Senate Democrats investigating Leonard Leo and other conservative activists over their ties to Supreme Court justices pocketed donations from a wealthy businessman bankrolling organizations behind the high court “ethics” campaign — including ProPublica.
Leo, co-chairman of the Federalist Society legal group, told Senate Judiciary Committee Democrats last week he would not comply with an “unlawful” subpoena from the panel, which has accused conservative Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito of harboring conflicts of interest in connection to their reported relationships with Leo, Republican billionaires Harlan Crow and Paul Singer, and others. But some lawmakers have their own financial ties that ethics experts say could open them up to an apparent conflict of interest, or, at a very minimum, public charges of hypocrisy. Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) and Jon Ossoff (D-GA), as well as other Democrats who have taken aim at right-of-center nonprofit groups connected to Leo, have accepted tens of thousands of dollars from a California philanthropist giving generously each year to influential left-wing foundations, Federal Election Commission filings show.
The philanthropist, Stephen M. Silberstein, has directed regular checks from his private foundation earmarked for “investigative reporting” since 2011 to ProPublica, according to tax forms. The outlet’s reporting on the alleged misconduct of Supreme Court justices prompted the Senate investigation, and it later appeared to pressure lawmakers to subpoena Leo and Crow. Silberstein, a retiree who made his fortune co-founding the software company Innovative Interfaces, also funds left-wing groups now backing sweeping judiciary ethics reforms and praising Senate Judiciary Committee Democrats for approving the subpoenas to Leo and Crow, a Washington Examiner investigation found.
“Congressional oversight of the influence of money on the public policy process will always be imperfect because the overseers themselves are reliant on special interests, but Sheldon Whitehouse raises this to a whole new level,” said Peter Flaherty, CEO of the National Legal and Policy Center, an ethics watchdog group. “Whitehouse and Senate Democrats certainly appear to have conflicts of interest when it comes to investigating Leonard Leo or Harlan Crow.”
News of the donations underscores how some Democratic lawmakers place hypocrisy targets on their backs by investigating certain financial ties at the campaign and tax-exempt level, according to Richard Painter, the ex-chief White House ethics lawyer under President George W. Bush. To Painter, now a professor at the University of Minnesota Law School, subpoenas shouldn’t be “fishing expeditions in which members of Congress go after each other’s big donors or the nonprofit organizations they support.”
Through his role as chairman of the Judiciary panel’s federal courts subcommittee, Whitehouse has played a key role with Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin (R-IL) in probing conservative activists, including Leo. The Rhode Island Democrat notably slammed Leo’s attorney, David Rivkin, after Rivkin co-authored a Wall Street Journal op-ed praising Alito, claiming Rivkin’s move to write the piece showed “how small and shallow the pool of operatives” is among Republicans.
The “same folks keep popping up wearing new hats,” Whitehouse, who did not return a Washington Examiner request for comment, said in July 2023.
This election cycle, Whitehouse’s campaign has taken maximum combined contributions of $6,600 from Silberstein, who also gave $5,000 to the senator’s leadership political action committee in November 2023, according to campaign finance records. Silberstein’s last check to Whitehouse before these donations was $1,000 in 2005.
Meanwhile, Whitehouse’s donor has transferred $2 million combined since 2011 to ProPublica, which Whitehouse has widely credited as he investigates conservative activists at the center of ProPublica‘s reports.
ProPublica reported in June 2023 that Leo “helped organize” a fishing trip with Alito and Singer, noting, “Singer and the lodge owner were both major donors to Leo’s political groups.” Months later, in September of last year, the outlet reported Leo allegedly arranged appearances by Thomas at Koch network summits, promoting Whitehouse to post on social media: “Oh, my.”
In a statement to the Washington Examiner, a ProPublica spokesperson asserted that donors and board members are not “made aware of stories before they are published, nor do they have a say as to which stories reporters pursue.” The spokesperson said ProPublica‘s newsroom operates “with fierce independence.”
Silberstein’s foundation has also for years sent grants to Public Citizen, a think tank allied with Whitehouse that backs judiciary reforms. His foundation, which sits on roughly $171 million in assets, has supported Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, which has long pressed for investigations into Leo and other conservatives. It’s also funded Common Cause, a group that expressed support for the Durbin-led subpoenas to Leo and Crow in November of last year.
“We leave it up to donors whether or not to announce which of our programs their funds support,” a Common Cause spokesperson said.
Another left-wing group on the receiving end of Silberstein’s largesse is the Center for American Progress, tax forms show. The think tank has taken home roughly $5 million from his foundation since 2004. Devon Ombres, its senior courts and legal policy director, said in a November 2023 statement, “Holding people like Leonard Leo and billionaires like Harlan Crow accountable is necessary to restore faith in American institutions” as part of a press release applauding the subpoenas.
At the same time, Silberstein has established himself as a reliable donor to Democratic candidates and causes, such as the Nancy Pelosi Victory Fund, Senate Majority PAC, Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, and Democratic National Committee, financial disclosures show.
Ossoff, who sits on the Senate Judiciary Committee alongside Whitehouse, accepted $5,600 in 2020 from Silberstein. But it’s not solely members of this panel who have been boosted by the donor.
More than a dozen senators who prepared a report in 2022 accusing the Leo-tied Judicial Crisis Network nonprofit group of spreading “propaganda” raked in around $56,800 combined over the years from Silberstein, not accounting for donations to Whitehouse, who helped on the document.
Silberstein has also given over $7,700 since 2006 to committees affiliated with Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY). The New York Democrat and other senators, including Whitehouse, signed on to a 2019 brief in a firearm-related Supreme Court case that decried how Leo “has been linked to a million-dollar contribution to the NRA’s lobbying arm, and to a $250 million network largely funded by anonymous donors to promote right-wing causes and judicial nominees.”
The brief also raised apparent conflict of interest concerns about pro-Second Amendment groups “receiving funding from foundations and other often anonymously funded sources connected to Leonard Leo’s network that regularly fund ideological litigants and amici before this court.”
Given Silberstein’s donations to these lawmakers, that logic is “rank hypocrisy,” according to Scott Walter, president of the conservative Capital Research Center think tank.
Dave Dulio, director at Oakland University’s Center for Civic Engagement and a political science professor, agreed.
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“Democrats often criticize Republicans for having ties to deep-pocketed individuals,” Dulio said. “But they have their own; what’s good for the goose is good for the gander.”
Silberstein did not return a request for comment.
