Wanted to sharethis morning's top story from the Daily Beast — written by my spouse, Jay Michaelson.
When President Donald Trump nominates a justice to the Supreme Court on Monday night, he will be carrying out the agenda of a small, secretive network of extremely conservative Catholic activists already responsible for placing three justices (Alito, Roberts, and Gorsuch) on the high court.
And yet few people know who they are—until now.
At the center of the network is Leonard Leo of the Federalist Society, the association of legal professionals that has been the pipeline for nearly all of Trump’s judicial nominees...
The full-length piece goes into Leo’s background and his influence in full detail. One of the main points is that Leo effectively oversees and leads the Judicial Crisis Network, which led the successful 2016 campaign to block President Obama from his rightful SCOTUS pick, Merrick Garland.
“He figured out twenty years ago that conservatives had lost the culture war. Abortion, gay rights, contraception—conservatives didn’t have a chance if public opinion prevailed. So they needed to stack the courts.”
— Leo’s former media relations director, Tom Carter
As Jay writes, the Federalist Society is “actually a large right-wing network that grooms conservative law students still in law school (sponsoring everything from free burrito lunches to conferences, speakers, and journals), links them together, mentors them, finds them jobs, and eventually places them in courts and in government. It’s like a large-scale fraternity, knitted together by ideological conformity.”
There are 25 known candidates on Trump’s list of potential Supreme Court picks, and 24 of the 25 are Federalist Society members or affiliates. Justice Neil Gorsuch (Trump’s 2017 appointee) was the keynote speaker at the 2017 Federalist Society gala. And when Gorsuch, at his confirmation hearing, described to Congress how he had come to Trump’s attention, he explained, “On about December 2, 2016, I was contacted by Leonard Leo.”
Much more detail in the Daily Beast piece… it’s worth a read.