[Leonard Leo, a key architect of the Supreme Court’s
conservative supermajority, is now the chairman of Teneo Network, a
group that aims to influence all aspects of American politics and
culture. ]
[[link removed]]

THE “PRIVATE AND CONFIDENTIAL” CONSERVATIVE GROUP TENEO  
[[link removed]]


 

Andy Kroll and Andrea Bernstein, ProPublica, and Nick Surgey
March 9, 2023
ProPublica
[[link removed]]


*
[[link removed]]
*
[[link removed]]
*
*
[[link removed]]

_ Leonard Leo, a key architect of the Supreme Court’s conservative
supermajority, is now the chairman of Teneo Network, a group that aims
to influence all aspects of American politics and culture. _

Leonard Leo, co-chairman of the Federalist Society, in Washington,
D.C., in March 2017. , Mark Peterson / Redux

 

A few months ago, Leonard Leo laid out his next audacious project.

Ever since the longtime Federalist Society leader helped create a
conservative supermajority on the Supreme Court, and then received
more than a billion dollars from a wealthy Chicago business owner to
disburse to conservative causes, Leo’s next moves had been the
subject of speculation.

Now, Leo declared in a slick but private video to potential donors, he
planned to “crush liberal dominance” across American life. The
country was plagued by “woke-ism” in corporations and education,
“one-sided journalism” and “entertainment that’s really
corrupting our youth,” said Leo amid snippets of cheery music and
shots of sunsets and American flags.

Sitting tucked into a couch, with wire-rimmed glasses and hair gone to
gray, Leo conveyed his inspiration and intentions: “I just said to
myself, ‘Well, if this can work for law, why can’t it work for
lots of other areas of American culture and American life where things
are really messed up right now?’”

Leo revealed his latest battle plan in the previously unreported video
for the Teneo Network, a little-known group he called “a
tremendously important resource for the future of our country.”

Teneo is building what Leo called in the video “networks of
conservatives that can roll back” liberal influence in Wall Street
and Silicon Valley, among authors and academics, with pro athletes and
Hollywood producers. A Federalist Society for everything.

Despite its linchpin role in Leo’s plans, Teneo (which is not the
similarly named consulting firm
[[link removed]] associated
with former officials in the Bill Clinton administration) has kept a
low public profile. Its one-page website
[[link removed]] includes bland slogans — “Timeless
ideas. Fresh approach” — and scant details. Its co-founder
described Teneo as “private and confidential” in one presentation,
and the group doesn’t disclose the vast majority of its members or
its funders.

But ProPublica and Documented have obtained more than 50 hours of
internal Teneo videos and hundreds of pages of documents that reveal
the organization’s ambitious agenda, influential membership and
burgeoning clout. We have also interviewed Teneo members and people
familiar with the group’s activities. The videos, documents and
interviews provide an unfiltered look at the lens through which the
group views the power of the left — and how it plans to combat it.

In response to questions for this story, Leo said in a statement:
“Teneo’s young membership proves that the conservative movement is
poised to be even more talented, driven, and successful in the future.
This is a group that knows how to build winning teams.”

The records show Teneo’s members have included a host of prominent
names from the conservative vanguard, including such elected officials
as U.S. Sens. J.D. Vance
[[link removed]]
of Ohio and Missouri’s Josh Hawley
[[link removed]],
a co-founder of the group. Other members have included Rep. Elise
Stefanik
[[link removed]]
of New York, now the fourth-ranking House Republican, as well as
Nebraska’s attorney general and Virginia’s solicitor general.
Three senior aides to Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a potential 2024
presidential candidate, are members. Another is the federal judge who
struck down
[[link removed]]
a Biden administration mask mandate. The heads of the Republican
Attorneys General Association, Republican State Leadership Committee
and Turning Point USA — all key cogs in the world of national
conservative politics — have been listed as Teneo members.

Conservative media figures like Ben Shapiro of the Daily Wire, several
pro athletes and dozens of executives and senior figures in the worlds
of finance, energy and beyond have also been members.

Leo joined Teneo’s board of directors as chairman in 2021 and has
since become a driving force.

Teneo co-founder Evan Baehr, a tech entrepreneur and veteran of
conservative activism, said in a 2019 video for new members that Teneo
had “many, many, many dozens” of members working in the Trump
administration, including in the White House, State Department,
Justice Department and Pentagon. “They’re everywhere.”

Here’s how “the Left” works in America, according to Baehr.

“Imagine a group of four people sitting at the Harvard Club for
lunch in midtown Manhattan,” he said in a 2020 Teneo video: “a
billionaire hedge funder,” “a film producer,” “a Harvard
professor” and “a New York Times writer.”

“The billionaire says: ‘Wouldn’t it be cool if middle school
kids had free access to sex-change therapy paid for by the federal
government?’” Baehr continued. “Well, the filmmaker says,
‘I’d love to do a documentary on that; it will be a major motion
film.’ The Harvard professor says, ‘We can do studies on that to
say that’s absolutely biologically sound and safe.’ And the New
York Times person says, ‘I’ll profile people who feel trapped in
the wrong gender.’ ”

After a single lunch, Baehr concluded, elite liberals can “put
different kinds of capital together” and “go out into the world”
and “basically wreck shop."

In a recorded video “town hall” held for incoming members, Baehr,
a graduate of three Ivy League universities and a serial entrepreneur
[[link removed]] fluent in tech startup lingo, recalled
the moment when he had the epiphany to create a conservative
counter-effort.

It happened a decade earlier when he was eating lunch at a “fairly
uninviting” Baja Fresh in Dupont Circle in Washington, D.C., with
his then-boss Peter Thiel, the iconoclastic venture capitalist.

Baehr explained in the video that he had become frustrated as he
kicked around right-of-center politics and activism for a few years,
working on Capitol Hill, in the George W. Bush White House and for
right-of-center groups including the American Enterprise Institute and
the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty.

Baehr and Thiel lamented what they saw as the fragmented state of
conservative networks, with their hidebound think tanks and
intellectual centers that hold sway over right-of-center politics. A
rare bright spot on their side, Baehr and Thiel agreed, was the
Federalist Society. Thiel had, in fact, served as president of the
Stanford Federalist Society. What if there were a group similar to the
Federalist Society for venture capitalists or corporate CEOs or
members of the media? (Thiel did not respond to a request for
comment.)

In 2008, Baehr, Hawley and others launched Teneo — Latin for “I
grasp" or “I endure.” Hawley, then an associate lawyer in private
practice, authored Teneo’s founding principles, according to the new
member talk hosted by Baehr, and served on the group’s board. Its
core beliefs align
[[link removed]]
with the broader conservative establishment’s: limited government,
individual liberty, free enterprise, strong national defense and civil
society and belief in a “transcendent order” that is “founded in
tradition, philosophy, or theology.”

For a long time, the group didn’t live up to expectations. In its
first year, Teneo raised a paltry $77,000, according to
[[link removed]]its
tax filing
[[link removed]].
From 2009 to 2017, the group, based first in Washington, D.C., and
later in Austin, Texas, never raised more than $750,000 in a single
year, tax records show. One member described in an interview Teneo’s
early days as little more than a run-of-the-mill dinner club with
partisan overtones: “Instead of being an organization about ideas,
it was all about being a Republican.”

Enter Leo. In the early years of the Trump administration, he and the
Federalist Society had remarkable influence within the new government.
The Federalist Society had brought the legal doctrines of originalism
and textualism — close readings of laws and the Constitution to
adhere to the intent and words of the authors — into the mainstream.
Leo had taken a leave of absence from the group to advise President
Trump on judicial appointments, helping shepherd the appointments of
Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme
Court and helping to fill more than 200 other positions in federal
district and appellate courts. By the time Trump left office, he had
put on the bench
[[link removed]]28%
of all federal judges
[[link removed]]
in America.

In the town hall video, Baehr explained how he modeled Teneo on the
Federalist Society. Leo’s “secret sauce,” he said, was to
identify an “inner core” group of people within the Federalist
Society’s 60,000 members. Leo was “identifying them and recruiting
them for either specific roles to serve as judges or to spin up and
launch critical projects often which you would have no idea about.”

Soon after Leo took an interest in Teneo, the group’s finances
soared. Annual revenue
[[link removed]]reached
[[link removed]]
$2.3 million in 2020 and nearly $5 million in 2021, according to tax
records. In 2021, the bulk of Teneo’s income — more than $3
million — came from one source: DonorsTrust, a clearinghouse for
conservative, libertarian and other charitable gifts that masks the
original source of the money. In 2020, the Leo-run group that received
the Chicago business owner’s $1.6 billion donation gave $41 million
[[link removed]]
to DonorsTrust, which had $1.5 billion in assets as of 2021.

Teneo’s other funders have included marquee conservative donors:
hedge fund investor Paul Singer, Home Depot co-founder Bernie Marcus,
the Charles Koch Foundation, the Bradley Foundation, and the DeVos
family, according to Baehr.

As the group’s finances improved, its videos became much more
professionally produced, and its website underwent a dramatic upgrade
from previous iterations. All of this was part of what Baehr called
“Teneo 2.0,” a major leap forward for the group, driven in part by
Leo’s guidance and involvement.

Baehr declined an interview request. He said in a statement: “Since
Teneo began, I've been building hundreds of friendships among diverse
leaders who have a deep love for this country and are working on
innovative solutions to drive human flourishing for all. Teneo has
made me a better husband, father, and leader.”

Teneo aims to help members find jobs, write books, meet spouses,
secure start-up financing or nonprofit donors and learn about public
service. As described in a “Community Vision” report from 2019,
Teneo seeks to distinguish itself by acting as “the Silicon Valley
of Conservatism — a powerful network of communities where the most
influential young leaders, the biggest ideas, and the most leveraged
resources come together to launch key projects that advance our shared
belief that the conservative worldview drives human flourishing.”

Many of the connections happen at Teneo’s annual retreat, which
brings together hundreds of members and their spouses, plus allies
including politicians like Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and DeSantis as well as
business leaders and prominent academics. Speakers at past Teneo
retreats have included luminaries spanning politics, culture, business
and the law: New York Times columnist David Brooks, federal judge
Trevor McFadden, Blackwater founder Erik Prince, “Woke, Inc.”
author and 2024 presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, former Trump
cabinet official and 2024 presidential hopeful Nikki Haley,
ultrawealthy donors and activists Dick and Betsy DeVos, and
Chick-fil-A board chair Dan Cathy.

But the group’s internal documents and videos also show the widening
sprawl of its other activities. Teneo currently has 20 regional
chapters nationwide, plus industry working groups focused, most
recently, on media, corporate America, finance and law. In April, the
group is hosting a “finance summit” in South Beach that its
invitation says will “convene rising conservative talent from major
financial institutions, funds, and family offices to connect and
discuss key industry issues fundamental to the future of our
country.”

Teneo members represent different facets of the conservative movement
writ large. Some Teneo members were “very strong Trump defenders,”
Baehr said in the 2019 town hall video, while others have opposed
Trump vehemently. Baehr said there were clear divisions within the
group’s members about immigration and trade policy. “Hopefully
other ones, maybe Green New Deal, I hope that’s more like 99 to 1”
in opposition, he said.

It’s in the town hall video that Baehr assured new members that
Teneo “is private and confidential.” He said the group will never
reveal the names of its members without their permission, though they
are free to disclose their membership if they want to. Members must be
in their 40s or younger to join.

Baehr said Teneo’s website is crafted so as not to pique the
interest of Senate staffers who might look up the group if one of its
members mentions Teneo during a confirmation process for a judgeship
or a cabinet position. “We think a lot about that to protect your
current and future leadership opportunities,” Baehr explained.

This strategy appears to have worked. A spokesperson for Sen. Sheldon
Whitehouse, D-R.I., a critic of Leo’s who has spoken extensively
about dark money and the courts, said the senator’s staff was “not
familiar with Teneo.” During the confirmation process of Ryan Holte,
a Trump appointee to the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, Holte was asked
several written questions by Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Cal., about his
membership in Teneo, but Feinstein spelled the group’s name wrong
each time. (Asked what the mission of the group was, Holte responded
that Teneo was a “nonpartisan, and nonprofit, organization that
gathers members from a variety of professional backgrounds for dinners
and social activities to discuss current events.”)

A recent Teneo fundraising email laid out how the group can bring its
members' influence together in service of a cause.

To “confront” what he dubbed “woke capitalism,” Jonathan
Bunch, a longtime Leo deputy and now Teneo board member, wrote that
the group had brought together a coalition of Teneans “working with
(or serving as) state attorneys general, state financial officers,
state legislators, journalists, media executives and best-in-class
public affairs professionals” to launch investigations, hold
hearings, pull state investment funds and publish op-eds and news
stories in response to so-called environmental, social and governance,
or ESG, policies at the corporate level.

“Our members were in the rooms where it happened,” Bunch wrote.

Another project underway, Baehr explained in a 2020 presentation, was
a “surreptitious and exciting” effort to map key institutions in
major cities — private schools, country clubs, newspapers, Rotary
and so on — and find ways to get Teneo members inside those
institutions and help members connect with each other. The initiative
has begun by mapping Atlanta and several cities in Texas.

For those Teneo members who run for elected office, the network offers
easy access to a large pool of donors and allies. A Leo acolyte and
member of Teneo’s Midwest membership committee, Will Scharf, is now
running for Missouri attorney general. Campaign finance records show
that dozens of Teneo members made substantial early contributions to
Scharf’s campaign, including Leo, Baehr and other members of
Teneo’s leadership, who last year each gave the maximum allowable
donation of $2,650.

In an email, Scharf said many of his “dearest friends are members of
Teneo, and it has been a privilege to be involved with such an
extraordinarily talented and committed group of young
conservatives.”

Leo’s own statements about Teneo suggest that his plan for the group
extends well beyond achieving near-term political victories.

“When you’re fighting a battle for the heart and soul of our
culture, you want to know you’re in the trenches with someone you
can trust, someone you know, and someone who will have your back,”
Teneo’s “Community Vision” report quotes Leo as saying. “We
don’t win unless we build friendship and fellowship with other
people — and that’s what you’re doing here with Teneo.”

Do you have information about Leonard Leo or the Teneo Network that we
should know? Reporter Andy Kroll can be reached via email at
[email protected] or via Signal at 202-215-6203.

Help ProPublica Investigate Threats to U.S. Democracy

We want to hear directly from the people involved in the
administration of our elections — local clerks, canvassers, poll
workers and more — about new challenges on the job.

* US Right Wing
[[link removed]]
* Federalist Society
[[link removed]]

*
[[link removed]]
*
[[link removed]]
*
*
[[link removed]]

 

 

 

INTERPRET THE WORLD AND CHANGE IT

 

 

Submit via web
[[link removed]]

Submit via email
Frequently asked questions
[[link removed]]

Manage subscription
[[link removed]]

Visit xxxxxx.org
[[link removed]]

Twitter [[link removed]]

Facebook [[link removed]]

 




[link removed]

To unsubscribe, click the following link:
[link removed]