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CV NEWS FEED // The Democratic Attorney General of Washington D.C. is targeting Leonard Leo, a Catholic lawyer who was instrumental in setting the stage for the overturning of Roe v. Wade.
Attorney General Brian Schwalb announced last week that he is investigating Leo and a few of the many conservative non-profit organizations with which he has worked.
The extent and purpose of the investigation is unclear, though it comes several months after the left-wing Campaign for Accountability (CfA) filed a complaint with the Internal Revenue Service alleging improper payments at what it called ‘Leo-affiliated nonprofits,’” the Catholic News Agency reported Friday:
Among those nonprofits are the 85 Fund, the Federalist Society, the Concord Fund, and several other prominent conservative political groups that distribute funding to major conservative causes.
David Rivkin, an attorney for Leo and the associated non-profits, called the complaint “sloppy, deceptive and legally flawed,” adding that he and he and his team are “addressing this fully with the DC Attorney General’s office.”
Politico noted that Schwalb “has a background in tax law and served as a trial attorney in the tax division of the Department of Justice under President Bill Clinton.” He was elected last November and assumed office in January.
CatholicVote reported in July that
Leo, a practicing Catholic, is the Co-Chairman and former Executive Vice President of the Federalist Society (FedSoc). During several Supreme Court nomination battles, Leo would take a leave of absence from the Federalist Society in order to play an instrumental role in the vetting, nomination, and confirmation processes of several of the justices in the Supreme Court’s 6-3 majority which overturned Roe.
Since the Dobbs decision, Leo’s home has been the site of many pro-abortion demonstrations, where protestors have regularly berated him with anti-Catholic slurs.
CatholicVote Vice President Joshua Mercer responded to the news of the investigation this week by pointing out the obvious enmity between Leo and the “pro-abortion establishment” in D.C.
“This is yet another dangerous escalation in lawfare – which is engaging in political war through baseless lawsuits and government investigations in order to sideline your political opponents,” Mercer said. “The political left has no use for winning debates. They want to smear their opponents as ‘criminals.'”
Catholic journalist and longtime U.S. Senate Staffer Christopher Manion, Ph.D., stated that he believed Schwalb’s probe into Leo illustrates a double standard.
“No one wanted an investigation of the oligarchs at Black Lives Matter (one of whom, Susan Rosenberg, tried to blew [sic] me up in the Senate GOP Cloakroom in 1983),” Manion wrote on X (formerly known as Twitter) last week.
Rosenberg, who is close with the leaders of the Black Lives Matter Global Network, is a well-known far-left domestic terrorist. She participated in many violent incidents over the past few decades, such as the infamous 1983 U.S. Capitol bombing, to which Manion referred.
The charges levied against Rosenberg for her involvement in the bombing were dropped, although she was sentenced to a combined 58 years of prison time for the other terrorist acts she committed. She was granted clemency by then-President Bill Clinton on his last day in office – only having served 16 years.
“But those danged Catholics? Fire away!” Manion continued. “BLM’ers grifted millions. None are in jail.”
