A new report reveals that Leonard Leo paid Ginni Thomas tens of thousands of dollars, but the money was routed through Kellyanne Conway’s consulting company without mentioning Thomas.
Leo, an adviser to the Judicial Education Project and a key figure in a network of nonprofits that has worked to support the nominations of conservative judges, told Conway that he wanted her to “give” Ginni Thomas “another $25K,” the documents show. He emphasized that the paperwork should have “No mention of Ginni, of course.”
Conway’s firm, the Polling Company, sent the Judicial Education Project a $25,000 bill that day. Per Leo’s instructions, it listed the purpose as “Supplement for Constitution Polling and Opinion Consulting,” the documents show.
Leonard Leo’s name has been in the news lately because he may have caused The Federalist Society to violate its tax-exempt status so that he could secure a $1/6 billion donation for partisan activism.
There is no documented evidence that Ginni Thomas ever did any work for the Judicial Education Project or Kellyanne Conway’s polling company. It appears that Leo was slipping money to the Ginni and Clarence Thomas while he had business before the Supreme Court.
The Ginni Thomas news comes on the same day that a separate investigation revealed that a GOP donor had been paying the private school tuition of Clarence Thomas’s grandnephew, who he has custody of and is raising as his own child.
The Supreme Court corruption scandal is growing more out of control by the hour, as the pressure should grow on either Chief Justice John Roberts, who has his own ethics scandal involving payments to his wife, or Congress to act.
Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association