Leonard Leo directed fees to Clarence Thomas's wife, urged 'no mention of Ginni'

[Nevilledog]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/2023/05/04/leonard-leo-clarence-ginni-thomas-conway/

No paywall
https://archive.is/qFAEQ

Conservative judicial activist Leonard Leo arranged for the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas to be paid tens of thousands of dollars for consulting work just over a decade ago, specifying that her name be left off billing paperwork, according to documents reviewed by The Washington Post.

In January 2012, Leo instructed the GOP pollster Kellyanne Conway to bill a nonprofit group called the Judicial Education Project and use that money to pay Virginia “Ginni” Thomas, the documents show. The same year, the Judicial Education Project filed a brief to the Supreme Court in a landmark voting rights case.

Leo, an adviser to the Judicial Education Project and a key figure in a network of nonprofits that has worked to support the nominations of conservative judges, told Conway that he wanted her to “give” Ginni Thomas “another $25K,” the documents show. He emphasized that the paperwork should have “No mention of Ginni, of course.”

Conway’s firm, the Polling Company, sent the Judicial Education Project a $25,000 bill that day. Per Leo’s instructions, it listed the purpose as “Supplement for Constitution Polling and Opinion Consulting,” the documents show.

*snip*

[underpants]

1. Kellyanne being involved just makes this story better

[Walleye]

2. Same thoughts in my mind

[enough]

3. No problem, no hush money to any porn stars.

[Scrivener7]

4. The Supreme Court, it appears, is an ATM.

[Irish_Dem]

10. Like Congress, the money just pours in by the $millions.

[Hassler]

5. Crooked Clarence and Ginni the Grifter Thomas

[BlueCheeseAgain]

6. Well, this sounds pretty bad.

Give Clarence Thomas's wife $25000 on the down low, when a case you're interested in is in front of the Supreme Court?

[bluesbassman]

7. Well Kellyanne, I guess those are what you call alternative fees?

How is it I’m not shocked she’s both a liar and a crook.

[BigmanPigman]

17. "Alternative fees"....

Perfect.

[Hortensis]

8. Wonder what SHE used the money for? Very possibly a political

expenditure of her own. If there were other hidden payments, and whether she declared the income.

More!

[SunSeeker]

9. The Justices have salaries ranging from $268k to $280k per year.

Getting a $25k gift is 10% of your salary. Getting a $200,000 European vacation is basically your salary after tax, i.e. your salary just doubled. So, I guess buying a Justice is pretty damn doable for a billionaire, probably find it under the sofa cushions.

[Irish_Dem]

11. Plus they have other lucrative perks.

But hey it's hard to make it on only $300K a year.

[SunSeeker]

21. Honestly, in DC, $300k is middle class. The cost of housing in DC is insane.

You need two professionals pooling their pay to be able to afford a decent house in DC. Of course, that doesn't mean you should sell your soul to an evil billionaire.

[Irish_Dem]

22. The cost of housing is crazy in many US cities, takes two paychecks for a decent house.

Many Americans face this every day. But as you point out, they don't become corrupt.

It is apparent that various members of the Supreme Court were angry at what they considered
their low pay, they believed they were entitled to a better lifestyle.

So they essentially sold their Supreme Court votes to the highest bidder.

[Solly Mack]

12. K&R

[dalton99a]

14. The most corrupt Supreme Court in U.S. history.

Thoroughly and irredeemably corrupt.

[cilla4progress]

15. And we get to

live through it!!

[BigmanPigman]

18. Oh joy

I'd rather read about it 50 years from now in history books (that is IF there still are history books in the future of the US).

This shit is giving me a heart attack every day.

[wiggs]

16. this is EXACTLY why mobs all own each other. Conway, Leo, Thomas, Thomas, Crow all

crimed together and HAVE to lie cheat and steal to keep all their crimes secret.

I'm no lawyer but this sounds illegal. If not technically illegal it deserves front page headlines and public outrage.

[catbyte]

19. As my late, great dad used to say,

"He's so crooked that when he dies they're gonna have to screw him into the ground." jfc. And the worst part is, he and his despicable wife are going to get away with it.

[Kid Berwyn]

20. Leonard LEO of the Feudalist Society

Leonard Leo used Federalist Society contact to obtain $1.6B donation

The society’s close ties to Leo’s network raise questions about its nonpartisan, non-political status.

By HEIDI PRZYBYLA
Politico, 05/02/2023

Leonard Leo, who helped to choose judicial nominees for former President Donald Trump, obtained a historic $1.6 billion gift for his conservative legal network via an introduction through the Federalist Society, whose tax status forbids political activism.

Leo first met Barre Seid, the now 91-year-old manufacturing magnate turned donor, through an introduction arranged by Eugene Meyer, the longtime director of the Federalist Society. At the time, Leo was the society’s executive vice president, and he is currently its co-chair. Meyer envisioned Seid as a contributor to the society, according to a person familiar with the introduction. Instead, Leo cultivated Seid as a funder of his own dark money network. The result was a $1.6 billion gift announced last year — which is believed to be the largest political donation ever.

The unusual arrangement in which Leo met his top donor through the prestigious Federalist Society — which describes itself as a nonpartisan educational organization — suggests closer ties between the society and Leo’s activist network than previously known. Leo has used the dark money network to donate millions of dollars to the society and to pay at least $1.54 million to one Federalist Society employee and $775,000 to an entity run by another, according to federal disclosure forms.

Interviews with people familiar with the internal workings of the Federalist Society, including two board members, paint a picture of a symbiotic relationship in which Leo uses his connection to the vast network of scholars in the society to earn credibility with donors, who then contribute to dark money operations that engage in the kind of partisanship the society officially eschews.

Leo’s political activism and his use of donor money to enhance his own wealth have prompted increasing tensions between him and his fellow co-chair, Northwestern University Law Professor Steven Calabresi, and Meyer, who has been executive director or president for more than 30 years, according to three people familiar with the society. But they said Leo’s ties to the conservative donor base fans fears that a rift would leave the society struggling for funds, while members also worry that any breach in the facade of the conservative legal movement would only empower the liberals that all sides disdain.

Continues…

https://www.politico.com/news/2023/05/02/leonard-leo-federalist-society-00094761

The Big Payback. Revenge. Get down.

[Buckeyeblue]

23. And the beat goes on

Another day, another back door bribe.

[BeckyDem]

24. Corruption on steroids.