National, Headquartered in Utah
Location:
Category:
Anti - Liberties
Status:
Active
Background
Marble Freedom Trust is a conservative political advocacy group organized in 2020 as a 501(c)(4) social welfare organization. The organization is led by Leonard Leo, “one of the prime architects of conservatives’ efforts to reshape the American judicial system, including the Supreme Court.”
The organization was initially seeded with a gift of more than $1.6 billion. The Trust has been giving away hundreds of millions of dollars in grants each year, though in some cases it is unclear where that money ultimately ended up.
Ideology
Generally regarded as a conservative political advocacy group, Marble Freedom Trust’s self-stated mission is to “maintain and expand human freedom consistent with the values and ideals set forth in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.” More insight into the ideology behind the founders of the organization can be found by examining its expenditures, or tactics, below.
Marble Freedom Trust
Tactics
Speaking of the Trust during a podcast, Leonard Leo said, “We’re trying to really institute a lot of legal and social change through philanthropy.” Leo “wants less conversation and more action” from his grantees and “is threatening to withhold money from the dozens of groups he supports unless they develop plans to ‘weaponize’ their ideas.”
Leo continues to influence the makeup of the federal judicial branch by making contributions from the Trust to the Judicial Crisis Network, otherwise known as The Concord Fund, which “has spent tens of millions of dollars influencing judicial nominations.”
The Trust also makes contributions to organizations that seek to shift or drastically push the law in a more conservative direction through targeted and weaponized lawsuits. For example, one of the larger expenditures made by the Trust—$153 million—was to “the Rule of Law Trust, a conservative legal nonprofit that is also led by Leo.” “Another $28.9 million went to the Concord Fund, a conservative advocacy organization” that has, in the past, opposed efforts to expand voting access.
Marble Freedom Trust has also given “$7.6 million to the extreme anti-abortion group Knights of Columbus Charitable Fund, which bankrolls deceptive crisis pregnancy centers.”
Increasingly, Leonard Leo, through his control of Marble Freedom Trust, is focusing on remaking society at large, saying he’ll “direct resources to build talent and capital formation pipelines in the areas of news and entertainment.” Beyond news and entertainment, Leo has pledged significant resources to oppose corporate DEI policies and investments in climate and social concerns.
Utah Connections
The Marble Freedom Trust “is headquartered at an address in North Salt Lake owned by Tyler Green, who is listed as the administrative trustee of the nonprofit.” Green is a native Utahn “who earned his law degrees from the University of Utah,” clerked for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, is a contributor to the Federalist Society, was Utah’s solicitor general from 2015 to 2020, and most recently served as outside counsel for the Utah State Legislature.