• Home
  • Opinion
  • Quizzes
  • Redistricting
  • Sections
  • About Us
  • Voting
  • Events
  • Civic Ed
  • Campaign Finance
  • Directory
  • Election Dissection
  • Fact Check
  • Glossary
  • Independent Voter News
  • News
  • Analysis
  • Subscriptions
  • Log in
Leveraging Our Differences
  • news & opinion
    • Big Picture
      • Civic Ed
      • Ethics
      • Leadership
      • Leveraging big ideas
      • Media
    • Business & Democracy
      • Corporate Responsibility
      • Impact Investment
      • Innovation & Incubation
      • Small Businesses
      • Stakeholder Capitalism
    • Elections
      • Campaign Finance
      • Independent Voter News
      • Redistricting
      • Voting
    • Government
      • Balance of Power
      • Budgeting
      • Congress
      • Judicial
      • Local
      • State
      • White House
    • Justice
      • Accountability
      • Anti-corruption
      • Budget equity
    • Columns
      • Beyond Right and Left
      • Civic Soul
      • Congress at a Crossroads
      • Cross-Partisan Visions
      • Democracy Pie
      • Our Freedom
  • Pop Culture
      • American Heroes
      • Ask Joe
      • Celebrity News
      • Comedy
      • Dance, Theatre & Film
      • Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging
      • Faithful & Mindful Living
      • Music, Poetry & Arts
      • Sports
      • Technology
      • Your Take
      • American Heroes
      • Ask Joe
      • Celebrity News
      • Comedy
      • Dance, Theatre & Film
      • Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging
      • Faithful & Mindful Living
      • Music, Poetry & Arts
      • Sports
      • Technology
      • Your Take
  • events
  • About
      • Mission
      • Advisory Board
      • Staff
      • Contact Us
Sign Up
  1. Home>
  2. Campaign Finance>
  3. campaign finance>

Promotors of Trump judges rebuff call to reveal 'dark money,' accusing Democrats of hypocrisy

David Hawkings
July 12, 2019
www.youtube.com

A leading promoter of President Trump's effort to make the judiciary more conservative is pushing back hard on allegations of hypocrisy leveled by Democratic senators. Transparency in campaign financing, one of the central causes for those who want to limit money's sway over policymaking, is the issue.

Fourteen senators — including Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and presidential candidates Kamala Harris, Amy Klobuchar and Cory Booker — wrote the Judicial Crisis Network this week demanding it reveal who has financed more than $20 million worth of television advertising to press the confirmation of Trump's court picks.

"The American public deserves to know who is funding these attacks, and whether the same individuals are financing litigation before the court that will ultimately be decided by the justices and judges they helped to confirm," the senators wrote.

The demand came after the advocacy group launched a $1 million TV campaign accusing the Democrats of a different sort of improper secrecy: keeping quiet the names of people they'd consider nominating to the federal bench if one of them becomes president.


Trump unveiled a list of 25 potential Supreme Court nominees in the summer of 2016, a move widely credited with shoring up his support among cultural conservatives. Groups on the right sound confident that a similar short list from the 2020 Democratic nominee would backfire on that candidate, driving more conservatives to the polls (out of anxiety) than liberals to the polls (with enthusiasm).

Sign up for The Fulcrum newsletter

"We want to thank these liberal senators for promoting our ad and placing their hypocrisy on 'dark money' directly before the public," JCN's chief counsel, Carrie Severino, said in a statement Thursday. "We assume their intention, however, is actually to try and distract the public from the continued deception on the part of their liberal 'dark money' allies and their secret list of potential judicial nominees."

Dark money is the shorthand for political spending by nonprofit organizations, which are not required to make public the identities of their corporate, individual or union benefactors.

The senators asked JCN to deliver a roster of anyone who has donated more than $10,000 since Trump took office, with special interest in the identity of one person known to have contributed $17.9 million in 2017. The senators also asked for the number of individual donations under $100 and the names of all businesses that have given to the JCN, plus the share of total revenue that came from corporations.

Everyone in the group — which includes all 10 Democrats on the Judiciary Committee, the panel tasked with considering judicial nominations — is sponsoring legislation to require the disclosure of anonymous donors to organizations.

A large share of the TV advertising produced to oppose the confirmation of Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court at the end of the Obama administration, and to promote the elevations of Trump's picks Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh to the high court, has been paid for by the JCN.

The group's TV spot, which ran in late June, references New York Times reporting on efforts by liberal advocacy groups including the Alliance for Justice to prepare, but keep under wraps, a list of potential judicial nominees in a Democratic administration. The spot specifically asked former Vice President Joe Biden to enunciate his potential court picks.

Related Articles Around the Web
  • Dem senators demand GOP judicial group discloses donors | TheHill ›
  • Senate Dems Demand JCN Disclose Donors, Ignore Own Dark Money ›
  • The JCN Story: How to Build a Secretive, Right-Wing Judicial Machine ›
  • Carrie Severino on not disclosing the Judicial Crisis Network's donors ›
campaign finance

Want to write
for The Fulcrum?

If you have something to say about ways to protect or repair our American democracy, we want to hear from you.

Submit
Get some Leverage Sign up for The Fulcrum Newsletter
Follow
Contributors

Reform in 2023: Leadership worth celebrating

Layla Zaidane

Two technology balancing acts

Dave Anderson

Reform in 2023: It’s time for the civil rights community to embrace independent voters

Jeremy Gruber

Congress’ fix to presidential votes lights the way for broader election reform

Kevin Johnson

Democrats and Republicans want the status quo, but we need to move Forward

Christine Todd Whitman

Reform in 2023: Building a beacon of hope in Boston

Henry Santana
Jerren Chang
latest News

Special counsels, like those examining Biden’s and Trump’s handling of classified documents, are intended to be independent – but they aren’t entirely

Joshua Holzer
13 January

Ask Joe: Combating extreme propaganda

Joe Weston
13 January

Talking across the political aisle isn’t a cure-all - but it does help reduce hostility

Dominik Stecuła
Matthew Levendusky
13 January

No one asked for a pro-corruption Congress

Sue Fothergill
12 January

Democratic Tools

Kevin Frazier
12 January

Podcast: Who stole the American dream?

Our Staff
11 January
Videos

Video: Want to fight polarization? Take a vacation!

Our Staff

Video: Kevin McCarthy is Speaker, but he's got a tough job ahead

Our Staff

Video: #ListenFirst Friday End of Year

Our Staff

Video: Minnesota Gov. Walz asks fellow Democrats to ‘Think Big’ when it comes to fixing voting issues

Our Staff

Video: What’s up with Elon Musk?

Our Staff

Video: Happy Xmas

Our Staff
Podcasts

Podcast: Who stole the American dream?

Our Staff
11 January

Podcast: Dinner and a​​ ​dialogue​

Our Staff
10 January

Podcast: McCarthy’s headaches & what rebels want

Our Staff
09 January

Podcast: What will we fix in 2023?

Our Staff
05 January
Recommended
Special counsels, like those examining Biden’s and Trump’s handling of classified documents, are intended to be independent – but they aren’t entirely

Special counsels, like those examining Biden’s and Trump’s handling of classified documents, are intended to be independent – but they aren’t entirely

Judicial
Ask Joe: Combating extreme propaganda

Ask Joe: Combating extreme propaganda

Pop Culture
Video: Want to fight polarization? Take a vacation!

Video: Want to fight polarization? Take a vacation!

Talking across the political aisle isn’t a cure-all - but it does help reduce hostility

Talking across the political aisle isn’t a cure-all - but it does help reduce hostility

Civic Ed
No one asked for a pro-corruption Congress

No one asked for a pro-corruption Congress

Government Ethics
Democratic Tools

Democratic Tools

Civic Ed