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related: _Neil Gorsuch Master Profile · Leonard Leo · Koch Network - Charles Koch
donors: Leonard Leo, Judicial Crisis Network, Koch Network - Charles Koch
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The Stolen Seat and the McConnell-Leo Pipeline
Money
On February 13, 2016, Justice Antonin Scalia died. Within hours, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell announced that the Senate would not consider any nominee from President Obama — no hearings, no votes, no action whatsoever. President Obama nominated Merrick Garland, Chief Judge of the D.C. Circuit, on March 16, 2016. The nomination was blocked for 293 days — the longest pending period for a Supreme Court nominee in American history, surpassing Justice Louis Brandeis’s 125-day wait in 1916. The seat was held open so that Leonard Leo and the Federalist Society could fill it with a donor-class-aligned justice. The Judicial Crisis Network then spent $10M+ in anonymous dark money on Neil Gorsuch’s confirmation campaign. The $10M was drawn from a pool where 75%+ came from a single anonymous $17M donation. What did the dark money buy? A 6-3 conservative supermajority that has dismantled campaign finance regulation, gutted voting rights, overturned abortion precedent, ended Chevron deference, and established broad presidential immunity.
The Garland Blockade Timeline
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| 2016-02-13 | Justice Scalia death announced |
| 2016-02-13 | McConnell announces: no hearings, no votes for Obama nominee (within hours of Scalia’s death) |
| 2016-03-16 | President Obama nominates Merrick Garland — Chief Judge, D.C. Circuit; confirmed 76-23 to that court in 1997 |
| 2016-03 to 2017-01 | 293 days of blockade — no hearings, no committee vote, no floor vote |
| 2017-01-03 | Garland nomination expires with end of 114th Congress |
| 2017-01-31 | Trump nominates Neil Gorsuch |
| 2017-02 to 2017-04 | JCN launches $10M+ dark money ad campaign for Gorsuch confirmation |
| 2017-04-07 | Gorsuch confirmed 54-45 (nuclear option — McConnell eliminates filibuster for Supreme Court nominees) |
The blockade was unprecedented: first time since the Civil War that a nominee without a withdrawn nomination failed to receive any consideration. McConnell eliminated the filibuster for Supreme Court nominees specifically to confirm Gorsuch with a simple majority — a permanent change to Senate procedure that also enabled Kavanaugh (50-48) and Barrett (52-48) confirmations.
The Leonard Leo Selection Pipeline
Leo, co-chairman of the Federalist Society, served as Trump’s primary advisor on judicial nominations. Trump publicly outsourced Supreme Court selection to the Federalist Society, calling it one of the “greatest achievements” of his first term. Leo first contacted then-Tenth-Circuit-Judge Gorsuch about the potential nomination to fill Scalia’s vacancy.
Leo’s CRC Advisors coordinated a months-long media campaign: opinion essays, 5,000+ news story quotes, pundit TV appearances, TV and radio ads. The campaign manufactured the narrative that Gorsuch was a principled textualist in Scalia’s mold — obscuring the unprecedented political operation that created the vacancy.
Leo also shepherded the nominations of Roberts (2005), Alito (2006), Kavanaugh (2018), and Barrett (2020). One man, operating through a network of interlocking dark money nonprofits, has been instrumental in placing five of nine Supreme Court justices.
The Dark Money Infrastructure
Money
The Judicial Crisis Network — founded by Leonard Leo and Neil Corkery at a 2004 dinner party attended by Justice Scalia — spent $10M+ on TV and digital ads supporting Gorsuch’s confirmation. The ads ran in Washington D.C. and swing-state markets: Indiana, Missouri, North Dakota, Montana — targeting Democratic senators who might provide crossover votes (Manchin, Heitkamp, and Donnelly all voted yes).
JCN’s funding sources (July 2017–June 2018, covering both Gorsuch and Kavanaugh confirmation periods): 75%+ came from a single anonymous $17M donation. Earlier: the Wellspring Foundation received $28.5M from a single unknown donor, then donated to JCN. Leo’s Rule of Law Trust (a sole-employee nonprofit) gave JCN $21.5M in 2020 — nearly half of JCN’s annual revenue.
The capstone: in 2022, Chicago electronics magnate Barre Seid donated $1.6 billion to Leo’s Marble Freedom Trust — the largest known donation to a political advocacy group in U.S. history. Earlier major JCN funders (2014–2017) included Charles Koch, Rebekah Mercer, and Robin Arkley II.
What the Seat Bought
Every 5-4 ruling where Gorsuch provided the fifth conservative vote is a ruling that would have gone the other way with Garland:
- Epic Systems Corp. v. Lewis (2018) — 5-4: Gorsuch authored majority blocking worker class actions
- Rucho v. Common Cause (2019) — 5-4: partisan gerrymandering claims nonjusticiable
- Dobbs v. Jackson (2022) — would not have had 5 votes to overturn Roe without Gorsuch (6-3 became possible only because Barrett replaced Ginsburg)
- West Virginia v. EPA (2022) — 6-3: Gorsuch’s major questions doctrine concurrence limiting regulatory authority
- Loper Bright v. Raimondo (2024) — 6-2: overturning Chevron deference
The stolen seat didn’t just add one conservative vote — it prevented a liberal majority (5-4 with Garland) and created the foundation for the 6-3 supermajority that followed Barrett’s confirmation in 2020.
The Cost-Benefit Calculation
Money
Cost of the operation: $10M+ in JCN dark money for Gorsuch confirmation, drawn from a network spending hundreds of millions annually. Political cost: elimination of the Supreme Court filibuster (permanent procedural change).
Return on investment: a 6-3 conservative supermajority that has dismantled Chevron deference (affecting every regulated industry), overturned Roe v. Wade (50-year religious right priority), blocked worker class actions (Epic Systems), declared partisan gerrymandering nonjusticiable (Rucho), gutted EPA authority (West Virginia v. EPA), and established broad presidential immunity (Trump v. United States). The $10M was the most cost-effective political investment in modern American history.
Sources
- NPR: What Happened With Merrick Garland In 2016 And Why It Matters Now (Tier 2)
- Constitution Center: Tracking the Controversy over Judge Garland’s Nomination (Tier 2)
- Senator Sheldon Whitehouse: The Scheme Speech 6 — Judicial Crisis Network (Tier 1)
- OpenSecrets: Secretive Conservative Legal Group Funded by $17M Mystery Donor (Tier 2)
- ProPublica: How a Secretive Billionaire Handed His Fortune to the Architect of the Right-Wing Takeover of the Courts (Tier 2)
- ProPublica: We Don’t Talk About Leonard — The Man Behind the Right’s Supreme Court Supermajority (Tier 2)
- Senator Sheldon Whitehouse: Scheme 18 — Leonard Leo’s $1.6 Billion Payday (Tier 1)
- U.S. Senate: Roll Call Vote — Gorsuch Confirmation 54-45 (Tier 1)
- Congress.gov: Nomination of Neil M. Gorsuch (Official Record) (Tier 1)