Democ­rats prob­ing Leonard Leo share wealthy donor fund­ing groups behind ‘ethics’ cam­paign

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. S …