Updates 3: Whitehouse on Seid;

Senator Whitehouse unpacks the history of the 1.6 Billion-Dollar Man

Here’s an update on yesterday’s Take: a long thread by Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (RI) on Barre Seid’s dark money history.

Seid is the donor who gave Leonard Leo’s new foundation $1.6 Billion Whitehouse is one of the most outspoken critics of the influence of dark money on our courts, especially the Supreme Court.

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This isn’t the first time that Barre Seid, the mega-donor who just handed Leonard Leo and the far-right more than $1 billion in dark money artillery, has used his fortune to push a far-right agenda behind the scenes. THREAD:

In 2016, George Mason University received $10 million from the Charles Koch Foundation - plus another $20 million from an anonymous donor – to rename its law school after the ultra-conservative late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia.

Law School Sells Naming Rights to Secretive Antonin Scalia Fan An anonymous $20 million gift to George Mason University was conditioned upon naming its law school after the late Justice Antonin Scalia. (The Intercept)

GMU admitted that their “anonymous donor” arranged this donation after approaching none other than Leonard Leo.
washingtonpost.com/news/grade-poi…

But that wasn’t the whole story. Students, faculty, & alumni were rightfully concerned about giving far-right billionaires control over their university. They pressed GMU for answers about what strings were attached to these donations and who exactly this mystery donor was.

In response to public information requests, GMU was eventually forced to reveal some of the behind-the-scenes communications about these donations.

It turns out that the Kochs, Leo, and Leo’s “anonymous donor” wanted a lot more than a name change - they sought to influence faculty hiring and get the university to pump money into right-wing projects. It doesn’t end there.

Right-Wing Federalist Society Shaped Hiring and Admissions at George Mason University, Emails Show. How secret donors shape the hiring, admissions and academic planning at George Mason University (Truthout.org)

GMU still hadn’t revealed who the $20 million “anonymous donor” was. Instead, it’d only turned over some emails and documents involving this “anonymous donor,” with their name redacted. However, there were clues that pointed to one man: Barre Seid.

Sure enough, when GMU responded to a request for all communications with “Barre Seid,” it included some of the same emails – only this time with Seid’s name where the donor’s name had previously been redacted.

GMU isn’t the only place where Seid bankrolls far-right causes.

He also funds infamous dark money groups like the Cato Institute, the Competitive Enterprise institute, and the Heartland Institute, and has funneled millions through the Koch’s “dark money ATM,” Donors Trust.

Massive dark money windfall: New conservative group got $1.6 billion from single donor (CNN)

These are the tactics creepy billionaires use to secretly manipulate the public square and shape American life. Enough is enough.