0:03

The court has ruled that states

0:05

can decide whether abortion should be legal

0:08

or illegal. Roe vs. Wade

0:10

is history. The conservative majority

0:13

on today's Supreme Court has been redefining

0:16

Americans' constitutional rights in

0:18

one decision after another. And

0:20

one largely unknown man has

0:23

played an outsized role in making

0:25

it so. Leonard Leo

0:27

has single-handedly

0:30

changed the face of the judiciary.

0:33

This is On the Media. I'm Brooke Gladstone.

0:36

This week, an investigation into the

0:38

man who spent decades working

0:40

toward a conservative takeover of America's

0:42

courts. Because this is about way

0:45

more than just the U.S. Supreme Court.

0:47

The rights revolution in the United States

0:50

didn't happen just because you magically

0:52

got five justices on the court who agreed

0:54

with you. It's all coming up after

0:56

this.

1:01

From WNYC in New York, this

1:04

is On the Media. I'm Brooke Gladstone.

1:07

Oh yay, oh yay, oh yay. Next

1:10

week, on the first Monday in October,

1:13

the Supreme Court will be open

1:15

for business. God save the United

1:17

States and this honorable court.

1:20

Whatever the court decides in the upcoming term,

1:23

the body led by Chief Justice John

1:25

Roberts has already radically

1:28

changed American life. We

1:30

begin tonight with the Supreme Court striking

1:32

down affirmative action and reshaping

1:35

college admissions. The court's conservative

1:37

majority

1:37

has struck down President

1:40

Joe Biden's plan to forgive $400 billion in student

1:42

debt. The

1:44

justices ruled in the family's favor

1:47

weakening the water pollution law.

1:49

The Supreme Court's conservative majority

1:51

ruled that a Christian graphic artist who

1:53

wants to design wedding websites can

1:56

refuse to work with same-sex

1:59

couples.

1:59

Six to three decisions written

2:02

by Justice Samuel Alito, the court

2:04

has ruled that states can decide

2:06

whether abortion should be legal or

2:09

illegal. Roe versus Wade is

2:11

history. And now a quick recap

2:13

of how we got here. The court's current

2:16

six to three conservative majority

2:18

that helped deliver those rulings was the

2:20

product of long-term planning, tens

2:23

if not hundreds of millions of dollars,

2:26

and luck.

2:27

But the full story runs far

2:29

deeper than that, and a lot of it can be traced

2:32

back to one man whose marshaled

2:34

advanced effort to change who serves

2:36

on the court, what cases they hear,

2:39

and how they rule. Although Mr. Leo

2:41

may not be a household name, his influence

2:44

on America is almost unbelievable.

2:47

In May

2:48

of 2023, Leonard Leo was the

2:50

commencement speaker at a small Catholic

2:52

college in Kansas.

2:54

Benedictine college president Steven

2:56

Minnis rhapsodized about Leo's

2:58

behind the scenes role in confirming

3:01

all six conservatives currently

3:03

on the U.S. Supreme

3:04

Court. But more importantly than the

3:06

wins, it is those justices,

3:08

Thomas, Alito, Gorsuch,

3:11

Kavanaugh, Barrett, who

3:13

he helped to get into place that were able

3:16

last year to accomplish with the pro-life movement

3:18

had been working and praying for nearly 50 years

3:21

to finally, unequivocally, return

3:24

Roe versus White.

3:27

If

3:27

you have heard his name before, it's

3:30

likely as the man behind the list of potential

3:32

Supreme Court nominees presented

3:34

to Donald Trump during his 2016

3:37

campaign for president. In 2018,

3:41

during the confirmation battle over Brett

3:43

Kavanaugh, Justice Clarence

3:45

Thomas

3:45

joked about Leo's influence.

3:48

No, Leonard, since you're the number three

3:50

most powerful person in the world, we have

3:53

to step up. Right.

3:57

God help us.

3:59

Thomas didn't share

4:02

who he thinks are the top two.

4:05

Leo and Thomas were speaking at a conference

4:07

hosted by the Federalist Society,

4:10

an outfit founded in 1982 that

4:13

promotes conservative readings of the

4:15

law. Leo is now co-chair

4:17

of the board. He's also

4:19

helmed or been involved with over

4:22

a dozen political nonprofits, runs

4:24

a business, and has advised Presidents

4:27

George W. Bush and Donald Trump.

4:30

About a year ago, Leo won a prestigious

4:33

award from a major Catholic group.

4:36

His faith has informed his political

4:38

philosophy. His conservative

4:40

movement is ascendant.

4:42

But Leo

4:44

sounded besieged.

4:46

Trump faces vile

4:49

and immoral current-day barbarians,

4:53

secularists, and bigots. These

4:56

barbarians can be known by their

4:58

signs. They vandalized

5:00

and burned our churches after the Supreme

5:02

Court overturned Roe v. Wade. From

5:05

coast to coast, they are conducting a coordinated

5:08

and large-scale campaign to

5:10

drive us from the communities they

5:12

want to dominate.

5:13

As now, as reported by ProPublica

5:16

in March, Leo has designs

5:18

on much more than the makeup of

5:21

the Supreme Court. Here's

5:23

Leo in a promotional video, unearthed

5:25

by ProPublica. I spent

5:27

close to 30 years, if

5:29

not more, helping to

5:32

build the conservative legal movement. And

5:35

at some point or another, you know, I just

5:37

said to myself, well, if this can work

5:39

for law, why can't

5:41

it work for lots of

5:44

other areas of American culture and American

5:46

life where things are really messed up right now?

5:52

And as was also reported by

5:54

ProPublica, Leo has

5:56

the money to turn words into

5:59

action.

6:00

In a stunning exposé,

6:02

ProPublica and the Lever have

6:04

revealed how Barry

6:07

Fide, a 90-year-old conservative

6:10

industrialist from Chicago, has given his fortune

6:12

to a nonprofit run by Leonard Leo.

6:15

One point six billion dollars.

6:18

The broad outlines of what Leo

6:20

has accomplished so far are now

6:22

known, but the details are harder

6:25

to see. The extent to which his

6:27

influence has reached throughout the legal

6:29

system and into the states, how he

6:31

planted the seeds decades ago,

6:34

how he exercised bare-knuckled power

6:36

when needed, even once threatening

6:39

that a sitting governor could face the

6:41

quote, fury of the conservative

6:43

movement. There are a lot

6:45

of moving parts to this story.

6:48

That's why we teamed up with ProPublica

6:51

to produce an investigative series

6:53

we're calling We Don't Talk

6:55

About Leonard. ProPublica's

6:58

Andrea Bernstein, Andy Kroll,

7:00

and Ilya Maritz will be our guides. Andrea

7:03

and Ilya were co-hosts of the podcast

7:06

Will Be Wild and Trump, Inc.,

7:08

and are both former WNYC colleagues.

7:11

Andy Kroll is an investigative reporter

7:13

for ProPublica, an author of a book about

7:15

the murder of Seth Rich called A

7:18

Death on W Street. The

7:20

first episode is reported by Andrea

7:23

and Andy. Here's Andrea.

7:27

To get to Northeast Harbor, Maine, you

7:30

drive down from the mainland, across a bridge,

7:32

and onto an island shaped a bit

7:34

like a lobster claw. Then

7:37

south to a small cove with a long

7:39

top turning out.

7:40

It's summer. Day

7:43

is turning to evening, but the sun is still

7:45

high, flinting off blue-green

7:47

water.

7:49

The smell of lupin lost down to the rocky

7:51

shore. It's

7:53

June 23rd of 2023. Andy

7:56

and I have come down here to meet Allison Shafer.

7:58

Check one, two.

7:59

We're good.

8:01

Shafer, who's a summer resident here,

8:03

wants to tell us about something unusual she

8:06

saw a year ago this very evening, when

8:08

she was walking her dog on the dock. The

8:11

sun was setting. It was warm out. It

8:13

was nice out. And we came down and

8:15

walked past this fleet house and onto the dock

8:17

and down to the floats so we could sort

8:19

of look around

8:20

and see what was going on in the ocean, which

8:22

was not generally very much. Something caught

8:24

her eye. One of those small little

8:26

ribs.

8:26

It's like an inflatable boat.

8:29

They're inflatable boats, but they're very

8:31

solid and they go really fast. They're planing

8:33

also. They kind of bounce over the waves. A

8:36

29-foot response boat with a bright

8:38

trim and very clear lettering.

8:40

U.S. Coast Guard. First

8:42

of all, they're not ever Coast Guard boats here, ever.

8:44

And also, it had its engines on.

8:47

Which struck me as odd because it

8:49

seemed like such an emergency stance, like,

8:52

you know, they'd have to respond to something stat.

8:56

Someone

8:57

else saw the boat that evening. Another summer resident. A

9:00

financial consultant named Francis

9:02

Weld. He saw

9:04

federal agents patrolling, he told us, with

9:07

guns slung kind of perpendicular to their

9:09

bodies. Standing

9:12

on the dock a year later, Shafer

9:14

points across the water to a wide green lawn leading

9:17

up to an 11-bedroom Tudor-style mansion.

9:20

It's Leonard Leo's house. It happened to be the night

9:22

that Leonard Leo was

9:24

having a party, and he had a big, white tent, quite

9:28

fancy, structured tents like people

9:30

have for weddings. You could hear the party. The

9:33

hominoma, twinking, glasses, you know, low

9:36

hum of conversation, that kind of thing.

9:39

On the patio, there's a rowboat filled with

9:41

ice and sparkling water and

9:43

Paul Roget Reserve champagne. Each

9:46

guest is handed a freshly poured glass. A

9:49

family has selected three more wines

9:52

to go with dinner. He was the former

9:54

food and beverage director for the Trump

9:56

Hotel in Washington, D.C. All

9:59

around the party. at the end of the dock, by

10:01

the champagne boat, in the house, there's

10:04

security, wearing dark suits,

10:05

earpieces. U.S.

10:08

Marshals are protecting high-profile

10:10

members of the judiciary, and

10:13

at this party, there are some two dozen

10:15

federal and state judges from across the country,

10:17

the U.S. Marshall Service

10:18

told us.

10:20

There's a former White House counsel, C.

10:23

Boyden Gray, leading conservative

10:25

academics, and the leadership of George

10:27

Mason University's Antonin Scalia

10:30

Law School. It's an intellectual

10:32

hub for training conservative lawyers and judges

10:34

in advancing a free market

10:37

anti-regulation agenda.

10:39

Unlike the judges in attendance who

10:41

preside over their courtrooms like personal

10:43

fiefdoms, Leo has never served

10:45

a day on the bench. Unlike the other

10:47

lawyers, he's never argued a case in

10:49

court. He's never held elected

10:52

office or a senior White House appointment

10:54

or run a law school. On paper,

10:57

he's less important than almost all of his guests.

11:01

But at this event, someone who was there told us,

11:04

quote, a lot of people are trying

11:06

to talk to Leonard Leo. He's

11:09

a squat man with owlish glasses and an elegant

11:11

suit. The judges

11:13

have come to Maine for a week-long conference

11:15

about conservative legal and economic

11:17

principles sponsored by the Antonin

11:20

Scalia Law School. It

11:22

was Leo who secured permission from the Scalia

11:25

family to name the school after the late

11:27

Supreme Court Justice. And it

11:29

was Leo who raised the tens of millions

11:31

of dollars that helped bring the school

11:34

to newfound prominence.

11:36

Some of the most influential and controversial

11:39

federal and state judges are in Maine for the

11:41

Scalia Law Conference. And

11:44

many of them duo or kudo career

11:46

advancement to Leonard's Leo. This

11:49

Third Circuit Judge Thomas Hardiman, whose

11:51

name was on Leo's list of potential Supreme Court

11:53

nominees for President Trump, he's

11:55

been described as a Second Amendment extremist. There

11:59

are Trump appointees.

11:59

Federalist Society members whose

12:02

names were vetted by close Leo allies

12:05

in the White House. Two members

12:07

of the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, Kyle

12:10

Duncan and Corey Wilson, both

12:12

fiercely anti-abortion, Wendy

12:15

Berger, the Florida federal judge

12:17

who would uphold Governor Ron DeSantis'

12:19

so-called don't-say-gay law. Also

12:22

there, North Carolina State Supreme

12:25

Court Justice Phil Berger, Jr.

12:26

No relation.

12:29

On the night of the party, he's the minority

12:32

on that state's highest

12:33

court. But a group funded

12:35

by Leo is spending big money to

12:37

change that. They'll succeed.

12:40

And in January of 2023, swing

12:43

North Carolina Supreme

12:43

Court to the right. After

12:48

the champagne pouring, there's dinner. But

12:50

the guests keep asking for champagne.

12:53

The vibe was both,

12:54

let me show you the best of the best for my

12:57

friends.

12:57

The first person who was there told us,

13:00

when the guests sit down, there

13:01

are menus with raised seals, dusted

13:04

with gold. Leo makes

13:06

remarks.

13:06

So does Henry Butler, the former dean

13:09

of Scalia Law School. They express

13:11

mutual admiration. Their accomplishments

13:14

couldn't have happened without each other. The

13:16

mood is jubilant.

13:20

It's late June of 2022, and

13:23

there's a lot for this crowd to celebrate. The

13:26

Supreme Court has just handed conservatives

13:28

a string of victories on guns

13:30

and religion. And six weeks before the party,

13:33

a highly, indeed, as

13:35

far as I can tell, utterly unprecedented

13:38

leak from the Supreme Court. A

13:41

draft opinion by Justice Samuel Alito overturning

13:44

the 50-year constitutional right to an abortion.

13:47

It called Roe v. Wade, quote, egregiously

13:50

wrong from the start.

13:54

Inside the mansion, Leonard Leo

13:56

and the judges and lawyers and Scalia Law

13:58

School

13:58

leaders keep partying.

14:00

There's a cheese course and a tasting of American

14:03

rare whiskey's chilled with cold stones.

14:06

One guest gets so tipsy he needs help

14:08

getting up a flight of stairs.

14:10

The affair ends well into the night,

14:12

much later than expected.

14:15

Judges Wilson, Duncan, Wendy Berger,

14:17

and Justice Philberger Jr. did not

14:19

respond to requests for comment for this story.

14:22

The sommelier hung up on us when we asked

14:24

about the party. A spokesperson

14:26

for George Mason University's Scalia

14:28

School of Law confirmed the facts, but

14:30

declined

14:31

to comment.

14:32

When we shared our reporting with Leo, he

14:34

didn't dispute it.

14:37

The morning after the party, June 24, 2022, Americans learned that

14:39

it's official. The

14:43

U.S. Supreme Court has overturned Roe v.

14:45

Wade. When Leonard Leo

14:47

steps out for his regular walk, it's

14:50

into a world he has remained, and

14:53

he's not done.

14:53

Coming

14:56

up, Andrea and Andy go

14:58

out and search some biographical details

15:01

to help paint a fuller picture of who Leonard

15:03

Leo is today. When you're that

15:05

age, you want to be a baseball player or a policeman?

15:08

No one says you want to be a lawyer. He's 10 years

15:10

old, but he did. This

15:13

is On the Media.

15:27

This is On the Media. I'm Brooke Gladstone.

15:29

Welcome back to our series, We Don't

15:32

Talk About Leonard. One of the reasons

15:34

for that name is that so many people who

15:36

have worked with Leonard Leo do not

15:39

want to speak with ProPublica's Ilya

15:41

Maritz, Andy Kroll, or Andrea

15:44

Bernstein. We reached out to hundreds

15:46

and hundreds of people who had experiences with

15:48

Leonard Leo, and so many

15:51

just did not get back to us or wouldn't

15:53

go on the record. At one point,

15:55

deep into our reporting, we

15:56

realized that requests to independent

15:59

people

15:59

to be going straight to Leo's PR

16:02

man.

16:02

Source after source told me that

16:04

the reason we were having trouble finding people

16:06

to talk about Leo is because Leo

16:09

is funding basically everything. Everything,

16:12

I remember asking in one conversation.

16:15

Not literally everything, of course. But

16:18

you give a guy a billion and a half dollars and

16:20

he can bankroll an entire movement.

16:23

To give you a sense of how

16:24

tightly Leo controls his PR,

16:27

we put questions to three different

16:29

groups that are part of this story. The

16:31

Federalist Society, the Judicial Crisis Network,

16:34

and Leo himself. They all

16:36

have the same PR firm,

16:38

which

16:39

Leo is a part owner of. The

16:42

Federalist Society and JCN did not respond.

16:45

We did finance some people to talk to. Childhood

16:47

friends, colleagues, political

16:49

associates, current and former judges,

16:52

and attorneys general, some of whom you'll hear from

16:54

in this series.

16:56

We spoke to over a hundred people who knew

16:58

Leo on a personal level, worked with

17:01

him, got funding from him, or

17:03

studied his rise. Most didn't

17:05

want us to use their names because they were worried

17:07

about their careers suffering or about losing

17:09

access to donors in Leo's orbit.

17:12

When we asked Leo about this, he said in a

17:14

statement, I would assume many

17:16

people didn't want to speak because they

17:18

surmised, rightly or wrongly, that

17:21

you would not be producing a balanced and objective

17:23

story. We did not interview

17:25

Leonard Leo. After months

17:28

of discussions, Leo agreed to speak on

17:30

the condition we not ask questions about his

17:32

financial activities or relationships

17:34

with Supreme

17:35

Court justices. We declined.

17:38

Then we sent him a long and detailed list of

17:40

questions and a second list of factual assertions.

17:43

Leo did not correct the vast majority of them,

17:46

or he did, we made adjustments.

17:49

He also gave some comments. Leo

17:51

says he's just trying to keep up with the strategy

17:53

and spending on the left. He told

17:56

us, quote, to the extent that

17:58

I have been successful at raising

18:00

It has been because the ideas I have tried

18:02

to advance are compelling and because

18:05

I have always placed a premium on driving

18:07

results through highly effective talent

18:09

pipelines and infrastructure.

18:12

And he set up his relationship with Supreme Court

18:14

justices, quote, the justices

18:17

who have served on the U.S. Supreme Court since

18:19

I first started working in Washington in the late 1980s,

18:23

liberals and conservatives alike, are

18:25

the most independent and resolute public officials

18:27

I've known. I've never believed that

18:29

the relationships or interactions they have outside

18:32

the court affects how they do their work.

18:35

So we put this story together based on all

18:37

of the on the record and background interviews we

18:39

did, plus court records,

18:41

tax filings and documents we got from

18:44

Freedom of Information Act requests. Now

18:47

on with the story.

18:49

Leonard Anthony Leo was born

18:51

on Long Island in 1965. His

18:53

father, who was a baker, died when

18:55

Leonard was young. His

18:58

mother remarried an engineer and moved the family

19:00

to central New Jersey. This

19:02

has been described to me as a place with an identity

19:04

problem. Where

19:06

you aren't sure if your baseball

19:07

team is the Yankees or the Phillies.

19:11

I went to see Leo's childhood home. It's

19:13

modest one story on a suburban

19:15

street where the houses are close together.

19:18

Leo attended Monroe Township High School, a

19:20

public school.

19:23

You can still

19:24

find the 1983 yearbook at the town library. Okay,

19:27

I'm opening it up. The

19:30

girls have big hair. Some of the boys have mustaches.

19:33

They're dressed in t-shirts

19:34

or polos.

19:35

But there, smiling out from the top of

19:37

the class page in a shirt and tie

19:40

and gray blazer, is Leonard

19:42

Leo.

19:43

He's senior class president, national

19:46

honor society vice president. His nickname

19:49

is Moneybags Kid.

19:51

He says it's, quote, because I developed

19:53

a number of fundraisers that resulted in a

19:55

significant amount of

19:56

money for our senior prom and senior

19:59

trip. money left over to donate

20:01

to the high school. The secretary

20:03

of the class is Sally Schroeder, now

20:06

Sally Leo. Leonard Leo shows

20:08

up many times in these pages, but the

20:10

picture catching my eye is the one illustrating

20:13

most likely to succeed. It's

20:15

Leonard Leo and Sally Schroeder sitting

20:18

at a table in front of a pile of cash. They're

20:21

holding more in their hands, fanned out like

20:23

cards, superimposed

20:25

in a lens of each of their eyeglasses,

20:28

dollar signs. I rarely

20:30

have ever saw in casual wear, he

20:34

was always well-dressed, especially

20:37

at that age.

20:38

This is Ne-Ho Shaw, an engineer now, who

20:40

says Leo was his best friend. From

20:43

when they met in fourth grade, Shaw

20:45

says Leo wanted to be a lawyer.

20:48

When you're that

20:48

age, you want to be a baseball player, or a policeman,

20:50

or a fireman. No one says they

20:52

want to be a lawyer that's nine or 10 years old,

20:55

but he did. If

20:58

you're different at that age, you're going to get bullied

21:00

a little bit. You know, he was a smart

21:02

kid, I was a smart kid too, I got bullied.

21:05

Growing up in elementary school, junior

21:07

high, high school, he was probably more of

21:09

an outcast than someone

21:12

who was popular.

21:14

When Leo first ran for student government, Shaw says,

21:17

he lost,

21:18

but then he learned from his mistakes. He won

21:20

people over. I think he did a better job

21:23

of kind of not letting the snobbishness

21:25

come out. Shaw says he doesn't remember

21:28

details of their discussions about politics,

21:31

but... He was always passionate

21:33

about being anti-abortion. He

21:36

was very steadfast in that belief.

21:41

After high school, Leo enrolls at Cornell, where

21:43

he gets a bachelor's degree and a law degree in

21:46

just six years, graduating in 1989. I

21:49

spoke with a half dozen of his classmates, and

21:51

here's what I learned. Leonard Leo wore

21:53

bow ties in a suta class. No

21:56

one else did. Many of them consider

21:58

themselves liberal, but not Leo.

22:00

Leo told us that as an undergrad, there

22:02

was a professor in the Department of Government, Jeremy

22:05

Rapkin, who shaped his views. Rapkin

22:08

was a rare conservative voice on campus. The

22:10

law schools are overwhelmingly

22:13

tilted to the left, certainly in the area of

22:15

constitutional law. This is Rapkin

22:17

speaking at an event hosted by the conservative

22:20

Claremont Institute. He points out

22:22

that the overwhelming majority of justices on

22:24

the U.S. Supreme Court were appointed

22:26

by Republicans. I don't think I'm communicating

22:29

anything new to anyone in this audience, but let's

22:31

just remind ourselves a lot

22:33

of these appointments are disappointing.

22:36

Rapkin says, you

22:37

can't just have a Republican elected official name

22:39

a judge and then assume that judge

22:42

will make the right,

22:43

that is, sufficiently conservative

22:45

decisions. Who was Sandra Day O'Connor?

22:48

Sandra Day O'Connor was, to put it

22:50

politely, nobody. There

22:52

was no reason why people should have

22:55

trusted that Ronald Reagan's first nominee

22:57

to the Supreme Court was somebody

23:00

that conservatives would be happy about.

23:03

Rapkin made this speech years after Leo graduated.

23:06

But even back in the 80s, he was criticizing judges

23:08

who, in his view, imposed left-wing policies

23:10

dressed up as judicial rulings. Rapkin

23:13

declined to be interviewed for this story.

23:16

When Leo starts law school, there's a new

23:19

national organization getting off the ground,

23:21

the Federalist Society. Leo

23:23

found the chapter at Cornell.

23:25

During this period, President Reagan

23:27

nominates Robert

23:28

Bork to the U.S. Supreme Court.

23:31

In Robert Bork's America, there is

23:33

no room at the end for blacks and

23:36

no place in the Constitution for women. And

23:39

in our America, there should be no seat on the

23:41

Supreme Court for Robert Bork.

23:44

When the Senate kills his nomination,

23:46

Borked becomes a verb. One

23:49

of Leo's classmates told me about watching

23:51

a 1988 presidential debate with Leo. This

23:54

classmate is complaining about the media's unfair

23:57

treatment of Jesse Jackson. Now

24:01

you know how I feel with the people on my

24:03

side.

24:04

After graduation in 1989, Leo marries Sally. And

24:08

they move to Washington, where Leo gets

24:10

a clerkship on the U.S. Court of Appeals.

24:13

Clarence Thomas is one of the judges.

24:15

They become lifelong

24:16

friends. Good afternoon. My

24:19

name is Leonard Leo, and I am National

24:21

Lawyers Division Director of the... In this tape from

24:23

the 1990s,

24:24

Leo looks kind of like the Jonah Hill

24:26

character in Moneyball. Very young,

24:29

a full

24:30

dark head of hair. He keeps

24:32

pushing his glasses up his nose. I

24:34

met Justice Thomas in September 1990 as

24:37

a law clerk on the D.C. Circuit. Curious

24:40

as it may seem, one

24:42

of the first things I noticed upon entering his

24:44

office... Was a small

24:46

statue of St. Jude, who

24:49

for centuries has been known to many... As

24:51

the patron saint of seemingly hopeless causes.

24:55

This

24:55

is where Leo becomes a backstage producer

24:57

in the play

24:58

that you've already seen. He joins the White

25:00

House team working on Thomas' nomination

25:02

to the U.S. Supreme Court.

25:04

Leo's job is gathering research.

25:06

Soon, that team is in an

25:09

all-out fight to discredit Professor

25:11

Anita Hill's allegations

25:12

of sexual harassment. From

25:14

my standpoint, as a black American,

25:17

as far as I'm concerned, it is a

25:19

high-tech lynching for uppity

25:21

blacks. The yeas are 52, and the

25:23

nays are 48. The

25:27

nomination of Clarence Thomas of Georgia,

25:29

to be Associate Justice of the United States Supreme

25:32

Court, is hereby confirmed.

25:34

Leo, galvanized by the confirmation

25:36

battle, goes to work for the Federalist Society

25:39

for the next 30 years.

25:42

You have the distinction of being a co-founder

25:46

of the Federalist Society. I almost kind of want you

25:48

to start there. Except that scene. I mean,

25:50

I've never talked to one of the founders

25:52

of that organization. Oh, really? Oh, okay. Andy

25:54

spoke

25:54

to David McIntosh at the office where he now

25:56

works, at the Club for Growth. McIntosh

25:59

says he...

25:59

considers Leo a good friend.

26:01

So we were all in law

26:03

school and Reagan had just become

26:05

president. All of us thought, wouldn't

26:08

it be great if we could have a conservative

26:11

student group, one that's kind of

26:13

dedicated to debating what

26:16

the role of the law is and role

26:18

of judging?

26:19

The idea was this. Elite law schools

26:21

tilted left. They were the

26:23

in crowd. They had a pipeline sending

26:26

clerks and lawyers and justices

26:28

to the US Supreme Court. In 1982,

26:32

McIntosh and the others

26:33

organized a conference at Yale. And

26:35

everybody who came had a great time. The students

26:37

did, the faculty that came. Was

26:40

it in some auditorium or ballroom?

26:42

It was at Yale at the, yeah, classroom

26:44

for part of it. I think we weren't even big

26:46

enough to be in the big law school auditorium.

26:49

The preface to the transcript from that conference

26:52

belittles professors who quote, dream

26:55

of regulating from their cloistered offices

26:57

every minute detail of our

26:59

lives. Fed Soc, as

27:02

it becomes known, grows quickly.

27:04

It hires an executive director, Gene

27:06

Meyer. Gene came to us on

27:08

the board and said, I want

27:11

to hire Leonard Leo. Here's his background.

27:14

We got to know Leonard. Immediately saw

27:16

how talented he is.

27:17

That was 1991. As head of

27:19

the lawyers division, Leo spends his

27:21

first decade with the Federalist Society cultivating

27:24

relationships with like-minded lawyers

27:26

around the country and with people in

27:28

government. McIntosh told us Leo

27:31

came to a realization.

27:33

It takes political activity to

27:35

nominate a justice. You've got to persuade

27:37

a president that that's the type of justice

27:40

he or she wants. You then have to

27:42

persuade the United States Senate to confirm

27:44

them. And so I

27:47

think Leonard's talents there in organizing

27:50

people who share his beliefs and having

27:53

them advocate those is

27:55

a key part of it.

27:58

in 2001. Leo ceases the chance

28:00

to become a bigger player.

28:03

By 2003, the White House sees him

28:09

as a key ally. His

28:12

day job is still at the Federalist Society.

28:15

One email among Bush aides points out

28:17

Leo, quote, is now helping

28:19

to coordinate all outside

28:21

coalition activity

28:22

regarding judicial nominations.

28:26

There's a book about the Federalist Society called Ideas

28:28

with Consequences, the Federalist Society

28:31

and the Conservative Counter-Revolution.

28:34

Pomona College political scientist Amanda Hollis-Bruskey

28:37

interviewed top Federalist Society leaders,

28:40

including McIntosh, for the book. The title

28:42

refers to the organization's mantra, ideas

28:45

have consequences.

28:46

But more importantly, that policy is

28:48

people.

28:49

So you have to connect those ideas to

28:51

the right people who have

28:54

access to the levers of power to

28:56

make it happen.

28:57

And so Leonard Leo is the policy

29:00

is people guy. When Leonard

29:02

Leo comes in, it becomes

29:05

less about creating a sort of pipeline

29:08

and a counter elite with their own ideas

29:10

and shared vision of the Constitution.

29:13

It becomes about plugging

29:15

that in very consciously

29:19

to power. Hollis-Bruskey noticed

29:21

something about Leo. Through the course

29:24

of interviews with other Federalist Society folks,

29:26

it became clear that the president

29:28

of the Federalist Society was more of a symbolic figurehead,

29:31

whereas the real power in the organization was with the

29:33

vice president, Leonard Leo.

29:36

One top Republican strategist told her

29:38

his key to success in Washington is that he doesn't

29:41

have the typical Washington ego. He's

29:43

a real cause guy. He's just in it for the

29:45

cause. In this lead

29:47

from behind role, Leo cultivates

29:49

wealthy conservative donors, which makes

29:52

him important to the White House, which

29:54

in turn makes him important to the donors.

29:56

And the less people know about what he's doing, the less people know about what

29:58

he's doing. the more he can get done.

30:03

One of the ways he organizes is by hosting

30:06

powerful people. Bring them together

30:08

over food and wine and their commitment

30:10

to conservative causes. He

30:12

has very good taste.

30:14

Federalist Society co-founder David

30:16

McIntosh.

30:16

And opinions

30:18

about food and wine, but

30:21

he's solicitous of his gifts

30:24

and really makes you feel this

30:26

sense of warmth that he cares about. He wants

30:28

you to enjoy the same things he's

30:31

enjoying and to be part

30:33

of, in the moment, a larger sense of enjoying

30:36

a great meal. And when Leo invited people

30:38

to work with him, it was the same.

30:40

Be part of a coalition of people

30:43

that are aiming at that same goal

30:45

for liberty and constitutional order.

30:48

And it's a collegiality that the

30:51

public image doesn't show.

30:55

On a cold night in Washington in 2004,

30:58

shortly after Bush was reelected, that

31:00

collegiality suffused a private

31:03

dinner at an upscale Italian restaurant.

31:06

The meal came at a turning point in American

31:08

political life, the founding of a little-known

31:10

group that would become immensely powerful.

31:13

The dinner went under the radar

31:14

for years until Peter Stone

31:16

of The Daily Beast

31:17

and Vivica Novak of the nonpartisan group

31:20

Open Secrets

31:21

figured it out. At this dinner

31:23

in 2004, Vivica Novak,

31:26

you had Leo, you had Scalia,

31:28

you had Robin

31:28

Arkley, you had other big donors.

31:31

And Scalia was obviously the headliner and

31:33

the draw for the dinner.

31:35

It's a celebration. Robin

31:37

Arkley II is a major Federalist Society

31:39

donor from California. He owns

31:41

a mortgage servicing company. He

31:44

gets a prime seat next

31:46

to Justice Scalia. It was

31:48

right around that time that JCN

31:49

was started. JCN,

31:52

the Judicial Confirmation Network. Like

31:55

the Federalist Society, JCN is a

31:57

nonprofit, but it's a different kind.

32:00

the kind that is allowed to be involved in

32:02

partisan politics and without disclosing

32:04

its donors. A big advantage

32:06

for the kind of behind-the-scenes work Leo's

32:08

doing. In response to our questions,

32:11

Leo confirmed that he helped launch JCN. He

32:14

was hanging around with a lot of deep-pocketed

32:16

donors who were involved in the Federalist

32:19

Society, and he

32:21

realized that these kinds of groups could

32:23

be very helpful. Groups

32:25

like JCN.

32:26

What you had was kind of a daisy

32:28

chain

32:29

where donors were giving

32:31

money to one group. The group

32:34

didn't have to disclose its donors.

32:36

They'd give money to another group. That

32:38

group didn't have to disclose its donors.

32:40

As Novak came to learn, Leo,

32:43

in his role as Federalist Society Vice

32:45

President, was cultivating donors

32:47

for the Federalist Society and

32:50

also cultivating donations that

32:52

flow to JCN. He

32:54

was certainly a broker.

32:57

He was kind of the guy who orchestrated

33:00

these sorts of events, the

33:02

donations,

33:03

where the donation should go, how

33:05

they should be spent. He's

33:07

kind of the brains behind the operation. We

33:10

got an email from Robin Arkley, the early JCN

33:12

donor. He told us, quote, nothing

33:15

has been more consequential in transforming the

33:17

courts and building a more impactful conservative

33:20

movement than the network of talented

33:22

individuals

33:22

and groups. The The

33:26

agenda of the left can no longer take success

33:28

for granted.

33:30

Of the dinner where he was seated next to Scalia,

33:32

Arkley wrote that Leo was, quote, always

33:35

introducing me to people I admired, like

33:37

Justices, Scalia and Alito. Engaging

33:40

with such accomplished intelligence and most of

33:42

all compassionate Catholics impacted

33:45

how I see the

33:45

world and I am thankful for it.

33:50

One more thing about Leo's role

33:52

with JCN. It's informal.

33:55

He's not on the board or in any of the paperwork.

33:58

But you

33:58

can trace his ties. Board of

33:59

members and contractors and donors lead

34:02

back to him. Sometimes, JCN

34:05

hires or gives money to or gets money from

34:08

groups that Leo runs or supports.

34:11

In his statement to us, Leo did not

34:13

dispute any of this.

34:16

Since its founding, JCN has changed its

34:18

name twice. The money flows are

34:20

hard to track and hard to describe. But

34:23

one thing is clear. JCN

34:25

is a key component of Leo's machine.

34:28

In his answers to our questions, Leo

34:31

confirmed that JCN has been

34:33

an integral

34:33

part of his efforts to build

34:35

a more conservative judiciary.

34:38

In 2021, nearly all of

34:40

JCN's revenue came from a group that

34:43

is entirely controlled by Leo. We

34:45

don't have numbers

34:46

for any years after that.

34:48

In July of 2005, Leo

34:51

and JCN have their opportunity to

34:53

work on a U.S. Supreme Court nomination.

34:55

Justice Sandra Day O'Connor resigns.

34:58

President Bush nominates John Roberts. I

35:00

was flying back from somewhere with

35:03

Cheney on Air Force Two, and I got called

35:05

forward to the cabin, and there were these

35:07

two giant duffel bags, and

35:09

they were filled with binders. This

35:11

is political operative Steve Schmidt. Schmidt

35:14

was tasked with reading through the binders on potential

35:16

court nominees. At the time, he

35:18

worked in the White House as a deputy assistant

35:20

to President Bush. I was leading

35:23

the two Supreme Court

35:25

confirmations in the

35:27

Bush administration for Chief

35:29

Justice Roberts and Justice

35:31

Alito. He calls a meeting with key stakeholders.

35:34

It's held in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building

35:37

adjacent to the White House.

35:38

That's where Schmidt meets Leo. And at

35:40

first, Leo was just one of the crowd. But

35:43

then Schmidt gets a read on him.

35:45

If you take it down to like a school

35:47

committee, like the PTA

35:49

committee,

35:51

who's going to be the chairperson of the committee,

35:53

it's going to be the person who cares the

35:55

most and shows up to all the meetings. So

35:58

this is what Leonard Leo did.

36:00

J.C.N. treats the confirmation battle like

36:02

a political campaign

36:04

with ads. You're making TV

36:06

ads. You are trying to communicate,

36:08

trying to make sure that no

36:10

one is getting wobbly on you, right? But

36:13

I can't explain to you why this stuff works,

36:16

but it does.

36:18

So I'm

36:19

just curious, though, like you're the guy in

36:21

the White House, you're responsible for getting this through the

36:23

Senate. And here's the Judicial Confirmation Network.

36:26

That was clear to you that this was a group

36:28

associated with Leo, that he

36:30

was...

36:30

Yes, at 100%.

36:32

Well, what was the game?

36:34

So

36:34

that's the behind-the-scenes part.

36:36

Comically, there's just a glimpse Leo

36:39

was involved.

36:39

Judge Roberts did a fine job today.

36:42

He seeks for the press after Roberts testifies.

36:45

Here's Leo, hair crept short,

36:46

glasses well-fitting. So we're very happy

36:49

with the way today went.

36:50

The next nomination is choppier. Bush

36:52

nominates his counsel. Her name is Harriet Meyers.

36:55

Conservatives, Leo's allies, suspect

36:58

Meyers is not firm enough on abortion. Leo

37:01

publicly defends the president. Bush

37:04

ultimately withdraws her nomination and

37:07

takes a hard-right conservative

37:08

from New Jersey. I'm pleased to announce my

37:11

nomination of Judge Samuel A.

37:13

Alito, Jr., as Associate

37:15

Justice of the Supreme Court of the United

37:17

States.

37:18

Democrats push back, but JCN

37:20

gears up again, running pro-Alito

37:23

ads,

37:24

shoring up specific senators' support.

37:25

You know who they are, the folks

37:28

who sue towns for putting up activity

37:30

scenes and minorities. Now, these extremist

37:32

groups want our senators to vote

37:34

against Judge Alito for the United States

37:37

Supreme Court.

37:38

The nomination passes the Senate 58 to 42.

37:41

The

37:44

money bag's kid had arrived.

37:46

It is a pleasure to stand before 1500

37:49

of the most little-known and elusive of

37:51

that secret society or conspiracy we

37:53

call the Federalist Society.

37:59

the term was coined. His speech sounds

38:02

like he's

38:02

owning the lid. Thanks

38:05

so very much for your support and involvement.

38:08

You may pick up your subpoenas on the way out.

38:13

Coming up, after Elito's

38:15

nomination, there would be no more U.S.

38:17

Supreme Court nominees for the remainder

38:20

of Bush's presidency. So

38:22

Leo and the Federalist

38:23

Society turn their attention

38:26

to the

38:26

state Supreme Court. Not

38:28

enough to own a House and own a Senate and

38:31

own a Governor, we each kind of own the courts too. Is

38:33

this a power grid? There's no question

38:35

about that. This is On the Media.

38:53

This is On the Media. I'm Brooke Gladstone.

38:55

You're listening to We Don't Talk

38:58

About Leonard. A series made in collaboration

39:00

with ProPublica. Before the

39:02

break, we heard how Leonard Leo helped

39:05

pull the United States Supreme Court's center

39:07

of gravity to the right. But he didn't

39:10

rest on those laurels. The rights

39:12

revolution in the United States didn't

39:14

happen just because you magically got

39:16

five justices on the court who agreed with

39:18

you. Pomona College Professor Amanda

39:20

Hollis-Bruskey says the highest

39:23

court in the land didn't come to their recent

39:25

controversial rulings by chance.

39:28

You needed the scaffolding for these

39:30

new constitutional frameworks. And

39:33

you need a broader political culture that

39:36

looks at these ideas and looks at

39:38

these decisions

39:39

and doesn't see them as totally wacky

39:41

and off the wall. One of the big ways

39:44

to inject ideas into the judicial

39:46

ecosystem was from the state

39:49

Supreme Courts.

39:50

Andrea Bernstein takes it from here.

39:53

In the 2007 edition of the Federalist

39:56

Society annual report, Gush

39:58

is about some quote, very exciting. developments,

40:00

including the implementation

40:03

of the state courts project.

40:06

Some of you may be wondering why

40:08

are we here talking about the merits

40:10

of electing judges and why are we here talking

40:13

about state supreme courts?

40:14

This is Leo at a Federalist Society

40:16

Forum from around that time. State

40:18

supreme courts and state courts are

40:20

an incredibly important part of

40:23

the American jurisprudential scene. In

40:25

fact, one can very ably

40:27

argue, I think, that state supreme courts

40:29

are in many cases where the rubber really meets the road.

40:32

Leo travels around, making speeches

40:34

and moderating forums. Somewhere

40:37

in the neighborhood of 95 to 98 percent

40:40

of all litigation takes place in

40:43

the state courts. And I

40:45

dare say that many of you in

40:46

this room, when you're practicing law, may

40:48

end up trying or arguing. One

40:51

of your most important cases, if not your most

40:53

important case, before a state supreme

40:55

court or in some part of the state court

40:57

system.

40:58

The Federalist Society puts its money where its

41:00

mouth is. While Leo is making these speeches,

41:02

the group spends one and a half million dollars,

41:04

nearly a fifth of its budget, on its

41:07

state

41:07

court efforts tax returns show.

41:10

The Judicial Confirmation Network is also

41:12

about to get quote, heavily involved

41:14

in state supreme court nominations according

41:16

to its tax returns.

41:18

And there's one state that's particularly

41:20

important,

41:20

Missouri.

41:24

There's a reason for that. I

41:25

got someone to explain. Michael

41:28

Wolf, former Chief Justice of the Missouri

41:30

Supreme Court.

41:30

He served on the court from 1998 to 2011. Missouri

41:34

has a system for selecting justices.

41:37

It's called the Missouri Plan.

41:39

This proposal

41:41

basically became the Missouri

41:43

Plan, became the Missouri Plan because Missouri

41:45

was the first state to do it. And it's been copied

41:48

more or less in various forms in more

41:50

than 30 states. It was a big

41:53

deal.

41:53

I think if you could beat the Missouri Plan in Missouri,

41:56

you could tell the rest of the states, there is no

41:58

more Missouri Plan.

42:00

To avoid politics in judicial

42:02

selection, Missouri has relied on

42:04

a nonpartisan commission of lawyers,

42:07

gubernatorial appointees, and the Chief Justice

42:10

to screen candidates

42:10

for the state's high court. The commission

42:13

screens those candidates, sends

42:15

three candidates to the governor, and

42:17

the governor has to appoint one of those three.

42:20

The system was put in place in 1940 and

42:22

stayed mostly untroubled until 2007. That's

42:26

when Leo and his allies get involved. They

42:28

say the Missouri plan produced judges who were too

42:31

far to the left.

42:32

They won elections.

42:33

It's not enough to own a house

42:35

and own a Senate and own a governor. We each kind of own

42:37

the courts, too. So that

42:40

is a power grab. There's no question about that.

42:43

That's the way you control the court. Please

42:45

give a warm welcome to Governor Matt Blunt, Governor

42:47

of the state of Missouri.

42:48

In the summer of 2007, Missouri

42:50

is a purple state with a 36-year-old

42:53

centrist Republican governor, Matt Blunt.

42:56

He's the scion of the Missouri political family.

42:59

His future in politics is bright. I

43:01

do want to thank you for

43:02

the opportunity, though, to visit with members

43:05

of the Federalist Society. He ticks

43:07

off

43:07

decisions the Missouri Supreme Court

43:09

made that he doesn't like.

43:11

Just last year, the court struck

43:13

down a voter identification law. December,

43:15

the court ruled that Planned Parenthood should keep

43:17

nearly a million dollars it had received

43:19

from state coffers in clear

43:21

violation of Missouri's very clear ban

43:24

on abortion funding.

43:25

Just before Blunt makes this speech,

43:27

a vacancy has come up on the state's high court.

43:31

The Judicial Commission is getting

43:32

to work screening potential justices.

43:35

Leonard Leo has been speaking to Federalist

43:37

Society chapters in Missouri, too. He's

43:39

hosting polite, ostensibly

43:41

nonpartisan forums in accordance

43:44

with the Federalist Society's nonprofit status.

43:48

That's public. Privately,

43:51

Leo is a lot more direct, partisan,

43:54

and fierce. We

43:58

know this because there are emails between... Leo

44:00

and Governor Blunt and Blunt's chief of staff,

44:02

Ed Martin. The email records were obtained

44:05

by the Associated Press as part of

44:07

a 2008 legal settlement with the Missouri governor's

44:09

office.

44:11

Putting the pieces together years later, we

44:13

found a revealing story about Leo's

44:16

gloves-off approach, one

44:18

that's never fully been told.

44:24

The panel is getting ready to give three names

44:26

of possible state Supreme Court justices

44:28

that the governor Blunt. Two are

44:31

Democrats, out of the question. The

44:33

third, Patricia Breckenridge, is

44:35

a Republican. But

44:37

Leo and his allies are alarmed. They

44:40

don't think she's conservative enough. They collect

44:42

research, they say indicates she might

44:44

not be unequivocally opposed to

44:47

abortion, that she's too soft

44:49

on crime. Leo

44:51

lobbies the governor through his chief of staff, Ed

44:53

Martin. Leo Shoppe sends negative

44:56

research about Breckenridge to Martin, who

44:58

forwards it to the governor. There are discussions

45:00

about, quote, framing up

45:02

Breckenridge. Martin makes a request,

45:05

could Leo send an email

45:06

to Blunt, one that would appear, quote, unsolicited.

45:10

Leo soon writes the governor, quote,

45:13

I was shocked to see the slate tendered by

45:15

the commission the other day. Leo

45:17

adds, it would be very appropriate

45:19

for you to carefully scrutinize the candidates.

45:22

And if they fail to pass those tests,

45:24

to return the names. The

45:27

idea was, if all three choices were

45:29

equally distasteful, that there'd

45:31

be a willingness to reject the panel. But it

45:34

was kind of just this long shot.

45:36

Scott Eckersley was working as deputy

45:38

counsel in the governor's office at

45:40

the time. Leo and federal

45:42

society leaders pushed the idea, Eckersley

45:44

and others told me, to discredit Breckenridge

45:47

and spank her candidacy. Then,

45:49

use that as leverage to upend

45:52

the Missouri plan.

45:53

That's what Leo was pushing for. I think

45:55

it was clear that they wanted to sell the governor on

45:58

rejecting the panel, which would have been a... pretty

46:01

out of character move for, you

46:04

know, a pretty vanilla, you know, run

46:06

of the mill type, traditional Republican

46:09

governor, which was what he was.

46:12

Word gets back to Leo. One

46:14

isn't going to reject Breckenridge.

46:17

Leo, let's lose.

46:20

He writes to Martin, if this is

46:22

true and if this happens, there

46:24

will be fury from the conservative base,

46:27

the likes of which you and the governor have never

46:29

seen. Leo

46:32

adds, we on the outside need to decide

46:34

who's on our team and treat them accordingly.

46:36

On a personal note, you

46:39

need to be very, very careful right now

46:41

about sugarcoating the state of play.

46:44

Your long-term reputation is on

46:46

the line. Martin

46:49

writes a long response ending with, I have

46:51

no idea who your source is and we have not made

46:53

a decision. Leo ups the

46:56

ante. He says that Governor Blount will

46:58

most certainly lose reelection. Quote,

47:00

if he turns his back on this issue and thereby

47:03

turns his back on conservatives and

47:05

he will have zero juice on the national

47:07

scene if he ends up picking a judge who is

47:09

a disgrace.

47:11

Leo does not get his way. He

47:13

loses.

47:15

A person familiar with Blount's thinking told

47:17

me, Blount felt if he didn't pick the best

47:19

judge of the three, the commission would pick

47:21

the worst judge of the three. This person

47:24

said, Blount didn't feel threatened. Blount

47:29

approves Breckenridge. I

47:31

am sorry to let you down, Martin writes

47:33

Leo. You are a man who I

47:35

admire so much and feel grateful to

47:37

know. Leo responds, your

47:39

boss is a coward and conservatives

47:42

have neither the time nor the patience for the

47:44

likes of him. He adds, it

47:47

is short-sighted cowardice and leaves a big

47:49

problem

47:49

for many future generations

47:51

of Missourians. A

47:54

few months later,

47:56

Governor Matt Blount announces he will not run

47:58

for reelection. He leaves.

47:59

politics.

48:03

Martin did not respond to ProPublica's

48:05

request for an interview. After

48:08

their failure with brick-and-rich, MIO,

48:11

the Federalist Society, and the Judicial Crisis

48:13

Network don't give up. JCN

48:16

spends hundreds of thousands of dollars

48:18

to convince the Missouri Legislature to upend

48:20

the Missouri plan. They fail,

48:22

but they'd be back. They

48:25

learn from their mistakes. They come

48:27

to spend tens of millions of dollars to

48:29

boost their chosen judges

48:30

and attorneys general all across

48:33

the country. And they start winning

48:36

with profound implications for

48:38

democracy.

48:45

In part two of our

48:47

series,

48:47

we don't talk about Leonard.

48:57

We don't talk about Leonard. It's

48:59

made in collaboration with ProPublica.

49:02

This series is reported by Andrea Bernstein,

49:05

Andy Kroll, and Ilya Merritts, and

49:07

edited by OTM executive producer

49:10

Katja Rogers and ProPublica's Jesse

49:12

Isengar. Molly Rosen is the

49:14

lead producer with help from Sean Merchant.

49:17

Jennifer Munson is her technical director.

49:19

Jared Paul wrote and recorded

49:21

all the original music. Our fact checkers

49:23

are Andrea Marks and Hannah Murphy-Winter.

49:26

Our legal team is Ivan Zimmerman, Lauren

49:28

Kuberman, Jeremy Kuttner, and Sarah

49:30

Matthews. We'd like to say some thank yous

49:33

to people who helped us to report the story, but

49:35

whose names you won't hear in the show. ProPublica's

49:37

Eric Emancke, Jeremy Kohler, Megan

49:40

O'Math, Lin Dammek, Doris

49:42

Burke, Alex Mierjewski, Miriam

49:45

Alva, Ken Schwenke, Ruth Talbot,

49:47

Nick Lanisse, Justin Elliott, Josh

49:49

Kaplan, and Brett Murphy. Missouri

49:52

journalists Tony Messenger, Joe Manis,

49:54

and David Lieb. And Tom Carter,

49:56

C. Boyden Gray, Robert McGuire, John

49:59

Malcolm,

49:59

Adam White, Lisa Graves, and Evan Vorpahl

50:02

of True North Research, and Nick Sergey

50:04

and the team at Documented. And

50:06

the many, many current and former

50:09

justices, judges, elected officials,

50:12

Trump administration appointees, and

50:14

others who spoke to us confidentially

50:17

for fear of the consequences to their careers

50:19

or livelihoods if we use their names

50:21

in We Do Not Talk About Leonard.

50:24

Tracy Weber is the managing editor, and Steve

50:27

Engelberg is the editor-in-chief of ProPublica.

50:30

Thanks for listening. I'm Andrea Bernstein.

50:33

And we're great students.