Democratic dark money kingmaker pumps millions into 'nonpartisan' Supreme Court watchdogs
by Gabe Kaminsky, Investigative Reporter November 20, 2023
"Nonpartisan" Supreme Court watchdogs demanding conservative justices disclose more about their finances hauled in millions of dollars combined in 2022 from the largest Democratic-allied dark money network in the United States, tax forms show.
The cash transfers, which became public Wednesday upon the release of new financial disclosures, underscore how groups leading a campaign targeting Supreme Court Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito over trips and gifts they accepted, but did not report, rely on influential left-wing grantmakers to help keep their lights on. Several of these self-described watchdogs took heaps of cash from nonprofit organizations managed by Arabella Advisors, a consulting firm overseeing an anonymously-funded network that spent over $1 billion last year propping up liberal causes.
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Washington D.C. Attorney General Brian Schwalb (D) is investigating Arabella Advisors and its offshoots, including New Venture Fund and Sixteen Thirty Fund, and his office issued subpoenas to the network in September for information on financial mismanagement allegations. The consultancy also manages Hopewell Fund, North Fund, and Windward Fund, which, like others in the network, sponsor little-known groups that aren't required to file their own tax forms with the IRS.
"Arabella Advisors and the dark money groups it advises specialize in cultivating pop-up front groups to make their extreme agenda sound locally-run or nonpartisan," Carrie Severino, president of the conservative Judicial Crisis Network, told the Washington Examiner. "It’s no surprise they’re behind the campaign to discredit originalist justices."
JCN, the judicial advocacy group also known as Concord Fund, is affiliated with Federalist Society co-chair Leonard Leo, a conservative activist who, along with GOP businessman Harlan Crow, could face congressional subpoenas over their ties to Thomas and Alito. Senate Judiciary Committee Democrats decided against a vote on the matter last week after Republicans, including Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO), dangled the idea of an Arabella subpoena.
But Schwalb also recently opened an investigation into tax-exempt organizations linked to Leo. It came after Campaign for Accountability, a "nonpartisan watchdog" helmed by left-wing activists, alleged in an April IRS complaint that the nonprofit groups Concord Fund, Rule of Law Trust, Wellspring Committee, 85 Fund, Federalist Society, Freedom and Opportunity Fund, and Marble Freedom Trust paid excessive compensation to Leo.
Campaign for Accountability, a former Hopewell Fund project, pocketed $450,000 in 2022 from New Venture Fund, tax forms show. That donation adds to the more than $2.3 million New Venture Fund wired between 2016 and 2021 to CFA, which has received hundreds of thousands of dollars from Open Society Foundations, the vast liberal grantmaking network bankrolled by Democratic megadonor and philanthropist George Soros.
In September, CFA joined over 40 "Supreme Court watchdog and accountability organizations" in sending a letter to Chief Justice John Roberts demanding he "ensure" Thomas and Alito recuse themselves from cases purportedly tied to conservative hedge fund manager Paul Singer and the right-libertarian Koch Network.
CFA Executive Director Michelle Kuppersmith sits on the board of Fix the Court, a "transparency" Supreme Court watchdog that unwittingly leaked its donors, including New Venture Fund, to the Washington Examiner in May. Fix the Court, which was previously a project of New Venture Fund, admitted to failing to disclose lobbying after tax attorneys said in July that Fix the Court likely violated federal law.
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/courts/democratic-dark-money-pumps-millions-nonpartisan-supreme-court