They also used the network to line their own pockets.

Over the next few years, their personal wealth would skyrocket as they skimmed off tens of millions of dollars in advisory fees.

These pools of dark money were also used to boost various initiatives directly or indirectly that were associated with Opus Dei:
the Catholic Association,
the Catholic Association Foundation,
Catholic Voices USA,
and the Catholic Information Center on K Street,
where Leo now sat on the board,
all became beneficiaries of this largesse.

During the Donald Trump years,
conservatives
— led by Leonard Leo
— took control of the Supreme Court.

Following the appointment of Neil Gorsuch to replace Antonin Scalia,
two more seats had become vacant during Trump’s presidency,
allowing him to create a solid conservative majority.

One of those seats had become vacant just weeks before the election,
following the unexpected death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

Leonard Leo was once again asked to help find a replacement.

At one Federalist Society event, his good friend Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas jokingly referred to Leo as the third most powerful man in the world,
presumably behind the pope and the president of the United States.

“God help us!” Leo had responded.

But following Ginsburg’s death, not even God could rein in his ambition.

Rather than offer a concession candidate, given the proximity of the election,
Leo put forward #Amy #Coney #Barrett, a protégé of Antonin Scalia who was openly hostile to Roe v. Wade.

It was no coincidence.

A few months earlier, Thomas E. Dobbs, the Mississippi health officer, had lodged an appeal at the Supreme Court after the Jackson Women’s Health Organization
— Mississippi’s only abortion clinic
— had successfully challenged a state law that banned abortions after fifteen weeks.

An injunction against the state’s enforcing the law had already been upheld by two separate courts,
but a Dobbs win at the Supreme Court directly challenged the premise of Roe v. Wade
and created the opportunity the Catholic right had craved for so long
to overturn almost fifty years of abortion rights.

Coney Barrett was confirmed on the Supreme Court just eight days before the election,
critically giving the court a strong
anti-abortion bias as the case was being considered.