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Leonard Leo typically operates in the background and goes to considerable lengths to cover his philanthropic tracks.
Each year, his groups send millions through #DonorsTrust,
which markets itself as a “principled philanthropic partner for conservative and libertarian donors”
and a means to anonymously fund “sensitive or controversial issues.”
Deep-pocketed benefactors like Leo can tell DonorsTrust where they want their money to ultimately go.
Its board of directors will “always respect grant requests that fall within the DonorsTrust mission and purpose,” per its website.
DonorsTrust declined to discuss the specifics of any contributions identified by The Intercept.
“We do not release to the general public either the names of our accountholders nor specific grants that they may have recommended,” said Lawson #Bader, its president and CEO.
Bader noted that some of the contributions listed on DonorsTrust’s tax filings may have originated from multiple donors.
But Leo’s funding vehicles
— especially the #Marble #Freedom #Trust and the #85Fund,
which he rebranded in 2020 and likely bankrolls via yet another donor-advised fund
— are among the biggest contributors to DonorsTrust.
In 2022, the 85 Fund sent $92 million through DonorsTrust,
more than a quarter of all contributions to DonorsTrust that year.
Marble Freedom Trust has distributed more than $41 million via DonorsTrust, according to a filing for its 2020 fiscal year.
The Rule of Law Trust, also run by Leo, gave $5.8 million via DonorsTrust in 2020.
Beside Leo’s groups, other top contributors to DonorsTrust include #Rebekah #Mercer of Cambridge Analytica and Parler fame,
whose Mercer Family Foundation gave $31 million in 2022.
Mercer and other top contributors to DonorsTrust did not respond to The Intercept’s questions for this article.
Whether from Leo or other sources, conservative money has been already flowing to law schools via DonorsTrust for years, mostly to premiere programs.
Since 2019, #Yale Law School has received $250,000 per year for the “Diversity in Democracy Professorship Fund”;
Yale declined to explain the purpose of this fund or say whether these contributions came from Leo.
New York University Law School received $350,000 in 2021 and $300,000 in 2022 for a libertarian research institute.
#NYU also declined to provide additional details about the source of these contributions.
And since 2020, #Stanford’s student chapter of the Federalist Society received $25,000 per year.
Stanford referred questions to the Federalist Society and DonorsTrust.
There were also millions sent to George Mason University’s #Scalia Law School,
which Leo helped make one of the gravitational centers for conservative legal academia.
Since 2017, Scalia Law School received at least $4 million each year via DonorsTrust,
much of it earmarked for its Law & Economics Center, which puts on often lavish doctrinal bootcamps for judges, one of which was held in Leo’s literal backyard.
https://theintercept.com/2024/05/29/leonard-leo-donor-law-schools/
But in 2022, after the Cornell deal soured, new law school donations appeared on DonorsTrust’s filings.
These anonymous gifts went to schools without the hefty endowments of Cornell, Yale, Stanford, or NYU, or the conservative cachet of George Mason.
And like the earmark for Leo’s new center at Texas A&M, these new donations also had explicit instructions for how the cash must be used, instructions which seem to align closely with Leo’s priorities.
One such school on #DonorsTrust’s filing in 2022 was Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C.
In November 2022, after Texas A&M soft-launched his
" Center on the Structural Constitution"
Leo took the stage at Catholic University’s law school alongside Patrick #Kelly, “Supreme Knight” of the Knights of Columbus, the all-male Catholic fraternal order.
The occasion: to celebrate a new endowed professorship and the launch of a new research center,
both focused on the intersection of the U.S. Constitution and the Catholic intellectual tradition.
It was a rare public recognition of Leo’s fundraising prowess at the intersection of faith and the law.
A devout Catholic, Leo is a member of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, a Catholic knighthood, and recipient of the top honor from Opus Dei’s Catholic Information Center.
At Catholic University’s celebration, Leo said its law school was
“becoming very impactful in the field of legal education.”
At first, money for the new center
— the Project on Constitutional Originalism and the Catholic Intellectual Tradition
— came in without any mention of Leo.
In April 2021, Catholic University announcedit had received $4.25 million from an “anonymous trust” for a three-year program,
with the possibility of expanding “into a larger constitutional law center” after that, based on a joint assessment by the “supporting donor” and the school.
A year later, in May 2022, the school announced the creation of a new professorship to lead the new project.
Leo, in partnership with the Knights of Columbus, had “directed a gift” to endow the “Knights of Columbus Professor of Law and the Catholic Tradition,”
which was awarded to Kevin #Walsh, a former Scalia clerk.
The total funding for Walsh’s professorship and the center came to $8.25 million, according to the announcement.
At the November 2022 event, the Knights of Columbus were credited with chipping in $1 million toward the professorship,
while an “anonymous donor” contributed $3 million that was “overseen” by Leo.
DonorsTrust’s year-end tax filings for 2022 show a $4.1 million contribution to Catholic University of America,
earmarked “for the Knights of Columbus Professor of Law.”
Catholic University and the Knights of Columbus did not respond to questions from The Intercept.
Since it launched, Catholic University’s new research center has hosted talks by two Supreme Court justices:
Samuel #Alito and Amy Coney #Barrett,
two of six practicing Catholics currently on the high court.
Alito serves as the project’s honorary chair, and it has also attracted powerful conservative appellate judges as “visiting jurists.”
“Catholic tradition is not an add-on, not something extra,” said Walsh at the November 2022 event.
“It is the matrix within which we are to take hold of all reality, including the realities of law and justice.”
https://theintercept.com/2024/05/29/leonard-leo-donor-law-schools/