WASHINGTON (CN) — Following through on months of threats, Senate Democrats on Thursday served legal advocate and conservative megadonor Leonard Leo with a congressional subpoena compelling him to turn over information about his relationships with Supreme Court justices.
The move is a major step in the Senate Judiciary Committee’s yearlong probe into the high court’s ethical standards and represents some of the most concrete action lawmakers have taken to dig into the justices’ connections with wealthy benefactors.
In a statement Thursday, Judiciary Committee chair Dick Durbin confirmed that he had served Leo — former vice president and current co-chairman of the conservative Federalist Society — with a legal summons.
“Since July 2023, Leonard Leo has responded to the legitimate oversight requests of the Senate Judiciary Committee with a blanket refusal to cooperate,” wrote the Illinois Democrat. “His outright defiance left the Committee with no other choice but to move forward with compulsory process.”
Durbin pointed out that Leo plays a central role in what he and Democrats have called an ethics crisis at the Supreme Court. He said Leo had been particularly uncooperative with the Senate probe.
“This subpoena is a direct result of Mr. Leo’s own actions and choices,” he said.
Democrats first began their inquiry into the Supreme Court last year, when reports emerged that Justice Clarence Thomas had received high-dollar gifts and gone on lavish vacations on the dime of billionaire real-estate developer Harlan Crow. Those revelations opened the floodgates, revealing further links between both Thomas and Justice Samuel Alito and Crow and Leo.
Lawmakers have long demanded that Crow, Leo and other conservative donors with ties to the Supreme Court turn over the details of all gifts and other hospitality they have provided justices over the years. Their response, however, has been spotty.
While Crow has said he is willing to work with lawmakers to reach a compromise on the information they’ve demanded, Leo has for months roundly rebuffed the congressional probe.
In a statement Thursday, Leo remained defiant, calling the subpoena against him "unlawful and politically motivated."
"I am not capitulating to [Durbin's] lawless support of Senator Sheldon Whitehouse and the left's dark money effort to silence and cancel political opposition," he said.
Whitehouse, a Rhode Island Democrat, has long led the charge on Supreme Court ethics reform. The lawmaker penned legislation last year that would have forced the high court to develop a code of ethical conduct in the public eye and would have stood up a judicial panel to review ethics complaints against the justices. The measure passed on party lines in the Judiciary Committee and is currently trapped in a holding patter on the Senate floor.
As of Friday morning, Democrats had not also subpoenaed Crow in their ethics probe.
The move to subpoena Leo — influential co-chairman of the conservative Federalist Society — is sure to anger Republicans, who have long framed the Democrats’ inquiry as a political hack job aimed at casting aspersions on the Supreme Court’s conservative majority.
The GOP’s rage has become more than just rhetorical in recent months: Republican lawmakers walked out of the November Judiciary Committee hearing during which Democrats voted to authorize subpoenas for Crow and Leo. At the time, Republicans vowed swift retribution if Democrats followed through on either subpoena.
South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham, the Judiciary Committee’s ranking member, called the effort a joke and threatened to “fundamentally change” the way the panel operates.
Texas Senator John Cornyn, now angling to become the top Senate Republican, said at the time that Democrats had “destroyed one of the most important committees in the United States Senate.”
Republicans have also claimed that November’s vote to authorize subpoenas against Crow and Leo are invalid, citing committee quorum rules that they say were violated when lawmakers walked out of the chamber.
Taylor Reidy, a spokesperson for the Judiciary Committee’s Republican minority, doubled down on that contention in a statement Thursday.
“Senate Judiciary Democrats tried and failed to authorize a subpoena back in November,” she said. “The document issued today is invalid.”
It’s unclear how Republicans will react in committee to the news of Leo’s subpoena, but experts have speculated that lawmakers could throw a wrench in the Biden administration’s efforts to confirm new federal judges on a bipartisan basis, among other things.
A Senate Judiciary committee aide told Courthouse News that Durbin expects Leo to acknowledge the gravity of a congressional subpoena and comply with lawmakers’ requests.
However, the aide left the door open for compulsory action if Leo failed to respond to the subpoena, which is a legally binding summons. Congress can vote to hold a person in contempt for failing to comply with a subpoena — a charge that could carry fines or jail time.
The Supreme Court, meanwhile, responded to concerns about the justices’ ethical conduct by issuing its first-ever code of ethical standards late last year. While Democrats and legal experts hailed the move as a step in the right direction, they have argued the document does not go far enough — pointing out, among other things, that it lacks a clear enforcement mechanism.
Follow @BenjaminSWeiss
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