Judicial Crisis Network / Concord Fund

The Judicial Crisis Network — rebranded as the Concord Fund to obscure its increasingly controversial operations — is Leonard Leo's judicial confirmation machine and one of the most influential dark money organizations in American history. Operating almost entirely on anonymous donations flowing through Leo's network, JCN has spent tens of millions on advertising campaigns supporting the confirmations of Supreme Court justices Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett, directly shaping the ideological composition of the highest court in the land. JCN's strategy during Supreme Court confirmation battles follows a consistent playbook: saturate media markets with advertising supporting the nominee, fund opposition research against critics, and deploy a network of conservative legal scholars and commentators to frame the nomination as mainstream and moderate. The organization spent approximately $10 million each on the Gorsuch and Kavanaugh confirmations and similar amounts on Barrett — spending that was funded entirely by anonymous donors whose identities may never be known. The rebranding from Judicial Crisis Network to Concord Fund was itself a tactical decision. As JCN's role in shaping the judiciary became increasingly well-known and controversial, the organization adopted a new name that revealed nothing about its mission. This is consistent with Leo's broader strategy of using innocuously named organizations to advance specific ideological goals — the 85 Fund, the Rule of Law Trust, the Marble Freedom Trust — names designed to tell the public nothing about what these organizations actually do. JCN's funding comes almost entirely from Marble Freedom Trust and other entities in Leo's network. As a 501(c)(4), JCN has no obligation to disclose its donors, meaning the public cannot know who is paying for the advertising campaigns that shape public opinion about judicial nominees. The organization has shaped the federal judiciary more than any entity except the Federalist Society itself, with six of nine current Supreme Court justices having been supported by organizations in Leo's network. The Supreme Court's own ethics scandals — including Clarence Thomas's undisclosed trips funded by Harlan Crow and Samuel Alito's controversial flag displays — have drawn attention to the broader ecosystem of dark money that surrounds the judiciary. JCN's role in this ecosystem — funding confirmations, supporting friendly legal challenges that reach the Court, and defending justices against ethics criticism — creates a troubling circularity: dark money helps install justices who then rule in ways that benefit dark money interests.