With RBG in health doubt, time to focus on Leonard LEO/ wingnut judge activist again

[UTUSN]

He's a shadowy jerk, surfacing when there's a judicial vacancy at stake, but working the LongGame, termite-ing his way along, raising cash. The LONG game. Google his image, you thought HANNITY is a medieval monk starting the Crusades, this is no piker.

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https://www.thedailybeast.com/top-trump-backer-financed-supreme-court-confirmation-fights-through-shadowy-network?ref=home

DARK MONEY
Top Trump Backer Financed Supreme Court Confirmation Fights Through Shadowy Network
Leonard Leo is the top judicial lobbyist in the country and a well-known booster of the president. But the reach of his influence is just starting to come into focus.

Lachlan Markay

Previously unreported documents obtained by The Daily Beast provide the first glimpse into the finances of a key node in that network, traced to Federalist Society Executive Vice President Leonard Leo, a major player in Washington’s wars over the makeup of the federal judiciary. ....

America Engaged was formed in 2016, and brought in less than $50,000 through the end of that year. But in 2017, its income skyrocketed to $2.3 million. All but $100 of that income came from a single donor: another Leo-affiliated group called the BH Fund, which itself was funded last year by a single anonymous donor who gave a whopping $24,250,000, according to documents obtained by MapLight.

America Engaged used that money to finance grants to three other organizations: the lobbying arm of the National Rifle Association; Freedom Partners, an arm of the Koch political network; and Americans for Limited Government, a Virginia-based free-market nonprofit group. All three of those groups publicly backed Gorsuch’s nomination the same year they received support from America Engaged.

The group also paid $150,000 to CRC Public Relations, a prominent conservative consultancy that spearheaded the PR campaign for Trump’s Supreme Court picks. Among CRC’s tactics were attempts to deflect sexual-assault allegations against the judge by promoting unfounded allegations that a former classmate, not Kavanaugh, was responsible for the assault that Christine Blasey Ford dramatically recounted before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Multiple other arms of Leo’s advocacy network also reported paying CRC in 2017, including the BH Fund itself, which reported paying CRC $400,000. ....

“Since Trump’s 2016 victory,” Maguire wrote, “Leo has been tied to a seven-figure contribution that went to Trump’s inauguration—the source of which remains anonymous—and a growing set of dark-money groups with millions of dollars to spend, all while he exercises a great deal of influence over the Trump administration’s judicial nomination process.”

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[UTUSN]

1. Gonna have to Kick it myself!1