A Federalist Society for all things: Dark money enters the culture wars

A Federalist Society for all things: Dark money enters the culture wars
Donald Trump's so-called Supreme Court whisperer wants to expand his success to other parts of American society

By LUCIAN K. TRUSCOTT IV
Columnist
PUBLISHED MARCH 18, 2023 8:00AM (EDT)


(Salon) One of the most successful right-wing organizers in this country's history, Leonard Leo, is now out to "crush liberal dominance and wokeism" across a broad range of American cultural, journalistic, and political life.

Leo, the longtime godfather of the Federalist Society, has a history of crushing liberal influence. He helped to transform the Supreme Court from its generally middle-of-the-road past into a hard-right hammer bent on bludgeoning the law back into what the Federalist Society considers its proper roots. He helped to arrange the appointments of right-wing theocrats to federal judgeships across the country. Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, from Amarillo, Texas, who just held a hearing on a lawsuit to ban the abortion drug mifepristone, is a Trump appointee and one of Leo's, and the Federalist Society's, most prominent success stories. Now, having wrapped the federal judicial system in the robes of the Federalist Society, Leo wants to create little outposts of right-wing activists that can, in his words, "roll back" the dominance of liberals in Hollywood, Silicon Valley, New York investment banks, and academia.

Named the Teneo Network, Leo's 501(c)(3) tax-exempt charitable organization is a little opaque at this point, since Teneo keeps secret nearly everything about itself, including its donors and who its members are. Leo, however, is sitting on a pot of $1.6 billion that was recently donated by a Chicago businessman to a conservative group run by Leo called Donor's Trust. In 2021, Leo turned around and gave $3 million to Teneo, and he made a fundraising video in which he laid out his plan to transform the group into a kind of Federalist Society for all things. According to ProPublica, which got ahold of more than 50 hours of previously-unseen internal videos and confidential documents about Teneo, in the fundraising video, Leo referred to his success with the Federalist Society and plans for Teneo this way: "I just said to myself, 'Well, if this can work for law, why can't it work for lots of other areas of American culture and American life where things are really messed up right now?'"

ProPublica found that Teneo has attracted a number of big-time conservatives to its cause such as Missouri Senator Josh Hawley, Ohio Senator J.D. Vance and New York Representative Elise Stefanik. Three senior aides to prospective presidential candidate Ron DeSantis have also joined the organization, along with several conservative federal judges and Republican state attorneys general. There are probably others, but the membership is secret. ...........(more)

https://www.salon.com/2023/03/18/a-federalist-society-for-all-things-dark-money-enters-the-culture/