MAGA Kingpin #1 - Leonard Leo

Have you heard of Leonard Leo?

He is the chairman of the United States Commission for International Religious Freedom (USCIRF),

The hundreds of millions of dollars Leo pumps into the conservative legal movement each year are difficult to trace. He controls multiple pots of dark money, most of which he then funnels through various pass-through mechanisms, including via donor-advised funds that make certain disclosures opaque.

One such fund, DonorsTrust, is a favorite of Leo and like-minded right-wing donors, which has earned it the nickname “the dark-money ATM of the conservative movement.” DonorsTrust’s tax filings were the key to unraveling Leo’s unsuccessful wooing of Cornell and landing his research center at Texas A&M.

Leo typically operates in the background and goes to considerable lengths to cover his philanthropic tracks. Each year, his groups send millions through DonorsTrust, which markets itself as a “principled philanthropic partner for conservative and libertarian donors” and a means to anonymously fund “sensitive or controversial issues.”

In 2022, the 85 Fund sent $92 million through DonorsTrust, more than a quarter of all contributions to DonorsTrust that year. Marble Freedom Trust has distributed more than $41 million via DonorsTrust, according to a filing for its 2020 fiscal year. The Rule of Law Trust, also run by Leo, gave $5.8 million via DonorsTrust in 2020.

Beside Leo’s groups, other top contributors to DonorsTrust include Rebekah Mercer of Cambridge Analytica and Parler fame, whose Mercer Family Foundation gave $31 million in 2022. 

Leo took the stage at Catholic University’s law school alongside Patrick Kelly, “Supreme Knight” of the Knights of Columbus, the all-male Catholic fraternal order.

A devout Catholic, Leo is a member of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, a Catholic knighthood, and recipient of the top honor from Opus Dei’s Catholic Information Center.

The Sovereign Military Order of Malta is a lay religious order headquartered in Rome dating back to the First Crusade. It has long defended the faith against persecution and been dedicated to helping care for the poor, the sick and the vulnerable, employing about 25,000 medical personnel and 80,000 volunteers worldwide. It is considered a sovereign subject under international law and has diplomatic relations with 106 countries.

The Marble Freedom Trust is an American conservative political advocacy group structured as a 501(c)(4) social welfare organization. Such groups, which are not required to publicly disclose their donors, are permitted to spend money advocating for or against candidates in political campaigns, although this type of spending cannot be their primary purpose.[1] Leonard Leo is the group's trustee and chairman.

The Marble Freedom Trust generally promotes positions and causes consistent with conservatism in the United States.[6]

The MFT aims "to transform ESG environmental, social, and governance (ESG) investing into a rallying cry against woke capitalism."[7]

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/sep/04/leonard-leo-federalist-society-conservative-abortion

Paul Michael Weyrich - religious conservative political activist and commentator associated with the New Right.

He co-founded The Heritage Foundation,[5] the Free Congress Foundation, and the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), and coined the term "moral majority," the name of the political action group Moral Majority that he co-founded in 1979 with Jerry Falwell.

leader of the Melkite Greek Catholic Eparchy of Newton.[9][11]

Weyrich's right-hand man, Laszlo Pasztor,[13] a former leader of the pro-Nazi Arrow Cross Party in Hungary, which had collaborated with Hitler's Third Reich.

Weyrich founded the Committee for the Survival of a Free Congress (CSFC).[5]

It also was one of the first organizations to tap into evangelical Christian churches as places to recruit and cultivate activists and support for social conservative causes.[15] In 1977, Weyrich co-founded Christian Voice with Robert Grant. Two years later, in 1979, he co-founded the Moral Majority with Jerry Falwell.[16]

Weyrich sought to exempt Wiccans from the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment[31] and bar them from serving in the military altogether

"a manifesto from Paul Weyrich's Free Congress Foundation," The Integration of Theory and Practice: A Program for the New Traditionalist Movement[34] which "illuminates the tactics of the dominionist movement

part of an alliance of more than 50 of the most prominent conservative Christian leaders and organizations that threaten the separation of church and state.[33]

the Free Congress Foundation's strategic plan published in 2001 by the FCF,[38] which she says calls for the use of deception, misinformation, and divisiveness to allow conservative evangelical Christian Republicans to gain and keep control of seats of power in the government of the United States.