The 85 Fund

The 85 Fund is one of the integral dark money organizations within Leonard Leo’s network of conservative nonprofit groups working to influence the American federal court system. 

• In 2020, Leonard Leo announced his plans to rebrand two existing nonprofits, the Concord Fund ( replacing the Judicial Crisis Network while still housing a “fictitious” entity retaining the Judicial Crisis Network name) and the 85 Fund (formerly known as the Judicial Education Project), with the goal of funneling large sums of money into conservative causes.

• After legally changing its name from the Judicial Education Project, the 85 Fund’s fundraising skyrocketed to over $50 million, up from an average of $5-15 million in years prior. 

As the 85 Fund saw massive gains in funding and influence, Leo became the central force in the effort by the right to stack conservative judges on the U.S. Supreme Court. 

• Leo’s shadow network has allowed him to “cultivate almost every important Republican lawyer in more than a generation.”

• Leo’s network ran successful influence campaigns to appoint and confirm Justices John Roberts, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court and to block Merrick Garland’s nomination to the Supreme Court from moving forward.  

Even before its funding explosion in 2020, The 85 Fund (then known as the Judicial Education Project)  facilitated a funding network for Leo-linked right-wing organizations for nearly a decade.

• The Center for Rule of Law received $2.5 million from the 85 Fund between 2013 and 2016, while Speech First, George Mason University, Private Citizen, and the RJ Johnson Legal Defense Fund have all received over $1 million in grants from the 85 Fund since 2012.
• The 85 Fund has paid millions of dollars for contracting work to groups and individuals connected to Leonard Leo. In 2020 alone, the 85 Fund paid over $12 million to CRC Advisors, which pushed the 85 Fund’s total payments to CRC Advisors to nearly $22 million since 2012. The BH Group, an entity that remains partially owned by Leonard Leo, has received nearly $3 million for contracting services since 2017, and the Center for Rule of Law has received nearly $4 million since 2017. 

The 85 Fund Contracting Payments To Creative Response Concepts

The 85 Fund Contracting Payments To BH Group

The 85 Fund’s strategy for advancing conservative policies has also included filing amicus briefs with the Supreme Court, “siding with Republicans and the Trump administration on issues like abortion, climate change, the Affordable Care Act, and the Voting Rights Act.”

​​Leonard Leo, Founder

As the reported founder of the 85 Fund, Leonard Leo has used the organization to further the right’s effort to influence the federal judiciary.  Leonard Leo was “widely known as a confidant to Trump” and served as Trump’s Supreme Court Advisor during the nominations of Brett Kavanaugh, Amy Coney Barrett, and Neil Gorsuch.  During the Kavanaugh nomination, Leo assured a group of top Koch network donors that it was “just the beginning of an even bigger effort to load up the federal judiciary with conservative judges.”  

Leo is considered “arguably the most powerful figure in the federal justice system” with his “network of interlocking nonprofits” that aggressively support conservative judges. 

• One of these nonprofits is the Federalist Society, which cultivates conservative judicial nominees in Leo’s fight to take over the courts.

• Leo’s shadow empire has allowed him to meet and “cultivate almost every important Republican lawyer in more than a generation.”

• In addition to the 85 Fund, Leo operates a series of nonprofits that can move money without public scrutiny, such as the BH Fund, America Engaged, and the Freedom and Opportunity Fund.
• Leo’s network executed successful advocacy campaigns to appoint and confirm John Roberts, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court and block Merrick Garland from the Court. 

Leo has personal and professional ties to Justice Clarence Thomas, who is an original faculty member of the Federalist Society and a frequent speaker at the organization’s events. 

Thomas has hired Leo’s PR firm CRC Advisors to promote his memoir and a documentary about Thomas.

• The Washington Post reports that Leo and Clarence Thomas have been close friends since meeting in the 1990s.

• Thomas is the godfather to one of Leo’s children and has spent time vacationing at Leo’s New England home.

• During the George H.W. Bush administration, Leo delayed his start at the Federalist Society to help get Thomas confirmed to the Supreme Court.

Neil Corkery, Founder

Neil Corkery founded the Judicial Education Project in 2011. He and his wife Ann Corkery are influential right-wing operatives closely involved in Leonard Leo’s network of nonprofits seeking to advance religious right-wing agendas. Salon reported that the Corkerys have used the network they built alongside Leonard Leo “to prop up conservative judicial nominees.”

Right-Wing Religious Activism

• Watchdog group OpenSecrets hypothesized that the political influence of the Corkerys is tied to their deep roots in right-wing religious communities.

• In a 1990 interview, the Corkerys claimed to be members of Opus Dei, which has been accused of “having cult-like practices and promoting a right-wing agenda.” Opus Dei opposes same-sex marriage, divorce, abortion, and contraception.

• Ann Corkery served as a delegate to the United Nations General Assembly and the UN Commission on Women under President George W. Bush. She fought to institute a ban on human cloning at the UN.

• Neil Corkery served on the boards of the anti-abortion and anti-LGBTQ advocacy group The Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights and at The Becket Fund, a legal giant which has opposed LGBTQ and abortion rights. Neil additionally held roles at conservative PAC ActRight Action, and the anti-marriage equality group The National Organization for Marriage.

• Ann Corkery was also a board member at The Becket Fund and The Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights.

Media Ties

• Neil and Ann Corkery were involved in efforts to promote conservative art. Ann worked with Friends of Abe, a group of Hollywood conservatives who aim to push back on the industry’s perceived liberal bias, and was an associate producer on a movie mocking Michael Moore. Neil is the former CEO of Wedgewood Circle, a group that aims to fund “redemptive cultural content.”

Connections to the Leonard Leo Network

• The Corkerys helped launch Leonard Leo’s Judicial Crisis Network. Leonard Leo and Neil Corkery conceived the Judicial Crisis Network at a dinner party attended by conservative Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. Leo and Corkery wanted to create an organization to help confirm conservative nominees in anticipation of Supreme Court vacancies that George W. Bush ultimately filled with Justices John Roberts and Samuel Alito.

• Neil Corkery is the former president of Judicial Crisis Network’s sister organization the 85 Fund (FKA the Judicial Education Project) and Ann Corkery currently serves as counsel for the Judicial Crisis Network. The 85 Fund operates within Leo’s network of conservative nonprofits that aims to influence the federal judiciary and American political system more broadly. In 2020, the group legally changed its name from the Judicial Education Project to the 85 Fund and almost immediately raised $20 million dollars, much of it from the powerful conservative “dark money” group, Donors Trust. In recent years, the 85 Fund has sent money to other conservative and right-wing groups, including groups that were tied to efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

• Ann Corkery founded the Wellspring Committee in 2008. OpenSecrets said in 2019 that Wellspring and its operatives “reshaped the way the game is played” and “ushered in a new era of increasingly expensive judicial battles largely fueled by deep-pocketed donors whose identities remain secret.” The group continued to have an outsize influence in judicial battles after its dissolution in 2018 through the “countless dark money groups it helped sire and judges now on the bench thanks in part to its anonymous financiers’ generosity.” Neil Corkery also served in various leadership roles at Wellspring during its tenure.

• Neil Corkery was the principal officer at America Engaged in 2016. America Engaged is a non-profit within the Leo network formed by Leo with no public presence. In 2017, American Engaged gave $1 million to the National Rifle Association (NRA); that same year, the NRA announced a $1 million ad campaign supporting Neil Gorsuch’s Supreme Court nomination.

• Neil Corkery reportedly served as an accountant at Liberty Central, a tea party group where Leo served as a board member. Ginni Thomas, the wife of Clarence Thomas, who sought to overturn the 2020 election results, founded and led Liberty Central. The Thomases both count Leonard Leo as a friend.
• Leonard Leo’s Marble Freedom Trust identifies Neil Corkery as in charge of the organization’s books, according to its 2020 990. 

Todd Graves, Director

Todd Graves is the brother of U.S. Representative Sam Graves, a former Missouri Assistant Attorney General and former U.S. District Attorney for the Western District of Missouri. 

Graves has served as chair of The 85 Fund since 2019. In addition, he is a director at America Engaged and the Freedom and Opportunity Fund, two 501(c)(4) organizations where Leonard Leo serves as an officer. He is a director at the Lucy Burns Institute, which publishes Ballotpedia, and has various ties to right-wing organizations. Graves is also:

• A partner at the law firm Graves Garrett and sits on the University of Missouri Board of Curators

• A member of the executive board of the Pony Express Council of the Boy Scouts of America and a founding board member of the Kansas City Missouri Police Foundation

• A contributor at the Federalist Society

• Graves was one of several U.S. attorneys fired by George W. Bush on a single day in December 2006

Involvement In Scott Walker John Doe Investigations

Beginning in 2010, Scott Walker and his campaign for governor became the subject of multiple John Doe investigations looking into potential political corruption. Under Wisconsin law, a John Doe investigation is a type of secret investigation, similar to a grand jury, that can look into political corruption. Todd Graves represented targets of these John Doe investigations, namely the Wisconsin Club for Growth and “unnamed petitioner No. 2.”  

• The first, which began in the spring of 2010, “focused on aides to Walker when he was Milwaukee County executive” and involved illegal political contributions. This investigation resulted in six being charged and convicted of various crimes, including “theft and misconduct in office.” Walker was not charged.
• The second investigation grew out of evidence gathered from emails and other seized documents in the first, and accused the Walker campaign of “illegally coordinat[ing] with Wisconsin Club for Growth and other conservative groups to raise money during the 2011 and 2012 recall campaigns.” In 2015, the Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled that the coordination was legal and halted the probe. In 2016, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to take the case. No charges were produced in this investigation.

In the aftermath of the investigations, the Wisconsin legislature limited the scope of future John Doe investigations, “restricting the length of time such probes can take to narrowing what allegations can be investigated” and “exempting political corruption charges.”

• In 2011, groups affiliated with the 85 Fund, the Judicial Crisis Network, and Wellspring Committee funneled money to Wisconsin Club For Growth. Wisconsin Club For Growth was key to electing conservative Justice Patience Roggensack to a second ten-year term on the Wisconsin Supreme Court in 2013, spending $400,000 to boost her campaign.

• The Wisconsin Supreme Court was a key ally to Republican Governor Scott Walker’s agenda, upholding key agenda items on collective bargaining and voter ID.

Carrie Severino, Secretary 

Carrie Severino, secretary and principal officer of the 85 Fund, is also the president of the Judicial Crisis Network (FKA the Concord Fund). She is a former law clerk for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and a member of the Federalist Society. 

• In 2012, Severino was paid over $120,000 as a contractor for The 85 Fund before officially joining the organization the following year as a director.
• In 2020, Severino became president of the Judicial Crisis Network after serving as the organization’s chief counsel beginning in 2010. 

Severino is connected to the Heritage Foundation’s DeVos Center through her husband Roger, who works there as the Vice President of Domestic Policy. During the Trump Administration, Roger led the Office Of Civil Rights in the Department of Health and Human Services. There, Roger created a ‘religious freedom’ division that aided healthcare providers who refused to provide abortions or gender-affirming care. He also reversed Obama-era protections that banned LGBTQ discrimination in healthcare. 

The New York Times called Roger and Carrie Severino “leaders in the anti-abortion movement” and said the couple “celebrated” the fall of Roe v. Wade. Carrie Severino called Roe “the most egregious judicial distortion of the constitution in living memory.” A different piece from The New York Times said that the nomination of Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court was the realization of the Severinos’ “dream” to enforce a socially conservative legal mandate on the United States.

Throughout the years, Carrie Severino has advocated for the anti-abortion movement:

• 2013: Severino wrote a USA Today op-ed where she claimed liberal justices such as Ruth Bader Ginsberg saw the Roe decision as a “divisive” decision that caused “harm.”

• 2014: Severino filed an amicus brief opposing a Massachusetts “buffer zone” law that mandated physical distance between anti-abortion protestors and health centers for safety reasons.

Carrie Severino faced public criticism for her zealous defense of Brett Kavanaugh as he faced accusations of sexual assault and misconduct. 

• Following the allegation of sexual assault leveled against Kavanaugh, Severino went on CNN and said the “allegations cover a whole range of conduct from boorishness to rough horseplay to actual attempted rape.” Severino’s comments faced pushback from writers at The Washington Post, The New Yorker, and Vox.

• After Kavanaugh’s confirmation, Severino co-authored a book titled Justice On Trial, chronicling the process. The book aimed to debunk the allegations against Kavanaugh and paint him as a victim of negative coverage by liberal media outlets. A Politico review of the book said that it “was so one-sided that it read more like a legal brief written by two very competent and fiercely committed advocates.”

Severino’s father was a business partner of Daniel DeVos of the right-wing megadonor DeVos family. The Guardian said that the DeVos family has “promoted right-wing causes and candidates for years” and HuffPost described the family as “conservative royalty.” Vanity Fair found that the DeVos family gave as much as $200 million to conservative causes since the 1970s. Trump’s controversial education secretary, Betsy DeVos, is a family member.

Severino is also a frequent Fox News contributor. 

Gary Marx, Treasurer 

Gary Marx, treasurer of The 85 Fund, is a longtime Judicial Crisis Network officer and is listed as a Federalist Society contributor. Marx is a political strategist identified as one of the “official partners in Leo’s consolidated dark money network” and a consistent aid to Leo. Marx was present alongside Leo at a private reception celebrating Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation. 

Marx was reportedly recruited by a close Leo ally, Neil Corkery, to be the executive director for the Judicial Crisis Network, the 85 Fund’s sister organization. Marx was also affiliated with similar groups that have received funding from Leo’s network, such as the Faith and Freedom Coalition. 

In addition to roles with the Judicial Crisis Network and the 85 Fund, Marx is the president and co-founder of Madison Strategies, a conservative political consulting firm. Madison Strategies counts Walmart, Mitt Romney’s 2008 presidential campaign, and Judicial Crisis Network among its clients.

Daniel Casey, Former President 

Daniel Casey is a “veteran GOP operative” and was listed as the president of the 85 Fund in 2017. He also served as the president of the Judicial Crisis Network in 2019. 

The Washington Post reported that Casey has “worked closely with Leo for years” while receiving no pay from the nonprofits. However, Casey’s public affairs firm DC Strategies received more than $1.5 million in fees from the Federalist Society over nine years. 

Casey was formerly the executive director of the American Conservative Union. In this role, he was a key figure in the confirmation battle over Robert Bork’s nomination to the Supreme Court in 1987. Casey said Bork’s hearings were a “grand-slam” against his critics. In a CSPAN program from 1987, Casey said the Bork nomination was the American Conservative Union’s “number one lobbying priority” at the time.

In 2011, Ann Corkey, in her capacity as the head of the Wellspring Committee, fired two board members to replace them with her daughter Kathleen Corkery and Daniel Casey’s son Michael Casey. The two would later serve on the Wellspring Committee’s board in 2012, 2013, and 2014.

In 2020, the 85 Fund was responsible for over $35 million in grants distributed to right-wing activist organizations. 

The largest of these grants was a single $12.5 million grant given to DonorsTrust, a donor-advised fund that’s been described as the “dark-money ATM of the conservative movement.” However, from 2012 to 2018, grants from DonorsTrust and Donors Capital Fund accounted for approximately 87% of funding for the 85 Fund. While DonorsTrust primarily acts as a funding group for the 85 Fund, the organizations sometimes transfer funds to one another in both directions.

The 85 Fund gave millions of dollars to numerous groups seeking to influence the judiciary and legal sphere in 2020– many of which are directly connected to Leonard Leo, including the Federalist Society, the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, the Ethics and Public Policy Center, the Public Interest Legal Foundation, and Students for Fair Admissions.

TOTAL CONTRIBUTIONS TO ACTIVIST GROUPS IN 2020: $35,546,291 

The 85 Fund has a history of operating under alternate names and has declared five “fictitious” names for itself, including:

• Judicial Education Project (the organization’s original name)

• Law and Policy Forum

• Free to Learn

• Honest Elections Project

According to The Guardian and OpenSecrets, “the legal maneuver allows [the Judicial Education Project] to operate under four different names with little public disclosure that it is the same group.”

Two of these fictitious names outwardly present themselves as independent organizations: Honest Elections Project and Free to Learn. And both groups have fictitious counterparts run by the Concord Fund/Judicial Crisis Network, named Honest Elections Project Action and Free to Learn Action, respectively.

In late 2023, a new fictitious entity was formed called the American Parents Coalition, which itself is part of a new nonprofit entity called the Publius Fund, which was formed in Virginia by a counsel at the 85 Fund. American Parents Coalition is a parental rights organization focused on issues of transgender healthcare, DEI education policy, and online content control. The group is behind a seven-figure ad campaign linking TikTok to the Chinese Communist Party and railing against gender-inclusive content. The coalition formally launched in March 2024 and is led by Alleigh Marré, the former president of the anti-critical race theory group Free To Learn Coalition.

Judicial Crisis Network

The Judicial Crisis Network (JCN) is the lynchpin of Leonard Leo’s network-wide efforts to capture the judicial system, which has led to the nomination of five Supreme Court justices. JCN is the public face of Leonard Leo’s “network of interlocking nonprofits” that aggressively supports conservative judges and Leo’s efforts to transform the courts – including its dark money sister organization, the 85 Fund. Leo’s shadow empire has allowed him to meet and “cultivate[] almost every important Republican lawyer in more than a generation.”

• A former colleague said Leo’s desire to stack the courts stemmed from his realization that the conservative position on culture war issues like abortion, contraception, and LGBTQ rights were unpopular among the American public. As a result, their movement needed to “stack the courts” to succeed.

• Judicial Crisis Network spent nearly $40 million on efforts to confirm Donald Trump’s Supreme Court nominees, and also played a significant role in getting George W. Bush’s nominees confirmed and opposing President Obama’s nominees.

Honest Elections Project 

The 85 Fund operates and finances the Honest Elections Project (HEP), which was founded by Leo in 2020 and whose leadership includes all three of the 85 Fund’s current officers: Carrie Severino, Todd Graves, and Gary Marx.

• While not affiliated with the 85 Fund, Jason Snead is the executive director of the Honest Elections Project and its main spokesperson. Snead has penned op-eds and often speaks on behalf of the organization.

• Prior to the 2020 election, HEP spread disinformation that alleged the Democrats were “cheating” and pushed for voter roll purges.

• HEP spent $250,000 on ads against mail-in voting, calling the practice a “brazen attempt to manipulate the election system for partisan advantage.”

• HEP sent letters and threatened to sue Colorado, Florida, and Michigan over what they called “suspiciously high” voter rolls.

• Jason Snead hosted a webinar for the State Policy Network ahead of the 2020 election on “voter fraud messaging.”

• Since the 2020 election, the organization has advocated for laws to roll back policies designed to expand voting access.

Free to Learn

Free To Learn and Free To Learn Action, also known as the Free To Learn Coalition, are behind the funding of a national anti-critical race theory ad campaign. The coalition is one of several fictitious entities tied to the powerful dark-money, right-wing groups Judicial Crisis Network (now operating under the name the Concord Fund) and the 85 Fund.