Conservative activist funded $1.8 million propaganda campaign to flatter Clarence Thomas

Conservative legal activist Leonard Leo coordinated a public relations campaign celebrating U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.

The years-long campaign cost at least $1.8 million and included advertising intended to boost flattering content in online searches, promotion for a laudatory film, and websites and Twitter accounts celebrating his career and attacking onetime accuser Anita Hill to counter a 2016 HBO film that recounted her sexual harassment allegations, reported the Washington Post.

“Justice Thomas: The most open & personable of Justices, intimate in sharing his feelings, easily moved to laughter,” read one tweet on the "Justice Thomas Fan Account."

Leo, the longtime Federalist Society executive, used a network of closely related nonprofits that he controls to fund the campaign, which was set in motion seven years ago by attorney Mark Paoletta, who later served as a White House aide to Donald Trump.

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“My good friend Leonard Leo’s group provided funding for this work,” Paoletta said. “Unlike Presidents or Members of Congress, Justices do not have an infrastructure of employees to help defend them from these political attacks.”

Paoletta, who now works at a law firm led by former clerks for Thomas and Justice Antonin Scalia, said he had not been paid by Leo or anyone else to defend Thomas since the end of 2016, right before he went to work for Trump, but he remains a "dear friend" to the conservative justice and his wife Ginni Thomas, whom he represented when she testified before the House select committee.

He disclosed in required forms before joining the Trump administration that he had been paid $300,000 by the nonprofit Judicial Education Project for work on "media projects" that year, although the film "Created Equal: Clarence Thomas In His Own Words" did not come out until 2020.

“Our network was thrilled that Created Equal brought Justice Clarence Thomas, in his own words, into the homes of millions of Americans, so they could learn firsthand who he is, what he stands for, and what the Constitution really means,” Leo said in a statement, although he declined to answer detailed questions about the public relations campaign.