Leonard Leo's Group Spent $183 Million in a Year

[dalton99a]

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/12/us/politics/leonard-leo-marble-freedom-trust.html
https://archive.ph/oFSgw

Group Tied to Influential Conservative Activist Spent $183 Million in a Year
The activist, Leonard Leo, has been instrumental in pushing the federal judiciary to the right. A new tax filing offers a glimpse of the deep pool of money flowing into conservative causes.
By Rebecca Davis O’Brien
May 12, 2023, 5:00 a.m. ET

A deep-pocketed nonprofit organization founded by the conservative activist Leonard A. Leo gave away $182.7 million in a year’s time, a new tax filing shows, demonstrating how aggressively it has worked behind the scenes to prop up other groups and causes on the right.

The organization, Marble Freedom Trust, was formed in 2020 and was funded by a gift of more than $1.6 billion — an extraordinary windfall that resulted from a single donor’s contribution of 100 percent of a company’s shares before the company was sold, leaving Marble with the proceeds of the sale, The New York Times reported last year.

Mr. Leo, a lawyer and former executive at the Federalist Society, has been instrumental in conservatives’ yearslong effort to push the federal judiciary to the right, both through his direct guidance to Republican leaders and by financing conservative causes. In recent years, he has built an opaque, far-reaching network of organizations — many of which have funding sources that are not required to be disclosed — that can influence elections and other matters, including education policy, abortion and campus free speech issues.

Marble Freedom Trust, a tax-exempt 501(c)(4) “social welfare” organization, is a centerpiece of Mr. Leo’s network. The group’s stated mission is to “maintain and expand human freedom consistent with the values and ideals set forth in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.”

It was not immediately clear from the group’s record of contributions how Marble was realizing that mission. The recent filing for Marble — a tax record for the year ending on April 30, 2022, that was obtained by the liberal transparency group Accountable.US — does not reveal much about the ultimate destination of the $182.7 million.

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[Cracklin Charlie]

1. So, they took over when the NRA got busted.

Ya know…I could use $183. They got 183 million to give to already rich people.

But then, I like being able to sleep at night. I don’t think I could, if I was going around using money and hate as a weapon.

[crickets]

2. K&R for visibility.

[Midnight Writer]

3. George Soros money is nothing compared to the dozens of megalomaniacal billionaires

and corporations on the Right.

[Zeitghost]

5. We have a slight edge in big money donors

Donors who gave over 100K broke ever so slightly to the Democrats, 51%-49%.

https://www.opensecrets.org/elections-overview/donor-demographics

[Midnight Writer]

6. How about Dark Money?

[Zeitghost]

7. Those stats

Claim to incorporate donations to candidates, parties and PACs, so it would include dark money.

[spanone]

4. This is just ONE of how many nonprofit organizations that are out to destroy our democracy?

And where does this money go?

[BeckyDem]

8. Citizens United will doom us.