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When Supreme Court docket Justice Clarence Thomas was selling a brand new launch of his 2007 memoir final October, he made an attention-grabbing selection for his public relations agency, an organization run by one of the crucial influential figures in conservative authorized circles: Leonard Leo.
Leo, the previous head of the Federalist Society and a high fundraiser for right-wing judiciary activist teams, wasn’t simply accountable for Thomas’ memoir; Leo’s PR agency, CRC Advisors, was additionally tasked with selling a Thomas documentary, and the agency was the registered agent for 4 Thomas-centric internet domains.
The attention-grabbing a part of this selection shouldn't be that Leo’s agency was incapable of dealing with the work—removed from it. What makes Thomas’ determination notable is that Leo occurs to have a vested curiosity within the Supreme Court docket, and his darkish cash community actively tries to affect rulings.
The revelations of Leo and Thomas’ enterprise relationship affords new proof of ties between a sitting justice and a person broadly thought-about essentially the most highly effective conservative judicial activist within the nation. And whereas it may not be an immediately damning smoking gun, consultants say the connection—the place Thomas stands to achieve financially—raises additional questions in regards to the arch-conservative justice’s deep and shady ties to a sprawling community of darkish cash organizations and right-wing activist teams, lots of which have enterprise earlier than him.
The information additionally comes at a time of dwindling public religion within the Supreme Court docket’s impartiality. That religion hit an all-time low final September, the month earlier than the audiobook’s press launch.
Paul Collins, professor of political science on the College of Massachusetts at Amherst and writer of a number of books in regards to the excessive courtroom, referred to as Thomas’ particular selection of Leo’s agency, of all out there choices, “unusual” and “pointless.”
“It indicators that this world of the Federalist Society is even smaller than we thought,” Collins advised The Day by day Beast.
That world was already regarded as miniscule, with Leo’s hand seemingly by no means removed from the courtroom’s affairs.
The foremost of a decent cadre of hyperconservative authorized activists, Leo has raised a whole lot of tens of millions of dollars over the three a long time on behalf of right-wing darkish cash teams to affect the federal judiciary and Supreme Court docket. He suggested and persuaded Republican presidents George W. Bush and Donald Trump of their appointments of Justices Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch,Brett Kavanaugh, Amy Coney Barrett, and Chief Justice John Roberts—and prepped Justice Thomas for his nomination hearings.
Leo can also be the hub of a community of darkish cash teams which routinely, and anonymously, fund and be a part of arguments earlier than the Supreme Court docket—bankrolling what researchers have referred to as an “amicus flotilla.”
His community has most lately taken the form of a sprawling authorized effort centered on influencing election administration, together with deceptive allegations of impropriety. The Federalist Society, the authorized activist group synonymous with Leo, has been referred to as “the only most influential advocacy group in Washington.”
However Leo’s affiliations with the courtroom are particularly heightened in terms of Justice Thomas.
Leo made Thomas the godfather of one among his youngsters, and, based on The New York Instances, has hosted the justice on trip at his New England getaway. Thomas’ spouse, Ginni Thomas, was additionally the topic of a latest profile by the New Yorker’s Jane Mayer, titled, “Is Ginni Thomas a Menace to The Supreme Court docket?” It detailed the staggering extent and depth of connections between the justice’s spouse and conservative teams.
A few of these organizations are tied with Leo, and, as Mayer reported, many have issues earlier than the courtroom. At the very least one among them has tapped CRC to deal with its public relations.
Leo, whom Ginni Thomas considers a mentor, joined CRC Advisors in 2020, after stepping down from his place as vice chairman of the Federalist Society. (He nonetheless co-chairs the board.) Leo advised Axios on the time that CRC deliberate to pump a “minimal of $10 million” into judicial advocacy points forward of the 2020 election.
Neither CRC Advisors nor the Supreme Court docket replied to a request for remark.
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), a progressive who has lengthy referred to as for readability about darkish cash affect on the judiciary, mentioned Leo’s group, in operating public relations for Thomas, seems to be making an attempt to scrub up after its personal injury.
“Leo and his CRC Advisors type the top of a many-legged dark-money operation designed to ship on the priorities of right-wing donor pursuits,” Whitehouse advised The Day by day Beast. “That operation spent a whole lot of tens of millions of dollars—if no more—to seize the Supreme Court docket. Now, it’s making an attempt to prop up its right-wing justices’ credibility within the face of rising public frustration with what Justice Sotomayor calls the ‘stench’ of partisanship emanating from the Court docket.”
CRC’s press announcement for the Thomas memoir—My Grandfather’s Son—promotes a brand new launch in audiobook and Kindle codecs. It additionally quotes two conservative activists, and informs media that they will contact a CRC Advisors official in the event that they wish to land an interview with both of them.
One of many officers, Mark Paoletta, labored on Justice Thomas’ nomination; the opposite, Carrie Severino, clerked for him and at the moment runs the Judicial Disaster Community, a conservative group linked to Leo which has poured tens of millions into influencing judicial nominations.
CRC Advisors was additionally chosen to advertise the critically panned Thomas documentary, Created Equal, which Selectionreferred to as “a two-hour infomercial for the decency, the competence, and the conservative role-model aspirationalism of Clarence Thomas.”
(CNBC reported that the documentary’s producer—a Trump appointee—had tapped donations to his nonprofit to assist fund his personal manufacturing firm.)
CRC has additionally registered a number of internet domains associated to Justice Thomas, together with “clarencethomas.org,” “clarencethomas.us,” “justicethomas.us,” and “theanitahillcase.com,” a reference to the credible sexual harassment allegations that marked Thomas’ bitter nomination hearings in 1991.
The connection carries the additional context of Leo’s activism, fundraising, and connection to circumstances earlier than the courtroom. This extends not simply to the Federalist Society, however to CRC itself, which inside months of selling the memoir revealed a number of press releases about makes an attempt to affect Supreme Court docket circumstances, together with a petition to knock down the vaccine mandate.
Collins, the UMASS professor, famous that, after the fraught nominations of Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett, the general public has been notably delicate to moral issues.
“Many individuals, together with the Chief Justice, are nervous in regards to the legitimacy of the Supreme Court docket within the eyes of the American public,” Collins mentioned, referencing Chief Justice John Roberts’s annual report final 12 months, the place Roberts took the weird step of admonishing federal judges for moral breaches, writing that, “We anticipate judges to stick to the very best requirements.”
“The continued publicity of actual or potential conflicts of curiosity could possibly be problematic for the courtroom, particularly once we see ties like this between a justice and the Federalist Society, which performs such a big position within the authorized world,” Collins mentioned.
Stephen Gillers, an professional on authorized ethics at New York College College of Legislation, mentioned that whereas the connection between Leo, CRC, and Thomas bears reporting, it doesn’t hit an official moral bar—partly, he mentioned, as a result of the bar is a lot greater for Supreme Court docket justices than for another federal choose.
“The ethics guidelines governing justices are a lot narrower than the foundations governing different federal judges. So on the query of disqualification, on this case it’s too attenuated, as this case doesn’t recommend that these guidelines have been violated,” Gillers defined, noting that “Ginni Thomas is a category by itself; nothing comes near the hurt that does to our courts.”
On the difficulty of CRC, Gillers mentioned, “There’s a distinction between whether or not one thing is newsworthy, and whether or not it crosses a authorized line. This occasion is newsworthy, however it doesn’t cross a line.”
“Thomas in fact has a proper to rent a PR agency to promote his guide and get consideration to it. Now, it might seem to many individuals as unseemly, however that’s not a authorized query,” Gillers mentioned. “In my opinion, justices shouldn't act in a means that casts suspicion on the courtroom simply because they will.”
Artemus Ward, a professor of political science at Northern Illinois College who has written extensively on the politics of the Supreme Court docket, mentioned that the matter might increase political issues for Thomas.
Ward pointed to a Nineteen Sixties conservative marketing campaign to power the resignation of Supreme Court docket Justice Abe Fortas, a liberal justice “received hounded out by conservatives due to some alleged moral breaches concerning his funds, reminiscent of receiving audio system charges.”
“It was by no means absolutely clear simply what the cash was or whether or not he had crossed moral traces, however conservatives held hearings to drum him out of workplace as a result of they noticed him as a liberal crony,” he mentioned. “The query with Thomas is whether or not the endgame for Democrats is to hound him out of workplace earlier than he’s able to go.”