Who is behind Marble Freedom Trust?
Shows documented founders, leaders, board members, funders and owners.
Not who made decisions, or why.
A connection is not evidence of wrongdoing.
- Money in Barre Seid ($1.6B) 2020–2021
- Led by Leonard Leo (trustee and chairman) 2020 –
On the record
Sourced links that no one presents as their own account, as recorded so far. Others may exist.
Led by
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Leonard Leo
chair of
2020 –
trustee and chairman
Scholarship & press
1
The last quotation is a campaign-finance lawyer’s warning, Brendan Fischer’s, as ProPublica reports it, not Leo’s; the story attributes it to him.
Money in
- Barre Seid funded 2020–2021 $1.6B Scholarship & press 1
Proof 1 source
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Barre Seid Donated $1.6 Billion to Conservative Marble Freedom Trust, ProPublica and The Lever, 22 Aug 2022.
Scholarship & press
Leo is the trustee and chairman of the Marble Freedom Trust.
Between 2005 and mid-2021, Leo and his associates raised at least $460 million (not including the Marble Freedom Trust’s funds).
In a statement to the Times, Leo said it was “high time for the conservative movement to be among the ranks of George Soros, Hansjörg Wyss, Arabella Advisors and other left-wing philanthropists, going toe-to-toe in the fight to defend our constitution and its ideals.”
I have a very simple rule, which is, I’m engaged in the battle of ideas, and I care very deeply about our Constitution and the role of courts in our society
Leo told The Washington Post in 2019 when asked about his donors.
The Judicial Crisis Network — which is now called the Concord Fund and is headed by a former clerk to Justice Clarence Thomas and Leo associate named Carrie Severino — has spent tens of millions airing ads during Supreme Court confirmation fights.
Leonard Leo is already incredibly powerful, and now he is going to have over a billion dollars at his disposal to continue upending our country’s institutions.
Even in this money-drenched world, Seid’s $1.6 billion gift exceeds all publicly known one-time donations to a politically oriented group.
The structure of the donation allowed Seid to avoid as much as $400 million in taxes.
Then, later that same month, Eaton Corporation, a large publicly traded company, acquired Tripp Lite for $1.65 billion.
The donation does not appear to violate any laws.
While Seid has never spoken to the press about his ideology
How this answer is built
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When a list is longer than the page shows, the links the public methodology ranks strongest stay (methodology 0.3), and the rest open in the explorer.
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