Leonard Anthony Leo was born on November 1965 and is an American lawyer, businessman, and conservative legal activist.
43 Facts About Leonard Leo
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Leonard Leo 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.
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Leonard Leo 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.
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Leonard Anthony Leo was born on Long Island, New York, in November 1965, and raised in suburban New Jersey.
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Leonard Leo's grandfather, an Italian immigrant, was a vice president of fashion company Brooks Brothers.
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Leonard Leo grew up in a family of practicing Catholics.
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Leonard Leo's father was a pastry chef, who died when Leonard Leo was a toddler.
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When Leonard Leo was five years old, his mother married an engineer, and the family moved to Monroe Township, New Jersey, where he spent most of his childhood.
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Leonard Leo graduated in 1983 from Monroe Township High School, where he and his future wife, Sally, were both named "Most Likely to Succeed" in the school's yearbook.
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Leonard Leo attended Cornell University, graduating with a bachelor's degree in 1986, working as an intern in the office of Senator Orrin Hatch.
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Leonard Leo then attended Cornell Law School, graduating with a JD in 1989.
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Leonard Leo then clerked for Judge A Raymond Randolph of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
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Leonard Leo delayed his start at the Federalist Society to assist Thomas in his Supreme Court confirmation hearings.
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Leonard Leo served at the Federalist Society in various capacities for more than 25 years.
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Leonard Leo took leaves of absence from the Federalist Society to assist the Bush administration's judicial nomination and confirmation efforts.
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In 2017, legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin wrote that Leonard Leo was "responsible, to a considerable extent, for one third of the justices on the Supreme Court".
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In 2016, Leonard Leo worked with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to block President Barack Obama's replacement appointee, Merrick Garland.
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Between 2014 and 2017, entities affiliated with Leonard Leo raised over $250 million from donors including Charles Koch and Rebekah Mercer.
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In 2018, Politico reported that Leonard Leo had personally lobbied for Brett Kavanaugh's nomination for the Supreme Court seat vacated by Anthony Kennedy, raising upward of $15 million in support of his confirmation.
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Groups affiliated with Leonard Leo include The 85 Fund; the Concord Fund ; the Marble Freedom Trust; and the Rule of Law Trust, among others.
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In January 2020, Leonard Leo announced that he would be leaving his position as vice president at the Federalist Society to start a new for-profit group, CRC Advisors, a conservative political consulting firm.
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Leonard Leo remained in his role as co-chairman of the Federalist Society's board of directors.
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In 2011 and 2012, Leonard Leo arranged for Liberty Consulting, owned by Ginni Thomas, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, to be paid $80,000 by The Polling Company, owned by Kellyanne Conway and billed through the Judicial Education Project.
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In June 2023, ProPublica reported that Leonard Leo helped organize and attended a fishing trip with Justice Samuel Alito and businessman Paul Singer, whose firms later were parties to litigation before the Supreme Court.
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In March 2023, Politico reported that in 2021 and 2022, Leonard Leo had moved at least $43 million from his nonprofits into CRC Advisors, a for-profit business which he chairs.
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In September 2024, in an interview with the Financial Times, Leonard Leo said that the Marble Freedom Trust would devote $1 billion to "crush liberal dominance" in news and entertainment, and to fight "companies and financial institutions that bend to the woke mind virus".
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Leonard Leo was national co-chairman of Catholic outreach for the Republican National Committee, and as the 2004 Bush presidential campaign's Catholic strategist.
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Leonard Leo was appointed by President George W Bush and the United States Senate to three terms on the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom.
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Leonard Leo is a board member of the National Catholic Prayer Breakfast.
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In 2012, Leonard Leo served on the boards of the Catholic Association and its affiliate Catholic Association Foundation, which ran campaigns opposing the legalization of same-sex marriage.
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In 2016, Leonard Leo received $120,000 for his work for the Catholic Association.
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Leonard Leo denied the claims of discrimination against the organization, and no specific claims were made regarding Leonard Leo.
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Leonard Leo has been a US delegate to the United Nations Council and the UN Commission on Human Rights, as well as the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe and World Health Assembly.
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Leonard Leo has been an observer at the World Intellectual Property Organization and as a member of the US National Commission to UNESCO.
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Leonard Leo has been published in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Huffington Post.
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Leonard Leo is a member of the Council for National Policy, whose other members include Virginia Thomas, the wife of Clarence Thomas; Brent Bozell, founder of the Media Research Center; and Ralph Reed, chairman of the nonprofit Faith and Freedom Coalition.
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In filings with the Federal Election Commission, Leonard Leo listed the BH Group as his employer.
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Leonard Leo is the president of the Freedom and Opportunity Fund.
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In 2016, after the death of US Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, Leonard Leo helped finance the renaming of George Mason University's Law School to the Antonin Scalia Law School.
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Leonard Leo has spoken about the profound impact her life had on him.
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Leonard Leo is a knight of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, a Catholic lay religious order.
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In October 2022, Leonard Leo was awarded the John Paul II New Evangelization Award by the Catholic Information Center.
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In May 2023, Leonard Leo received an honorary doctorate from Benedictine College.