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AMY GOOD MAN: it Democracy Now! I’m Amy Goodman, and we’re ending today’s show with how a top-secret Chicago industrial mogul quietly donated $1.6 billion to the architect of a right-wing takeover of the courts, the largest known political advocacy donation in US history. In a stunning reveal by ProPublica and Lever arm revealed how Barre Seid, a 90-year-old conservative industrialist from Chicago, gave away his fortune to a non-profit organization run by Leonard Leo, co-chairman of the Federalist Society. Leo played a key role in helping Republicans change the federal judiciary. He has been called Donald Trump’s “Supreme Court Whisperer” for his role in promoting Justices Amy Coney Barrett, Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch.
Joining us is Andrew Perez, senior editor and reporter at Lever arm. Along with ProPublica’s Andy Kroll and Justin Elliott, he co-reports a new exposé, “Inside The Right’s Historic Billion Dollar Dark Money Transfer.”
You know, it’s hard to even find photos of Barre Seyd on the Internet. Tell us about this historic movement of money.
ANDREW PEREZ: Of course. Thank you for inviting me.
So, we reported on how Barre Seid, an obscure businessman from Chicago, donated his entire business empire to a non-profit organization run by Leonard Leo, who then sold the company called Tripp Lite. for 1.6 billion dollars. You know, we believe this is the largest donation to a politically oriented dark money group in US history. And the way that deal was set up kept Seid out of what we think was about $400 million, which then became a government subsidy, essentially for this nonprofit, this conservative advocacy group run by Leonard Leo, the man which we believe Trump’s Legal Counsel successfully flipped the Supreme Court and helped create a conservative overwhelming majority there that most recently overturned federal protection of abortion rights.
AMY GOOD MAN: So, tell us about his company, how you got this advice, and what it means, this transfer of wealth.
ANDREW PEREZ: Of course. So, this company is called Tripp Lite. This is an electronics manufacturer. They produce, for example, surge protection devices and equipment that is sold both for home use and for commercial use, such as for data centers. And we only found out about this from a source who gave us documents detailing the deal, just showing how Seyd was able to raise an unprecedented military fund for, you know, an already very successful conservative operative.
AMY GOOD MAN: So, Barre Seid, whose name is spelled, that BARRE Seid has donated over the years. Tell us about his role in distributing the DVD called Obsession: Radical Islam’s War on the West during the 2008 presidential election
ANDREW PEREZ: Yes, he was considered a donor. And actually the reporter for that story worked with me on this one, Justin Elliott. During the 2008 campaign, he was believed to have donated $17 million to a group called the Clarion Fund who distributed these DVDs to this truly Islamophobic campaign. You know, his team has always denied it. They have always worked very hard to donate money behind the scenes. We learned that he both became extremely wealthy. In recent years, he has been making up to $150 million a year, mostly from Tripp Lite. And he also gave a rather large amount of money behind the scenes. We believe he donated about $775 million between 1996 and 2018. He stated that this is the amount of charitable contributions, so in fact the figure may be higher.
AMY GOOD MAN: So, Washington Post reported that George Mason University School of Law changed its name to Antonin Scalia School of Law due to a $10 million donation from the Charles Koch Foundation and a $20 million grant from an anonymous donor, and that the name change was a condition of the anonymous donor’s gift. The activist group UnKoch My Campus later discovered that the anonymous donor was Barre Seid. Tell us more about what he has done and what it means to work with Leonard Leo.
ANDREW PEREZ: Yeah. So, we believe he was the donor who funded the name change at George Mason University School of Law. And this gift was apparently coordinated by Leonard Leo. We know that their relationship, their professional relationship, goes back at least a decade. Together they worked for a small charity in Chicago, on the board of directors of that organization, which Seid also funded. You know, we also know that Seyid was – or we believe he was a major contributor to the Heartland Institute, which is a kind of climate denial – a notorious climate denial group. But, you know, this is still the clearest testament to his generosity and the great trust he has in Leonard Leo. You know, he really put all his business fortune into the hands of Leonard Leo, so that he would dispose of it as he saw fit.
AMY GOOD MAN: Who changed shape, the face of the federal judiciary, not to mention the Supreme Court. So your news organization, Lever arm, and ProPublica received a photo of Barre Seyd, which shows him at the age of 14 walking with other students at the University of Chicago. He was among a group of high school sophomores who entered the university in an accelerated undergraduate program. Talk about the possible influence of the Chicago School of Economics on his thinking, and that — that — Seid evaded up to $400 million in state and federal income taxes. In your article, you write: “Seid transferred Tripp Lite to the Marble Freedom Trust, a non-profit organization exempt from income tax” — federal income tax — “before the electronics company was sold. As a result, according to lawyers, [he] managed to avoid up to $400 million in state and federal income taxes, saving those funds for Leo. [new] operation”.
ANDREW PEREZ: Yeah. Well, so, Barre Seyd is quite old. He is 90 years old. So he actually went to the University of Chicago, about the very beginning of the Chicago school. We understand that he is quite a big fan of Milton Friedman. But, you know, this whole deal was structured in such a way that the rules regarding donations to non-profit organizations were donated to valuable property. If he were to sell this company for $1.6 billion, he would probably be up to $400 million in debt. With this structure, when the trust sold the company, it saved him a pretty hefty tax bill, and also actually saved the amount of money that would be available to Leonard Leo’s new group. And, you know, I should emphasize that all this money came after his network and Leo successfully remade the Supreme Court, creating a conservative overwhelming majority there. So this is all the money that can really be used for the future, for the creation and expansion of the conservative movement.
AMY GOOD MAN: We have five seconds. Why do you think the public should know?
ANDREW PEREZ: I mean, we think the public should be aware of all these donations, all of these donations to dark money groups.
AMY GOOD MAN: Andrew Perez, we’re going to leave it there. Thanks a lot. We will link to your part.