Who Is Leonard Leo?
Who Is?
iHeartRadio + NowThis
4.1 • 803 Ratings
🗓️ 13 October 2020
⏱️ 55 minutes
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Summary
What do John Roberts, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, and Brett Kavanaugh have in common? They made it onto the Supreme Court of the United States in part as a result of the activity of Leonard Leo, the de facto head of the conservative legal movement. Leo, who until recently led the Federalist Society, is a masterful conductor of a network of nonprofits and advocacy groups that have largely succeeded in transforming the third branch of American government, the Judicial. If Amy Coney Barrett, a Leo favorite, is confirmed by the Senate, the conservative transformation of the courts may be the most significant and lasting accomplishment of the Trump Administration.
- Caroline Fredrickson, a senior fellow at the Brennan Center for Justice and distinguished visitor at Georgetown Law
- Robert O’Harrow Jr., an investigative reporter at the Washington Post
- Chase Strangio, deputy director for transgender justice at the American Civil Liberties Union
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | What do John Roberts, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, and Brett Kavanaugh all have in common? |
| 0:08.1 | Brett Kavanaugh was really the second judicial nominee that you successfully ushered through. |
| 0:13.7 | Both Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh, you were very involved with. |
| 0:17.3 | But the Federal Society has also been involved in two other successful Republican |
| 0:21.5 | appointments to the Supreme Court, both Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Alito. |
| 0:27.3 | How did you end up in the position of directing and guiding and advising the president of the |
| 0:34.9 | United States on his judicial appointees? |
| 0:37.0 | I have no idea. |
| 0:39.5 | That was Leonard Leo. |
| 0:42.2 | Had you heard of him before just now? |
| 0:44.8 | He's never won an election, started a major company, or gone to war. |
| 0:49.6 | But Leo's actions will have an impact on all of us for decades, if not for a lifetime. |
| 0:56.0 | Leonard Leo is a conservative movement activist who served as the longtime vice president of the Federalist Society, |
| 1:05.0 | which is a nonprofit that organizes a conservative and libertarian lawyers across the country. |
| 1:11.6 | Leo has also had a second life as a behind-the-scenes activist who's been coordinating efforts to reshape the federal judiciary and install |
| 1:25.6 | conservative judges at the state, federal, and Supreme Court |
| 1:30.6 | levels. |
| 1:31.8 | That's right. |
| 1:32.8 | A guy whose name is basically Leo Leo, a conservative Catholic working at a largely |
| 1:37.6 | anonymously funded nonprofit, has engineered a transformation of America's courts. |
| 1:43.5 | But you might be thinking, I don't have any |
| 1:45.2 | trials coming up. Why do I care about the courts? Do judges even get to wear wigs still? |
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