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[2019-05-23] An influential 'dark money' group turns off the lights for the last time
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SOURCE: Persagen.com, 2020-06-21
See also:
[2019-05-23] An influential 'dark money' group turns off the lights for the last time
Wikipedia [captured 2020-06-22]: Donald Trump 2020 presidential campaign: Groups supporting Trump:
... In August 2018, a group called the 45 Alliance was formed. All three of the group's officers had served on Trump's transition team, and two of them also served in Trump's White House. During the calendar year in which the 45 Alliance was formed, it was entirely funded by Trump for America, a nonprofit that supported Trump's transition ($150,000); by America First Policies ($150,000); and by the Republican National Committee ($75,000).
Neil Corkery is in charge of the 45 Alliance's finances. "He has ties to several high-profile dark money operations," Walker Davis wrote, "like the Wellspring Committee and Judicial Crisis Network. In 2018, an anonymous million dollar contribution to President Trump's inauguration was linked to him [Neil Corkery].
Note also the following intermingled connections, associations.
The Wellspring Committee is the main funder of the Judicial Crisis Network (the latter run by Carrie Severino, wife of pernicious transphobe Roger Severino). Fundraiser / lawyer Ann Corkery was instrumental in establishing the Wellspring Committee.
Ann Corkery is the wife of Neil Corkery, who is in charge of the "dark money" finances of the 45 Alliance -- closely associated with the Trump administration.
Wellspring Committee [this file]:
The leading funder of the Judicial Crisis Network is the Wellspring Committee, which is directed by Ann Corkery.
[2019-05-23; Wellspring Committee]sp An influential 'dark money' group turns off the lights for the last time:
Wellspring's delivery into the world came at the hands of Republican operative Ann Corkery while her husband Neil Corkery took the reigns of the more publicly visible Judicial Crisis Network (JCN) and an allied 501(c)(3) "charitable" nonprofit, Judicial Education Project. Like JCN, it's sister "charity" has received considerable funding from Wellspring and other closely-tied dark money groups like DonorsTrust, a pass-through vessel managing the money flow from wealthy donors to conservative and libertarian groups -- including other groups in Corkery's network -- while allowing the donors to remain anonymous that has earned it the reputation of being a Koch-linked "dark money ATM."
Wearing multiple hats for various groups in the network, Neil Corkery worked impossibly hard. At one point tax returns showed him working a combined 100 hours a week between his various nonprofits.
[2020-03-30; 45 Alliance] Tax Form Emphasizes Mysterious Dark Money Group's Ties to Trump
Neil Corkery is a conservative operative known for directing the flow of secret political money. He has ties to several high-profile dark money operations like the Wellspring Committee and Judicial Crisis Network. In 2018, an anonymous million dollar contribution to President Trump's inauguration was linked to him. Corkery's involvement with the new pro-Trump operation links it to some of the country's most secretive and influential political nonprofits.
[2018-07-06]: The anti-abortion conservative quietly guiding Trump's supreme court pick. Leonard Leo, who is advising Trump on his nominee, is a mild-mannered Republican who has become one of the Washington's most influential people.
As the owlish Executive Vice-President of the Federalist Society, Leonard A. Leo, has quietly become one of the Washington's most influential people. Carrie Severino, a former clerk to Justice Clarence Thomas, said Leo knows the conservative legal movement "perhaps better than anyone in the country". Leo is on leave from the Federalist Society to advise Trump.
Kennedy's retirement has imperiled Roe v Wade, the court's landmark 1973 ruling that legalised abortion nationwide, which Leo and his conservative allies have long been committed to overturning. A ruling by the new court could allow states to outlaw abortion within their borders. Amid liberal outcry and polls indicating that Americans support Roe v Wade by more than two to one, Leo has appeared keen to contain his excitement. "I don't think people should be worried about Roe v Wade or any other particular case," he told CBS last week.
But such protestations do not persuade his critics. "It's nonsense," said Michael Avery, professor emeritus at Boston's Suffolk Law School and the author of a book on the Federalist Society's rise. "These people have been pursuing a strategy for decades of chipping away at women's rights."
Leonard Leo, a 53-year-old father of six, appears in the media as the mild-mannered public face of a strident campaign to reshape the American judiciary. It is a mission that has spanned several administrations, driven by Leo and fellow devout Catholics, and bankrolled with tens of millions of dollars from unidentified conservative donors. More than a decade ago, it helped secure George W Bush's confirmation of Justice Samuel Alito and Chief Justice John Roberts.
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Working more behind the scenes is Ann Corkery, a Washington lawyer and fundraiser, who in the 1990s said she was a member of Opus Dei, the hardline Catholic order. Corkery defended the group's practice of self-flagellation. "People don't understand sacrifice, the whole idea of why anyone would inflict pain, because the modern notion is to avoid suffering," she said. Corkery did not respond to emailed questions.
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Ann Corkery and her husband, Neil Corkery, have taken turns as president of the Wellspring Committee, a Virginia-based non-profit that channels funds to the Judicial Crisis Network (JCN), which provides the campaign's sharp edge. JCN spent $17 million on television advertising and other advocacy in support of Gorsuch and, earlier, against Barack Obama's proposed centrist replacement of Scalia, Merrick Garland.
Gary Marx, JCN's secretary and treasurer, wrote in 2012: "Should abortion be illegal? Absolutely." Ann Corkery helped form JCN and Neil formerly served as its treasurer. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, they got started with funding from Robin Arkley, a conservative property developer from Eureka, California, who was friendly with Scalia.
Arkley these days makes appearances as a pundit on a local radio talkshow, where he has complained of African Americans having children out of wedlock and called for homeless people to be expelled from Eureka [California]. He referred to the 2005 hurricane in Louisiana as "Saint Katrina" because it provided an "unbelievable stimulus" to the construction industry. He also said that, given the strength of support for Obama among minorities, the notion that white people should vote for white candidates is "something we really need to explore". Arkley did not respond to emailed questions.
Wellspring, the Corkery-led non-profit that funds JCN, is not required to name its donors. It disclosed late last year that it received $28.5 million from a single contributor. The Center for Responsive Politics has said Leo plays a leading role in raising money for Wellspring. The Center also found Wellspring sent $750,000 to an obscure company that gave $1 million to Trump's inauguration fund. Leo named that company as his employer on a public filing.
Dan Goldberg, the legal director of the liberal-leaning Alliance for Justice, said this "dark money" was allowing a wealthy elite to "turn back the clock" in American society without accountability. "They are spending an enormous amount of money to erode the progress we've made in ensuring rights for women, healthcare for millions of Americans and rights for workers, LGBTQ people and people of colour," said Goldberg.
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The likely confirmation of Trump's second nominee will mark the pinnacle of Leo's endeavours for the Federalist Society, which he [Leonard Leo] joined soon after graduating from Cornell law school in 1989. But Michael Avery, the professor and author, does not expect Leo or his allies to admit it. "They will continue complaining that they are outsiders even after achieving the most complete takeover of the courts that we have ever seen," said Avery. "They will never be satisfied."
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