Washington, DC, Attorney General Brian Schwalb has launched a baseless, politically driven investigation into Federalist Society co-chairman Leonard Leo, Politico reported.
Along with co-chairing the conservative Federalist Society, Leo serves as chairman of CRC Advisors, a conservative media, political, and policy consulting firm. As a leading figure in promoting the conservative judicial philosophy of originalism, Leo was influential in the nominations of all three of former President Donald Trump’s Supreme Court justices.
However, Leo is being investigated over his ties to a series of nonprofit organizations he is affiliated with, Politico reported, citing a person with direct knowledge of the probe. Schwalb’s investigation comes after the leftwing Center for Accountability, created and funded by the goliath leftwing dark money group Arabella Advisors, filed a complaint against Leo.
Attorney Brian Schwalb is running for the D.C. Attorney General’s office. (Astrid Riecken For The Washington Post via Getty Images)
The Center for Accountability’s complaint Leo requested the D.C. Attorney General and the IRS look into whether Leo violated laws in connection with The 85 Fund, a nonprofit Leo is aligned with that is registered as a tax-exempt charity.
However, even Politico admitted the Center for Accountability’s complaint “doesn’t provide any direct evidence of its accusations.”
Attorney General Schwalb is seemingly overstepping his jurisdiction with this investigation into Leo as neither he nor any of the organizations associated with him are based in the nation’s capital.
Schwalb comes to the D.C. Attorney General’s office after serving as a trial attorney for the Department of Justice under former President Bill Clinton’s administration. Schwalb also served as the legal director for the leftwing Alliance for Justice and has been a strident critic of the conservative legal movement for nearly two decades.
Schwalb’s efforts are just the latest attempt by leftwingers to go after Leo and attack the credibility of the conservative Supreme Court.
For example, Senate Democrats recently demanded Leo provide information about his interaction with Supreme Court justices, a move his lawyers said violated his First Amendment and equal protection rights.
Government watchdog Accountable.US places posters around the Federalist Society building to highlight news of D.C. Attorney General Brian Schwalb’s investigation into Leonard Leo’s nonprofit network on August 24, 2023, in Washington, DC. (Photo by Paul Morigi/Getty Images for Accountable.US)
As Breitbart News reported:
Partisan Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee have been pursuing conservative Supreme Court justices – but only conservative justices – for years. But now Democrats are targeting conservative private citizens, with Chairman Richard Durbin (D-IL) and Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) leading the charge.
In the latest salvo, Durbin and Whitehouse fired off a letter on July 11 to Leo, requesting that he provide the committee with information about his interactions with Supreme Court justices.
Lawyers representing Leo responded with a letter of their own on July 25, explaining that they “believe that your inquiry exceeds the limits placed by the Constitution on the Committee’s investigative authority.”
Leftists have also tried to engage in “reverse court-packing,” a move to try and force conservative justices off certain key cases to shape their outcome, as Breitbart News’s Senior Legal Contributor Ken Klukowski detailed.
But Schwalb’s foray into lawfare enters new territory with this investigation as the intimidating and coercive powers of law enforcement are reportedly being directed against a private citizen because of that citizen’s beliefs, notwithstanding that those views are protected by the First Amendment.
Jordan Dixon-Hamilton is a reporter for Breitbart News. Write to him at
