Sen. Whitehouse: Dark Money Behind GOP Judges Is Now Behind Voter Suppression

[turbinetree]

Politics 3/13/21 11:31am Read time: 4 minutes

Sen. Whitehouse is not thinking about headlines. He is thinking about getting dark money out of the courts and voting booths.
By Aliza Worthington

Normally I resent finding out where my husbands are from other women, but since this time it was my boss who informed me Sheldon Whitehouse was on Lawrence O'Donnell's show, I'll let it slide.

That's right, Sen. Whitehouse chairs a subcommittee of the Senate Judiciary Committee that deals with oversight of the federal courts, and now that the Democrats are in charge, he is taking full advantage of it. He held a hearing on Thursday aimed at pulling back the curtain on the role dark money has played in the placement of judges at all levels.

"Courtrooms ought to be open places where you know who is present, not a place where powerful players can come masked behind front groups hiding both their own identity and their interconnections," Whitehouse said at the hearing. "The Supreme Court should not be a place that has a special interest-controlled fast lane bringing certain special interest-chosen cases before the court at high-speed, without the trappings of a real case or controversy," he insisted.

https://crooksandliars.com/2021/03/sheldon-whitehouse-lawrence-odonnell

[mahina]

1. This is the most important story of the era

In my book.

[turbinetree]

2. I really think that The Federalist Society and who he mentioned should be brought in and asked

Last edited Sat Mar 13, 2021, 07:25 PM - Edit history (1)

we can and got / get you on the bench and then one day we will want a favor...........did you ever promise that?
I suspect they will hem and haw with an answer............and yes this is one of the most important stories of our time, and why we need to expand the court

[mahina]

3. +1

Agreed! It’s settled 😊🌸

[dalton99a]

4. +1. The Fascist Society

[TheRickles]

5. I wonder if he's aware of Greg Olear's exhaustive look at the money behind Kavanaugh.

Here's the summary of 5 long articles, entitle "Who owns Kavanaugh?", with links:[link:https://gregolear.substack.com/p/who-owns-kavanaugh-index?token=eyJ1c2VyX2lkIjo5MjMyNDk0LCJwb3N0X2lkIjozMzMzOTUwMywiXyI6IjFadGxKIiwiaWF0IjoxNjE1Njc1MDM3LCJleHAiOjE2MTU2Nzg2MzcsImlzcyI6InB1Yi0yMDY5NSIsInN1YiI6InBvc3QtcmVhY3Rpb24ifQ.aIBfKQ9Um9Sf4CxNhoYDx054uzfaPcNcKqOhlQqT7bg&utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email&utm_content=share|

[Hortensis]

9. Don't know, but should be safe to assume Olear's heard of

Senator Whitehouse and what he's been choosing to reveal over time.

[Hekate]

6. KnR

[Hortensis]

7. Absolutely hugely important. We knew about RW dark money and the judiciary,

but I sure didn't realize that essentially the entire operation has switched over, like a machine, to election subversion -- once their judicial packing was (temporarily) paused for Democratic majorities.

"the same donors, the same entities, the same operatives, the same machinery that, in the Trump administration, was driving the court capture operation,..."

I was drooping, but the degree of the organization woke me right up. Sounds like they will do their best to make 2020 the last presidential election they couldn't control and 2022 the year they get effectively permanent control of congress, and some state houses.

Note what Nancy said below...

[burrowowl]

8. Judicial Black Money K&R

[vlyons]

10. I had a problem with Whitehouse's comments on Lawrence's show

Whitehouse didn't say who was the dark money. I'm assuming it's the same ol' Koch Brothers

[turbinetree]

11. I want to know who the "Honest Election Project" is, that he mentioned

we already have a good idea about the Federalist Society, was behind some of these judges being placed on the bench, with help, the federalist society has the backing of the Koch's if I remember correctly when I read Jane Mayer's book Dark Money..........

[mahina]

12. And Lawrence didn't ask

Which made me wonder why.

[Kid Berwyn]

13. What Sen. Whitehouse wrote about Funding

Excerpt...

Federalist Society Funders

Bad enough that judicial selection has been outsourced?—?or in-sourced?—?to a partisan entity. Worse is how non-transparent this all is. It’s hard to find out who’s behind it. It’s a very non-transparent problem, but here is what we’ve been able to piece together. The evidence is that the Federalist Society is funded by massive, secret contributions from corporate right-wing groups that have big agendas before the courts.

In 2017, the Federalist Society took $5.5 million via an entity called DonorsTrust. DonorsTrust’s has its sole purpose to launder the identities of donors to other groups, so that Americans don’t know the real backers of the groups. It is an identity removal machine for big donors. Through the hard work of investigators, journalists, and researchers, we have learned that the Koch brothers are among the largest, if not the largest, contributors to DonorsTrust. The Federalist Society’s total annual budget is about $20 million, so this $5.5 million in funding laundered through DonorsTrust provides more than a quarter of its entire budget.

Other shadowy corporate and right-wing organizations also donate millions to the Federalist Society. In one year, the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, a right-wing trust, gave over $3 million to the Federalist Society.

Koch Industries, several other Koch-network foundations and trusts, and nearly a dozen wholly anonymous donors have given over $100,000 each to the Federalist Society. Tax documents from 2014, uncovered by the New York Times, show a donation of more than $2 million from the Mercer family?—?the secretive donors who helped start Breibart News and bankrolled the Trump campaign.

Continues...

https://www.whitehouse.senate.gov/news/speeches/the-third-federalist-society

[turbinetree]

14. And now its being reported that these ..holes have been taking and making contact with Russian

operatives......they are traitors also............right along with the Koch's, they got there money from Russians back when there was collectives under Stalin.....