The consulting firm led by Leonard Leo, the architect of the Supreme Court’s conservative supermajority, has worked for billionaire Charles Koch’s political advocacy network and a dark money group that is currently arguing a Supreme Court case designed to preempt a wealth tax, according to documents obtained by Rolling Stone. The firm even worked to promote a book by Donald Trump cronies Corey Lewandowski and David Bossie.
Leo has played a central role in shifting the high court and its decisions far to the right. As former President Donald Trump’s judicial adviser, Leo helped select three of the Supreme Court’s six conservative justices. He also leads a dark money network that boosted their confirmations, and helps determine what cases the justices hear and shape their rulings.
The Supreme Court connection has paid off for Leo – big time. In 2021, he was gifted control of a $1.6 billion political advocacy slush fund. Over the past decade, Leo’s dark money network has plowed more than $100 million into his for-profit consulting firm, CRC Advisors.
One CRC employee’s 2024 resume says his clients include the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a dark money group arguing a case before the Supreme Court this term that is designed to slam the door shut on a federal wealth tax. Experts say the case could upend the nation’s tax code.
“In the last Congress, legislation to establish a wealth tax was introduced in both the House and the Senate,” CEI wrote in its petition to the Supreme Court, adding that justices should act now to “head off a major constitutional clash down the line.” During oral arguments in December, Justice Samuel Alito presented a hypothetical where “somebody graduates from school and starts up a little business in his garage, and 20 years later, 30 years later, the person is a billionaire,” and asked whether the government “can Congress tax all of that.”
According to the CRC employee’s 2024 resume, Leo’s firm has also worked for the Koch network’s political advocacy arm, Americans for Prosperity. AFP’s super PAC spent more than $40 million supporting former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley’s failed Republican primary campaign against Trump this election cycle. AFP’s charitable arm has supported a case at the Supreme Court this term pushing justices to block the government from influencing content moderation by social media platforms.
The CRC employee’s resume also notes the firm has worked with Lewandowski, the former Trump campaign manager. The employee writes that he “helped generate extensive, positive news coverage” for Trump: America First, a book that Lewandowski co-wrote with Bossie.
“It’s no surprise that Leonard Leo’s for-profit consulting firm – which has pulled down a whopping $100 million from Leo’s own nonprofit network – counts the Koch network and the group leading the Supreme Court billionaire bailout case as clients,” says Accountable.US president Caroline Ciccone. “We knew that Leo’s fingerprints were all over these far-right causes, but now it appears he’s directly profiting off of them, too. There’s no cause Leo won’t take up if it means he’ll profit.”
By reshaping the Supreme Court under Trump, Leo secured his largest-ever policy victory: the 2022 decision that overturned Roe v. Wade and allowed states to ban abortion. That ruling, the culmination of decades of work by the conservative movement legal movement, put a spotlight on Leo and his operation as well as the Supreme Court. Last year, reporters revealed that conservative justices accepted and failed to report luxury gifts – casting an ethical cloud over the court.
Leo has played a key role in the ethics scandals. Leo reportedly arranged Alito’s seat on a private jet flight – paid for by a billionaire hedge-fund chief – as part of an undisclosed luxury fishing trip in Alaska. He also allegedly steered secret consulting payments to Justice Clarence Thomas’ wife.
Senate Democrats subpoenaed Leo after he refused to detail the gifts and payments he has directed to Supreme Court justices and their spouses. The District of Columbia’s attorney general is also reportedly investigating whether Leo has misused nonprofit laws for personal enrichment.
Documents show CRC has worked with major corporate clients as well as ideologically conservative startups.
In 2020, E&E News named one of the firm’s corporate clients: Chevron. The outlet reported that CRC had sought to get journalists to write about how green groups had wrongfully “claimed solidarity” with black protesters while “backing radical policies like the Green New Deal which would bring harm to minority communities. The message’s tagline suggested it was sent by Chevron.
The CRC employee’s 2020 resume file lists another corporate client: pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly. Like its competitors, the drugmaker has faced scrutiny from Democratic lawmakers for jacking up the price of insulin products that diabetics need to live. While Lilly announced a price cut last year, The Los Angeles Times noted that the new price was “still higher by two-thirds than it should be,” and the company could actually end up collecting higher profits.
One of Lilly’s drugs was included in the first round of Medicare drug price negotiations, as part of the Biden administration’s landmark program. Lilly’s CEO last year expressed concern about the negotiation plan, saying he is “really worried about the harm this will do to new cures and possibilities in medicine.” (Virtually all countries besides the U.S. negotiate drug prices.)
While much of Leo’s work has focused on the judiciary, he spoke at length in a recent podcast interview about wanting to influence corporate America, as well as the media and entertainment industries.
Along those lines, CRC worked with GloriFi, a failed “anti-woke” banking startup that promised customers they would be “free to celebrate your love of God and country without fear of cancellation.” GloriFi’s bankruptcy documents list CRC as a creditor.
CRC has also worked with the right-wing social video platform Rumble, according to company filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
