JUST READ IT
A decade of failing to persuade the New York Times to pay attention to Leonard Leo
By Tom Carter
EXCERPT
Well known today as Trump’s “court whisper” and for placing five extreme right Catholics on the Supreme Court, Leo was unknown in 2009 DC. After firing the Muslim employee, Leo endured a wave of negative stories in the Washington Post and other outlets, in short for being an anti-Muslim bigot.
Over the next year, Leo’s name started appearing in other stories. First in Talking Points Memo for being a founding director in Ginni Thomas’ new Tea Party org, Liberty Central. Then Mother Jones accused Leo, USCIRF and Liberty Central of playing a leading role in the anti Muslim Ground Zero Mosque protests.
I had a good Rolodex and began pitching investigative reporters to “look” at Leo. I stressed these ten points:
1 — Leo is more than “just another” DC lobbyist
2 — In addition to the Federalist Society, Leo has a private network of front groups and extreme right Catholic militants running anti Obama disinformation and stacking the courts
3 — Judicial Crisis Network — Carrie Severino
4 — Heritage Foundation — John Malcolm, Roger Severino
5 — CRC pr — Creative Response Concepts — Greg Mueller
6 — Ginni Thomas’ Liberty Central
7 — Becket Fund for Religious Liberty
8 — Former Bush point man on Supreme Court, responsible for picking and placing Roberts and Alito and later, under Trump, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh and Coney Barrett.
9 — Close personal friends w Justices Scalia, Justice Thomas and their families.
10 — Nothing obviously illegal, but a vast and insanely powerful underground DC network that no reporter had ever detailed.
Silly me, I thought it was a good story. Starting in 2010, I pitched more than 40 prominent, award-winning mainstream journalists, including seven from the New York Times.
Every pitch was an updated version of the same thing.