We Don’t Talk About Leonard

by Andrea Bernstein, Andy Kroll, Ilya Marritz

This podcast was produced with On the Media.

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This is “We Don’t Talk About Leonard,” a podcast series with WNYC’s “On The Media” that explores the web of money, influence and power behind the conservative takeover of America’s courts — and the man at the center of it all: Leonard Leo.

Historians and legal experts say there is no comparable figure in American jurisprudence. To the extent Leo is known, it’s for his role helping to install the conservative supermajority on the U.S. Supreme Court. But his reach extends far beyond that. Decades ago, he realized it was not enough to have justices on his side. Those jurists needed to decide the right cases, brought by the right lawyers and heard by the right lower court judges. He built a machine to do just that.

Episode 1

In the first episode, “Most Likely To Succeed,” we travel from Leo’s modest roots in middle-class New Jersey to a mansion in Maine where last year he hosted a lavish party with federal judges that fell on the night before the Supreme Court decision that overturned Roe v. Wade.

This series is reported by Andrea Bernstein, Andy Kroll and Ilya Marritz and edited by On The Media executive producer Katya Rogers and ProPublica’s Jesse Eisinger. Molly Rosen is the lead producer, with help from Shaan Merchant. Jennifer Munson is our technical director. Jared Paul wrote and recorded all the original music. Our fact checkers are Andrea Marks and Hannah Murphy Winter.

This content originally appeared on Articles and Investigations - ProPublica and was authored by by Andrea Bernstein, Andy Kroll, Ilya Marritz.