Leonard

28:09

had plans he told Axios He

28:12

was leaving his day job as the Federalist

28:14

Society's executive VP to

28:17

set up a group called CRC

28:19

advisors a group inspired

28:22

Leo said by an outfit called

28:24

Arabella advisors described

28:27

by Axios as a quote little

28:29

known yet powerful Consulting firm

28:32

that advises liberal donors and

28:34

nonprofits about where to spend their

28:36

money Leo said that he

28:38

planned to work with two existing

28:40

groups that we've talked so much about in this

28:42

series the judicial Crisis

28:45

Network and the judicial education

28:47

project only they were

28:49

getting new names the Concord

28:51

Fund and the 1985 fund

28:54

one of Leo's first projects a 10

28:56

million dollar campaign focusing

28:59

on judges Soon he

29:01

would quietly set in motion a plan

29:03

to transfer a 1.6 billion

29:06

dollar donation from an obscure electronics

29:09

manufacturer to a political

29:11

nonprofit that Leo alone

29:14

controlled another thing Leo

29:16

kept mum about was that he'd soon be

29:18

taking over the to neo network

29:21

a private national networking group

29:24

ProPublica and the investigative journalism

29:26

project documented obtained

29:28

hours of internal videos

29:30

and hundreds of pages of documents

29:33

from to neo which Taken together

29:35

provide a roadmap of exactly

29:38

what Leo wants to do Which

29:40

simply put is to create a Federalist

29:43

Society for everything

29:46

Here's Andy

29:48

when we started reporting this series.

29:50

There were some big driving questions

29:53

What does Leonard leo do with 1.6 billion dollars? People

29:57

who work with leo like Federalist Society

29:59

co-founder founder David McIntosh said

30:01

that Leo had a choice, take

30:03

the berry side money to the Federalist Society

30:06

or create his own new thing. He

30:09

decided new thing. He,

30:11

in his own thinking of should

30:15

he stay at the Federalist Society or

30:18

should he give up that position

30:20

and move to heading

30:23

up the network? The network. Among

30:25

Leo Associates we spoke with, that term

30:28

refers to the broader network but

30:30

also a specific one, the Tenayo

30:32

network. One former leader of that group

30:35

told me that it was, quote, high on

30:37

his priority list. Leo not

30:39

only funded it, he took it over. Tenayo

30:43

shapes the broader culture by building networks

30:46

of conservatives that can

30:49

roll back or crush liberal

30:51

dominance in the areas of American life.

30:53

I know a very poor person. This is Leo in a promotional video from

30:55

not too long ago. He's sitting on a couch

30:58

wearing a charcoal gray jacket, no

31:00

tie. I spent close to 30 years,

31:03

if not more, helping

31:05

to build the conservative legal

31:08

movement. And at some point

31:10

or another, you know, I just said to myself,

31:12

well, if this can work for law, why

31:15

can't it work for lots

31:18

of other areas of American culture and

31:20

American life where things are really messed up

31:22

right now? Leo ticks off a

31:24

few of those areas. What he calls

31:26

wokeism in the corporate environment, one-sided

31:29

journalism, entertainment that's,

31:31

quote, corrupting our youth. He

31:34

lays out the philosophy that's driven his work

31:36

for the past three decades. At the end

31:38

of the day, the movements that have been most successful

31:40

in human history have been the ones where

31:43

relationships were built, where bonds

31:45

were built, where friendships were made, where

31:48

people had people's backs. If

31:50

you can build talent pipelines

31:53

of people who believe in the ideals

31:56

around which our country were founded, then you

31:58

can unite those people.

35:59

1980s. It wasn't obvious

36:02

how powerful it would become. Leo

36:04

was identifying and promoting talent

36:07

and making connections for decades before

36:09

some of his efforts came to fruition. Leaders

36:12

on the left told me, shame on us. We

36:15

should have been working on this too. Leo's

36:18

only been in charge of Tineo for a couple of years.

36:20

It's hard to see exactly what the group has accomplished,

36:24

but what we can say, Leo's getting

36:26

ready to make a move. Should the

36:28

pieces fall into place.

36:32

Coming up, Leo has moved

36:34

his family to a coastal mansion in

36:36

Maine, but it has not been

36:38

smooth sailing. This is on the

36:40

media.

37:09

This is on the media. I'm Brooke Gladstone.

37:13

You're listening to our investigative

37:15

collaboration with ProPublica, We

37:17

Don't Talk About Leonard. As

37:20

the title of this series points to, up

37:22

until a few years ago, few people

37:25

really knew about Leonard Leo, and

37:27

that was by design. Pomona

37:28

College Professor Amanda

37:30

Hollis-Bruskey. If

37:32

you can operate below the radar

37:34

in ways that aren't apparent to

37:37

the average citizen and

37:38

sort of achieve your goals

37:40

in a way that doesn't invite backlash and

37:43

scrutiny, then that's

37:45

the most desirable way to go about

37:47

doing politics.

37:49

But things began to change with the whole

37:52

list situation in Donald

37:54

Trump. In order to keep his Supreme

37:56

Court project going, Leo

37:58

has to send a big signal. to conservatives

38:01

that he, Leonard Leo,

38:03

is advising Trump. I

38:06

think he makes a calculation to kind of come

38:08

out from the shadows and put

38:10

himself front

38:11

and center because he knows that that will

38:13

give Republican voters confidence

38:15

to vote for Donald

38:17

Trump in the 2016 election. But

38:20

that's sort of an Icarus moment too, where

38:23

they're getting really close to the sun now. Andy

38:25

Kroll and Andrea Bernstein pick

38:28

up the story.

38:29

Leo's coming out more publicly in other

38:31

ways too. We can see from tax

38:33

records that in 2021, the

38:36

Judicial Crisis Network, which is now called

38:38

the Concord Fund, is getting basically

38:40

its entire budget from the $1.6

38:42

billion fund Leo controls.

38:45

Leo seems to be thriving. The Concord

38:47

Fund, formerly JCN, and

38:49

the 85 Fund, formerly the Judicial

38:52

Education Project, or JEP, are

38:54

hiring Leo's business, CRC

38:57

Advisors. So are groups

38:59

that those groups fund, like the

39:01

Republican Attorney's General Association.

39:03

Leo is gone from being a leader of

39:05

a nonprofit with a modest home in McLean,

39:08

Virginia, to living in a mansion in

39:10

Northeast Harbor, Maine.

39:11

Leo started coming a couple of decades

39:13

ago as a visitor. Eventually, he

39:16

bought a home.

39:16

How does somebody who is so

39:19

stridently conservative, a very

39:21

religious Catholic, how do you find yourself

39:24

in Maine and Bar Harbor

39:26

of all places? Well, we

39:28

have a long history here. Here's Leo

39:31

in an interview he did in the summer of 2023. It's

39:33

with The Maine Wire, a conservative media

39:36

outlet. Not as long as some

39:38

people do, but we started coming here 20 years

39:40

ago. We had a dear family friend at

39:42

a house here on Mount Desert Island, and

39:45

she invited us to use her home when she wasn't

39:47

there, and we started coming for vacations. And

39:50

of course, we were first attracted by the beauty.

39:52

At one point, Clarence Thomas and his wife,

39:54

Ginny Thomas, come up to visit, but

39:57

it didn't get much attention.

39:58

That changes.

39:59

When Leo holds a fundraiser for

40:02

Maine U.S. Senator Susan Collins in 2019,

40:05

that was after she gave a deciding

40:08

yes vote for U.S. Supreme Court

40:10

Justice Brett Kavanaugh. There's

40:13

a protest outside his house. The

40:15

local press starts paying attention to Leonard Leo.

40:19

Three years later, when the Dobbs' abortion

40:21

decision leaks, the demonstrations

40:24

get more

40:24

intense. People care. Grow

40:26

life. That's a lie. You don't

40:28

care. People die. Grow life.

40:30

At the end of July 2022, five

40:33

weeks after Roe v. Wade is overturned, Leo

40:35

calls the police.

40:36

He'd been walking to the town's business district

40:39

with his wife and daughter. The following

40:41

audio is from a police body cam

40:43

recording. It's pretty hard to hear.

40:45

A gentleman pulled up who I'm very

40:47

familiar with because he's been harassing us for

40:49

weeks.

40:50

He says, a gentleman pulled

40:52

up who I'm very familiar with because he's been

40:54

harassing me for weeks. His name, I

40:57

think, is Eli Durand.

40:58

He's in the passenger seat. He

41:00

yells out to us.

41:03

He's in the passenger seat. He yells out, pardon

41:05

my language,

41:06

you're a asshole

41:07

and you're going to hell.

41:11

The backstory is that for weeks, protesters

41:14

have gathered outside Leo's mansion on weekends.

41:17

Leo has a video. He shows the cops. They

41:19

watch it together.

41:20

They're making it to

41:22

stay forever.

41:24

All right, when they have f***ing real

41:26

time and stuff like that, that's not

41:28

a political protest.

41:29

Leo says this isn't a political protest.

41:32

Instead, he says it's harassment. The

41:34

protesters are saying you don't belong

41:37

here. They're not welcome in this neighborhood.

41:39

Leo says with Eli Durand,

41:41

McDonald,

41:42

he's reached his limit. And I feel

41:45

as though time takes the action

41:47

personally.

41:48

After the cop is finished taking Leo's statement,

41:51

he walks out to the front of Leo's house.

41:52

We

42:00

come with me. All right. What's that?

42:03

Disorderly conduct. The demonstrators start to yell.

42:06

Disorderly conduct on Main Street today, not here.

42:09

Not here. Don't get in the way.

42:11

Don't get in the way. No, wait. Let

42:13

her be a right. Stay behind

42:14

you. Stay behind you. Stay behind you.

42:17

Stay

42:17

behind you. This is not cool. You

42:19

know it's not cool. The woman speaking,

42:21

Beau Green, taught calculus at

42:24

the high school the cops' kids went to. That's

42:27

how small this town is. This guy

42:29

is ruining your country that

42:31

you say that you stand up for. And

42:34

you're talking about this young man. Come on, Kevin.

42:37

No, are you kidding me? Kevin,

42:39

what are you doing?

42:42

Almost a year after the arrest, the case

42:44

against Eli Duran-McDonnell, a recent

42:46

Oberlin grad who works for a nonprofit

42:48

and runs a landscaping business, was dropped.

42:52

He was banned from protesting Leo in town

42:54

while his case was pending, but now he's

42:56

back.

42:57

In June, he dressed up as Justice Samuel

42:59

Alito, carrying a giant salmon. It's

43:02

based on a picture first published in ProPublica

43:05

of Alito and hedge fund billionaire Paul

43:07

Cenga. This

43:11

protest

43:11

is on the first anniversary of the Dobbs decision.

43:14

It draws a pretty big crowd, despite an unpleasant

43:16

rain. One of the other protesters

43:19

here is named Bettina Richards. She's

43:21

wearing bright pink cargo pants

43:24

and carrying a sign that says, you

43:26

claim it's not about control,

43:28

but you're banning birth control. It

43:30

was always about control.

43:32

I've definitely talked to him a couple times when he was walking

43:34

his dog by my front yard, which

43:36

is really surreal. Richards runs

43:38

a

43:39

record company in Chicago and lives on the island

43:41

for the summers. Just down the road

43:43

from Leo, where she has a sign that says,

43:45

Google Leonard Leo.

43:47

His neighbor across the street allowed us to

43:49

hang a pink fist flag

43:52

across from his house. The flag was on

43:55

private property, but one day Richards gets

43:57

a call that Leo's security guard

43:59

is in the process of...

43:59

of tearing it down. So I hopped on my bike

44:02

and went down there, caught the guy

44:04

and said, what

44:04

are you doing? She gets to work rehanging

44:06

the flag.

44:07

And I was on a ladder repairing

44:09

the flag because he'd broken the grommets. And

44:12

the security guard comes back out with Leonard

44:14

Leo. Leo tells her the flag is offensive.

44:17

I said, well, you have a flag hanging

44:19

out in front of your house. Leo

44:21

rotates flags with Catholic iconography.

44:24

Richard says, don't touch my flag.

44:26

I'm going to know if you've touched it. I

44:28

have evidence that you've touched it. So then

44:31

he said to me, I

44:31

will allow

44:33

it. Leo

44:35

told us, quote,

44:37

the owner of that property came to us some

44:39

weeks later, stating that whoever put

44:41

the flag up did not have permission and

44:43

that the property owner would be taking it down.

44:47

Richard said another household member

44:49

had okayed the pink fist flag. It

44:52

was taken down. That

44:55

was encounter number one.

44:57

encounter number two involves some chalk

44:59

drawings, which protesters have taken to writing

45:01

on the street outside Leo's home.

45:03

Like dirty money

45:05

lives here.

45:07

Because she lives so close, Richards

45:10

sees Leo often. He now walks

45:12

with a security guard and is often

45:14

accompanied by a priest with a Catholic and

45:17

a caller. I go running often in the morning

45:19

and I was running about 8 a.m. I

45:23

was running down the street and

45:25

there

45:26

bent over halfway

45:28

is Leonard Leo himself

45:30

with a security guard standing there chalking

45:33

my name. He was writing your name

45:35

on the sidewalk as you were jogging by.

45:37

Yes.

45:38

Yes. Again, how completely

45:40

surreal is that? The fact that someone

45:42

that you would assume if you have a billion

45:45

dollars that you don't have time to go out

45:47

and chalk people's names.

45:49

He was writing your name over and over.

45:51

Yes. So each chalk drawing

45:54

he had written our names. So

45:56

he had written it at least four or five

45:58

times by the time I was

45:59

in the house.

45:59

I got there. And I think he continued

46:02

on to he had attributed each chapter

46:05

to us.

46:06

Leo spokesperson told us Leo was responding

46:09

to messages, including one that

46:11

said, quote, You should not be enjoying

46:13

your life here while you destroy others lives.

46:16

Get out. Another

46:18

message is probably best not repeated on

46:20

the radio.

46:22

Leo added, quote, I

46:24

chalked the names of protesters next to

46:26

the hateful, vulgar and offensive statements

46:29

they had chalked right in front of my family's house.

46:32

But I washed their names off virtually immediately

46:35

because I regretted that my behavior was

46:37

churlish and undignified.

46:41

When Andrea and I visited Bar Harbor in

46:43

June of 2023, we encountered something we

46:45

really haven't found

46:47

in our reporting. Regular people

46:50

who know who Leonard Leo is. It was

46:52

like going through the looking glass. The

46:55

town knows him. His name

46:57

is familiar. Some of those people

46:59

like him. Many don't. And

47:01

some of those people are pushing back

47:04

to them. Leo is the face of

47:07

the conservative takeover of the court. And

47:09

he's become a rallying cry, a uniting

47:11

force that's bringing his opponents together.

47:15

When

47:15

he's spoken about his place in American

47:17

society, Leo has consistently

47:20

sounded one note since, well,

47:22

since he was in college and maybe even in high

47:24

school, that he's losing

47:27

and needs to catch up in his response

47:28

to us. So

47:40

here we are, as we've heard throughout the

47:42

series, courts in America are

47:44

becoming politicized. One

47:47

person or seven or nine can

47:49

overturn the will of the majority.

47:51

And if you're in the political minority,

47:54

but you can control the courts, well,

47:56

then you can control democracy

47:59

through an ultra a minoritarian

48:01

institution.

48:06

ProPublica's reporting on undisclosed

48:08

lavish trips and gifts bestowed on

48:11

Supreme Court justices has provoked

48:13

a sharp response. Justice

48:15

Samuel Alito took to the Wall Street Journal

48:18

editorial page to charge ProPublica

48:20

with misleading readers, even

48:23

before the story about him had been published.

48:26

He didn't dispute any of the facts

48:28

in his op-ed, nor has he since.

48:32

Leo says that the exposés

48:35

were merely, quote, bait for reeling

48:37

in more dark money from woke billionaires

48:39

who want to damage the Supreme Court

48:41

and remake it into one that will disregard

48:44

the law by rubber-stamping

48:46

their disordered and highly unpopular

48:49

cultural performances. Meanwhile,

48:52

the Democratic-led Senate

48:54

Judiciary Committee has begun investigating

48:57

ethical lapses on the High Court requesting

49:00

information from Leo and Paul

49:02

Singer and Robin Arkley. So

49:04

far, it seems the Senators aren't getting

49:07

through. In August, Politico

49:09

reported that the District of Columbia's

49:12

Attorney General was investigating

49:14

Leo for possibly enriching

49:16

himself through his network of

49:18

tax-exempt nonprofit groups. Leo's

49:21

counsel says Leo has done nothing

49:23

wrong and will not

49:25

cooperate with the probe.

49:29

Leonard Leo hasn't achieved the total

49:31

victory,

49:32

but he's made huge strides,

49:35

and all the while almost no one was

49:37

mortal.

49:50

This series is reported by Andrea

49:52

Bernstein, Andy Kroll, and Ilya

49:54

Merritts, and edited by OTM

49:56

Executive Producer Kathy Rogers and

49:59

ProPublica's as Jesse Isinger.

50:01

Molly Rosen is the lead producer,

50:04

with help from Sean Merchant. Jennifer

50:06

Munson is our technical director. Jared

50:09

Paul wrote and recorded all the original music,

50:11

which included Lily Parker on

50:13

viola and Sophie Baum on

50:15

violin.

50:16

Our fact-checkers are Andrea Marks

50:18

and Hannah Murphy Winter. Our legal

50:20

team is Ivan Zimmerman, Lauren Cooperman,

50:23

Jeremy Kuttner, and Sarah Matthews.

50:26

If you missed parts one and two of

50:28

We Don't Talk About Leonard, you'll

50:31

find them on the On The Media feed, wherever

50:33

you get your podcasts. And you could read

50:35

much more

50:36

at our partner site, ProPublica.org.

50:41

We'd like to say some thank yous to people who

50:43

helped us report the story, but whose names you

50:45

won't hear in the show. ProPublica's

50:47

Eric Umansky, Megan O'Matts,

50:50

Lynn Dombek, Doris Burke, Alex

50:52

Majerzewski, Ken Schwenke, Rick

50:55

Talbott, Nick Lanise, Justin Elliott,

50:57

Josh Kaplan, and Brett

50:58

Murphy. Also,

51:01

for our visual production, Nick Schweitzer,

51:03

Lisa Larson-Walker,

51:04

Anna Donlon, Alex

51:06

Bandoni,

51:06

and Sisiga Mukulu.

51:09

Ed Pilkington, David Daly, Lisa

51:11

Graves, and Evan Vorpahl of True North

51:13

Research, Sailor Jones of North

51:16

Carolina Common Cause, Nick Sergei

51:18

and the team at Documented, and Becky Harper.

51:21

We have the many, many

51:23

current and former justices, judges,

51:25

elected officials, Trump administration appointees,

51:28

and others who spoke to us confidentially

51:31

for fear of the consequences to their careers

51:34

or livelihoods if we use their

51:36

names and we don't talk about Leonard. Tracy

51:39

Weber is the managing editor, and Steve

51:41

Engelberg is the editor-in-chief of ProPublica.

51:45

Thanks for listening. I'm Andrea Bernstein.

51:48

And I'm Brooke Gladstone.

51:48

Thank

51:51

you.