BH Group is a for-profit limited liability corporation registered in Virginia in August 2016. [1] Partly owned by longtime Federalist Society executive Leonard Leo, it was the sister group of the BH Fund and is closely related to the Wellspring Committee. BH Group is compensated by The 85 Fund and Concord Fund, which are operated by Leo associates. [2] [3]
Between 2016 and 2018, the BH Group received $4 million from the Concord Fund (formerly Judicial Crisis Network), The 85 Fund (formerly Judicial Education Project), and the Wellspring Committee. [1] Robert Maguire of McClatchy DC has described it as a shell company, a pass-through vehicle, and an entity that was likely created to conceal the identities of a donor. [4]
In November 2017, the Wellspring Committee filed tax documents showing a $750,000 payment to BH Group firm for public relations. [4] The BH Group does not appear to market itself as a public relations firm, has no known website, and does not advertise its services. [4] Similarly, Wellspring Committee, a nonprofit, has no known public-facing operations, no website, and three employees. [4] In 2018, the BH Group received nearly $919,000 from the Wellspring Committee, the primary funder of the Judicial Crisis Network. [2] [5]
In 2018, the Judicial Crisis Network also reported paying BH Group $1.2 million in consulting fees. [6]
In 2018, the Rule of Law Trust paid the BH Group $4 million for consulting services. [6] The Rule of Law Trust is an $80 million trust with no employees; its sole trustee is Leonard Leo. [7] [8]
The BH Group is connected to the non-profit BH Fund, which distributed money to Leo's network of groups supporting president Donald Trump's Supreme Court nominees. The BH Fund was formed in 2016 with $24 million from a single unknown donor, and has donated more than $3 million to the Freedom and Opportunity Fund and America Engaged. The BH Fund was dissolved in 2017, three days after Politico inquired as to whether it facilitated the sale of The Polling Company, owned by Trump advisor Kellyanne Conway, to Creative Response Concepts, which is linked to Leo. Conway was advising Trump on Supreme Court nominees at the time. [1] [9] [10]
The BH Fund is responsible for enforcing a donation agreement between an anonymous $20 million donor and the Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason University. [11] [12] [13] [14]
In December 2016, the BH Group donated $1 million to Donald Trump's inaugural committee. [4]
The Honest Elections Project, an alias of the Judicial Education Project/Judicial Crisis Network, has also paid money to the BH Group. [15] The Honest Election Project, which has expressed the view that voter suppression is a "myth," has filed court briefs "in favor of voting restrictions" in Nevada, Virginia, Texas, Wisconsin and Minnesota. [15] The Guardian wrote that "By having a hand in both voting litigation and the judges on the federal bench, this network could create a system where conservative donors have an avenue to both oppose voting rights and appoint judges to back that effort." [15]
Leonard Leo is an employee of the BH Group and the president of the BH Fund. [1] [16] [11]
The Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies (FedSoc) is an American conservative and libertarian legal organization that advocates for a textualist and originalist interpretation of the U.S. Constitution. Headquartered in Washington, D.C., it has chapters at more than 200 law schools and features student, lawyer, and faculty divisions; the lawyers division comprises more than 70,000 practicing attorneys in ninety cities. Through speaking events, lectures, and other activities, it provides a forum for legal experts of opposing views to interact with members of the legal profession, the judiciary, and the legal academy. It is one of the most influential legal organizations in the United States.
In the United States, a political action committee (PAC) is a tax-exempt 527 organization that pools campaign contributions from members and donates those funds to campaigns for or against candidates, ballot initiatives, or legislation. The legal term PAC was created in pursuit of campaign finance reform in the United States. Democracies of other countries use different terms for the units of campaign spending or spending on political competition. At the U.S. federal level, an organization becomes a PAC when it receives or spends more than $1,000 for the purpose of influencing a federal election, and registers with the Federal Election Commission (FEC), according to the Federal Election Campaign Act as amended by the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002. At the state level, an organization becomes a PAC according to the state's election laws.
The Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, commonly known as the Bradley Foundation, is an American charitable foundation based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, that primarily supports conservative causes.
Judicial Watch (JW) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit American conservative activist group that files Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuits to investigate claimed misconduct by government officials. Founded in 1994, JW has primarily targeted Democrats, in particular the administrations of Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama as well as Hillary Clinton's role in them. It was founded by attorney Larry Klayman, and has been led by Tom Fitton since 2003.
Leonard Anthony Leo is an American lawyer and conservative legal activist. He was the longtime vice president of the Federalist Society and is currently, along with Steven Calabresi, the co-chairman of the organization's board of directors. Leo has been instrumental in building a network of influential conservative legal groups funded mostly by anonymous donors, including The 85 Fund and Concord Fund, which serve as funding hubs for affiliated political nonprofits. He assisted Clarence Thomas in his Supreme Court confirmation hearings and led campaigns to support the nominations of John Roberts, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett.
CRC Advisors(CRC) (formerly known as Creative Response Concepts Public Relations) is an American public relations firm.
The Democracy Alliance is a network of progressive megadonors who coordinate their political donations to groups that the Alliance has endorsed. It has been described by Politico as "the country's most powerful liberal donor club".
Charles G. and David H. Koch (1940–2019), sometimes referred to as the Koch brothers, have become famous for their financial and political influence in United States politics with a libertarian, more so, right-libertarian or American-style libertarian political stance. From around 2004 to 2019, with "foresight and perseverance", the brothers organized like-minded wealthy libertarian-oriented conservatives, spent hundreds of millions of dollars of their own money to build an "integrated" and "stealth" network of think tanks, foundations, "grassroots" movements, academic programs, advocacy and legal groups to "destroy the prevalent statist paradigm" reshape public opinion to favor minimal government. As of mid 2018, the media has been encouraged to refer to the "Koch network" rather than the "Koch brothers".
Donors Trust is an American nonprofit donor-advised fund. It was founded in 1999 with the goal of "safeguarding the intent of libertarian and conservative donors". As a donor advised fund, Donors Trust is not legally required to disclose the identity of its donors, and most of its donors remain anonymous. It distributes funds to various conservative and libertarian organizations, and has been characterized as the "dark money ATM" of the political right.
In politics, particularly the politics of the United States, dark money refers to spending to influence elections, public policy, and political discourse, where the source of the money is not disclosed to the public.
Richard Ellis Uihlein and Elizabeth Uihlein are American billionaire businesspeople, founders of Uline and conservative donors. Richard is also an heir to the Schlitz brewing fortune.
The Judicial Crisis Network or JCN is an American conservative advocacy organization. Its president is Carrie Severino, a former law clerk for Supreme Court justice Clarence Thomas. In 2020, OpenSecrets described the organization as having "unmatched influence in recent years in shaping the federal judiciary." It is among a network of organizations associated with Leonard Leo, a longtime executive in the Federalist Society, that are funded mostly by anonymous donors and distributed by Concord and a related group, The 85 Fund.
Issue One is an American nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that seeks to reduce the role of money in politics. It aims to increase public awareness of what it views as problems within the present campaign finance system, and to reduce the influence of money in politics through enactment of campaign finance reform.
Rebekah Mercer is an American heiress, Republican political donor, and director of the Mercer Family Foundation.
Foundation for Accountability and Civic Trust (FACT), formerly the Free Market American Educational Foundation, Foundation for Accountability and Civic Trust and Working for Rights to Express & Communication, is a Washington,DC-based conservative nonprofit organization specializing in advocacy regarding legal and ethical issues related to politics. Until 2017, it was run by the former Acting United States Attorney General Matthew Whitaker.
Arabella Advisors is a Washington, D.C.-based for-profit consulting company that advises left-leaning donors and nonprofits about where to give money and serves as the hub of a politically liberal "dark money" network. It was founded by former Clinton administration appointee Eric Kessler. The Arabella network spent nearly $1.2 billion in 2020 and raised $1.35 billion in 2022.
Carrie Campbell Severino is an American lawyer and conservative political activist. She is the head of the Judicial Crisis Network (JCN), where she supported the Supreme Court nominations of Amy Coney Barrett and Brett Kavanaugh. She is the coauthor of Justice on Trial: The Kavanaugh Confirmation and the Future of the Supreme Court.
The 85 Fund, also known as the Honest Elections Project, and formerly known as the Judicial Education Project, is a 501(c)(3) organization based in Washington D.C. It is among a network of conservative organizations associated with Leonard Leo, a longtime prominent figure in the Federalist Society, that are funded mostly by anonymous donors. The 85 Fund had revenue of over $65 million in 2020 and, with the Concord Fund, acts as a funding hub for other organizations in the Leo network.
The Sixteen Thirty Fund is a hub of undisclosed political spending on the American Left. The group serves as a fiscal sponsor for other organizations, incubating and financing various progressive projects. According to The New York Times, "The Sixteen Thirty is part of a broader network of progressive nonprofits that donors use to fill specific spaces on the political chessboard." The Sixteen Thirty Fund is administered by Arabella Advisors, a for-profit consulting firm.
Reclaim New York is a government watchdog group in New York State. It was founded in 2013 by hedge fund manager and computer scientist Robert Mercer, his daughter Rebekah Mercer, and Breitbart co-founder Steve Bannon, to track what they saw as excessive public spending. They were soon joined by conservative lawyer and legal activist Leonard Leo, and Bush-administration veteran Tom Basile. Reclaim New York describes itself as a non-partisan good government group. Most leadership roles have been filled by individuals with connections to the Republican party or other conservative groups. It has been accused by state Democrats and liberal groups of being a vehicle for the Mercers to achieve their political goals. As per its tax filings, Mercer provides nearly all of Reclaim New York's funding. It shared office space in New York City with data-mining firm Cambridge Analytica, which also received investments from the Mercer family. Reclaim New York downsized its operations in 2019, which was attributed by its opponents to its lack of success in influencing state politics.
