Right-winger Leonard Leo pledges $1B to 'crush liberal dominance'

Conservative activist Leonard Leo is pledging a major financial investment to "crush liberal dominance" he perceives in corporate America and the media.

The former executive vice president of the Federalist Society and architect of the right-wing U.S. Supreme Court assembled by Donald Trump told the Financial Times in a rare interview that his nonprofit Marble Freedom Trust intended to turn its attention – and considerable war chest – to the private sector.

“We need to crush liberal dominance where it’s most insidious, so we’ll direct resources to build talent and capital formation pipelines in the areas of news and entertainment, where leftwing extremism is most evident,” Leo told the publication.

“Expect us to increase support for organizations that call out companies and financial institutions that bend to the woke mind virus spread by regulators and NGOs, so that they have to pay a price for putting extreme leftwing ideology ahead of consumers."

Leo has worked to shape the judiciary for more than two decades with the Federalist Society and played a crucial role in getting three ultra-conservative justices appointed to the Supreme Court during Trump's presidency, but he stepped back from daily operations of that organization after the 2020 election.

He founded Marble the following year with a $1.6 billion donation from electronic device manufacturing mogul Barre Seid, and public financial disclosures show he's spent about $600 million in that organization's first three years.

Leo said his goal was to find “very leveraged, impactful ways of reintroducing limited constitutional government and a civil society premised on freedom and personal responsibility and the virtues of western civilization."

His $1 billion pledge will go toward opposing diversity, equity and inclusion policies, climate and social concerns in the investment sector and the supposed “debanking” of politically conservative customers, and he intends to invest in an as yet undetermined local media company in the next 12 months.

“The political environment is more topsy-turvy and more uncertain than it’s ever been in my lifetime,” said Leo. “Political investing is not as good a bet as it used to be.”