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Propublica Blows Leonard Leo Story [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']
Date: 2025-04-20
By Tom Carter
On August 24, 2022, just after Leonard Leo handed NYT’s Ken Vogel the blockbuster scoop that Barre Seid had given Leo $1.6 billion no strings attached, I got a phone call from an unknown number.
My wife and I were on the metro to Dulles for a family vacation in Switzerland. It was ProPublica’s Andy Kroll, the reporter who’d been scooped by NYT. He wanted an interview.
I told him no. I was busy and wasn’t interested. I was pretty much done with reporters and Leonard Leo.
I was a US government employee and Leo was my political appointee boss at a small government agency from 2009 until 2012.
For 12-years, since June 19, 2010 and my first Leo email to David Corn at Mother Jones, I’d spent countless hours, sent thousands of emails and had dozens of meetings with a wide range of big shot DC reporters, failing to persuade any of them that Leo was a danger to this country, worthy of investigation.
My only success was with Jay Michaelson at the Daily Beast, June 2018. I was on my way back from Tequila, Mexico with a friend and a trunkload of five-liter jugs of Mexico’s finest agave, when Jay called. I spent two hours on the phone with him, as Larry and I careened down the two-lane mountain/jungle highway back to Sayulita. Didn’t spill a drop.
July 9, 2018, the Daily Beast published the first comprehensive look at Leo. It is quoted and cited in every decent Leo story since.
When Andy called, I was retired from the Leo beat.
My previous experience with ProPublica was anticlimactic, at best. In November 2019, I briefed two ProPublica reporters — Isaac Arnsdorf and Yeganeh Torbati — 90 minutes over coffee at Ted’s Bulletin on Capitol Hill. I gave my Leo pitch, connected the dots and gave them pages of notes and links for verification.
But they blew me off as a DaVinci Code conspiracy theorist. Both are now doing just fine at Washington Post.
I told Andy that between the Daily Beast story and Arnsdorf and Torbati’s notes, he had everything I had to say.
On Sept 28, 2022, just after returning home. I got a followup email from Andy.
“I understand about Leo. You’re surely sick of thinking and talking about the guy. On a semi-related note, the journalist Jeff Sharlet had an interesting Twitter thread yesterday about the need for more investment in reporting on Christian nationalism. He used Ginni Thomas as an example and wrote, “And how does one write about Ginni Thomas as we need without seriously engaging the theology that informs her? Without going to her church? She’s a Christian nationalist, yes — but what kind? What are the faultlines? That takes time, & time means $$ to keep a journalist fed.
“Emphasis mine. I appreciated the stories you sent me about Leo, but I have yet to see one that fully engages with the theology that informs him (to borrow Sharlet’s language), especially now that he’s arguably the best-funded political operative in America.
“That’s what I was hoping to talk OTR with you about. Even Jay M. said he didn’t go nearly as deep into that as he wanted to for his Daily Beast. (Then he recommended I talk to you about it. Ha.) But no worries if you’re done with the subject — I understand.”
I responded.
“Andy — Thinking about it overnight, I’m just not interested in talking about Leo anymore. Sorry. I wish you the best in your reporting on him and look forward to reading anything you uncover.”
But he did pique my interest with the religion angle. I’d used Sharlet’s books many times in my failed pitches. There are plenty of books, articles and documentaries on the Evangelical Christian Nationalists, Sharlet’s among the best — but nothing on the Opus Dei DC Leo Catholics and Leo Catholic Supremes radically changing the lives of everyday Americans.
That began a year of emails and phone calls. Kroll and I became “DC friends” bonding over a shared love of Switzerland and nice guitars. Andy asking for an interview on Leo, promising fine wines and nice lunches. Me saying no thanks.
In June 2023, my growing fear of trump being re-elected, I decided I needed to talk, but only if I had a say in the narrative. I met Andy June 13, 2023 for an OTR “off the record” lunch at Eastern Market Lunch.
He laid out his plan of what he wanted to write. It mirrored what I wanted. If I were to to talk, I wanted assurances of an in-depth, comprehensive look at Leo, the many tentacles of his web, interests and front groups, and his faith driven politics. I gave him a picture of Leo’s daughter that hangs near the entrance at the K Street Opus Dei center.
Coverage of Leo was all but non-existent prior to the Barre Seid donation August 2022, but it exploded after. That said, coverage was myopic, unfocused, one front group here, another there, all individual trees, no big picture, drone look at the vast right wing Leo forest.
Put another way. Leo is a 30-year cancer invading the entire body of US democracy — tip to toe. One story on Students for Life or another on Republican Attorneys General Association and another on the Judicial Crisis Network wasn’t going to cut it.
I read Andy’s book on Seth Rich. Impressive. He seemed like a good reporter. I liked him. Nice guy. But I wasn’t convinced.
A few days after our lunch, June 20, 2023, another investigative team at ProPublica broke the blockbuster story that Leo had organized and participated in a fishing trip w Supreme Court Justice Sam Alito, paid for by a billionaire who had a case before the Supreme Court.
6/21/2023 I wrote Kroll.
“The story is another example of a Leo slice. When is someone, anyone going to do a comprehensive look? Forest. Not just trees. Today’s story was a freakin giant sequoia, but still, just one tree…The Catholic angle remains untold.
6/21/2023, Kroll responded “As I said at lunch, our story re Leo IS the forest.”
With that, I agreed to talk and a few days later (6/26/2023) Kroll came to my house, interviewed me, recording five hours.
Six weeks later, 9/12/23, I emailed Andy. “Am I in there?”
“Not looking like it,” he responded.
Not a big deal. I have no desire to see my name in print. I just wanted the goddamn story out there.
After the three hour “We Don’t Talk About Leonard” podcast and the accompanying story in ProPublica came out in October, I was disappointed. It was not what was promised.
Credit where credit is due. It was good in some ways. It got many new eyes on Leo. And, using documents published by the Associated Press in 2008 and The Guardian in 2016, ProPublica highlighted Leo work in Wisconsin and Missouri, attempting to compromise judges, governors and attorneys generals, with threats and bullying.
Leo was not just a DC Supreme Court whisperer.
ProPublica highlighted the Gatsby-like party at Leo’s Maine mansion the night before Dobbs was announced, implying that Leo knew the outcome in advance. My favorite tidbit — Leo serves Pol Roger champagne, Winston Churchill’s favorite.
Meanwhile, Twitter was reporting that Leo had Catholic Crusader battleflags hanging outside his house in Maine.
I sent Andy an email. “I dont understand how there can be a whole article on Leonard Leo and no mention that he is OpusDei/KnightsOfMalta. Its like the MSM is in on the omertà. 🤷♀️”
10/11/23 “He’s not Opus Dei. We checked. Supporter of OD-aligned CIC, which is in the story. Knights of Malta didn’t seem all that pressing once we dug into what it does, and compared with all the other reporting we have in there…” he wrote.
That was the last I heard from Kroll or ProPublica.
No thanks to ProPublica, the story of Leo’s extreme Catholic Opus Dei faith driven politics was published. Gareth Gore’s groundbreaking and meticulously documented book, Opus, was published (Simon & Schuster) October 2024, nearly 100 pages devoted to Leo/Opus Dei political world, just before trump was re-elected.
Unreported by the teams of crack DC investigative reporters at the Washington Post, the New York Times or ProPublica, it took a London based U.K. financial journalist to expose Leonard Leo’s Opus Dei world in DC — the Supreme Court, the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025, and Leo’s Hail Mary Trojan Horse, JD Vance, in the White House.
While Kroll broke his promises to me, I don’t blame him. My guess is some ProPublica senior editor was nervous about being tarred as anti-Catholic for reporting facts? Another possibility is DC Opus Dei has someone senior placed at ProPublica? Maybe Team Leo scared off ProPublica with legal threats — and ProPublica caved? All of the above?
ProPublica does excellent work, but please do not tell me that ProPublica is the paragon of investigative journalism it claims to be.
It reminds me of a soccer match I saw last summer. Swansea completely dominated the pitch for 89 minutes, but dropped its guard for a second and the Millwall thugs scored, winning the game.
ProPublica was given the biggest story of my lifetime, but the Leo thugs won.
[END]
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