ProPublica and Donors Attack Conservative Supreme Court Justices: Report

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas speaks during an event in Washington on Oct. 21, 2021. Drew Angerer/Getty Images

A nonprofit news outlet, ProPublica, which has been launching attacks on two conservative U.S. Supreme Court justices, is being funded by the same left-wing organization that has been actively pushing for their removal.

ProPublica has written multiple stories about Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’ alleged ethics violations while receiving donations from the same groups that are actively campaigning for the justice to resign or be removed from the Court, according to tax documents reviewed by the Daily Caller News Foundation on June 20.

The Sandler Foundation is the left-wing nonprofit accused of pouring millions into multiple groups attacking Thomas’ character, as well as supporting the attacks on his colleague, Justice Samuel Alito, as part of a wider effort to marginalize conservatives on the Supreme Court.

The organization founded ProPublica in 2007 and has given the outlet $40 million since 2010 to keep it afloat.

That same organization has been funding dark-money groups, which have been seeking to oust Thomas from the Court for years to replace him with a leftist.

ProPublica Caught Participating in a Conspiracy to Remove Justice Thomas

ProPublica has published several investigations over the past few months into Thomas’ relationship with an old friend, the conservative billionaire real estate developer Harlan Crow, which the publication called inappropriate.

The paper wrote about several expensive trips Thomas took with Crow, the developer’s purchase of the home of the justice’s mother, and paying for the private school tuition of Thomas’ grandnephew.

The stories have often included quotes from activists belonging to the various groups that took millions from The Sandler Foundation, reported the Daily Caller.

Several of ProPublica’s top donors were exposed as being major financial supporters of the left-wing groups attacking Thomas, such as those calling for an ethics investigation into his private life, based on the series of articles over his finances.

The Sandler Foundation was also behind the launch and/or funding of other left-wing groups, like The Center for American Progress, the ACLU, Human Rights Watch, and Sierra Club, according to its website.

“It is no coincidence that several organizations smearing Justice Thomas are funded generously by many of the same donors,” Parker Thayer, an investigator at Capital Research Center, told the Daily Caller.

“The ‘pop-up’ public pressure campaign, where just a few donors pay dozens of ‘grassroots’ activist groups to give the appearance of broad public support for a particular issue, has long been a favored tactic of the Left’s wealthy special interests,” Thayer added.

The Sandler Foundation has also given more than $7.5 million to the Campaign Legal Center (CLC) since 2015 and more than $6 million to the American Constitution Society (ACS) since 2010, according to tax forms acquired by The Daily Caller.

Both organizations have called on Biden’s Justice Department to investigate Thomas for allegedly violating judicial ethics rules, despite not requiring disclosures for most family members, such as great-nephews.

Other tax forms show that the left-wing nonprofit gave millions of dollars to The New Venture Fund since 2019 and is part of a network of left-wing nonprofits managed by Arabella Advisors, which was founded by Eric Kessler, a former member of the Clinton Global Initiative.

The Sandler Foundation also gave a $500,000 grant to the New Venture Fund for Demand Justice, a radical group that calls for aggressive tactics against conservative judicial nominees.

Demand Justice has called for court packing and for removing Thomas from the Supreme Court.

The group’s deputy chief counsel, Katie O’Connor, has called for immediate ethics reforms following the allegations by ProPublica against Thomas and has been demanding his resignation.

Left-Wing News Outlet Now Targeting Justice Alito

ProPublica now appears to have Alito in its sights for writing the majority decision for Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which overturned Roe v. Wade last year.

The news organization published a story critical of Alito on June 20, using similar themes in their articles on Thomas.

That story made claims that Alito took a “luxury fishing vacation” in 2008 with billionaire Paul Singer, who later had cases before the Supreme Court and accused the justice of a conflict of interest.

Justice Alito immediately refuted the article’s claims in an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal the same day the story was published and accused the news outlet of misleading the public.

The same left-wing organizations funded by The Sandler Foundation, like Demand Justice, the American Constitution Society, The Center for American Progress, and Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), have also called for criminal investigations into Alito and Thomas.

Other Foundations Discovered Involved in Efforts to Purge Conservative Justices

Tax documents found by the Daily Caller also showed that George Soros’s Foundation to Promote Open Society had given over $3 million to ProPublica, $2.7 million to CLC and $2.5 million to CREW since 2011.

The Washington Free Beacon reported in a separate article that Soros’s Open Society Foundations had also donated $4.5 million to Demand Justice since 2021.

Another major left-wing donor, The Silicon Valley Community Foundation, gave more than $8 million to ProPublica, between 2014 and 2021, $60,000 to CLC, and $252,200 to CREW.

More tax forms showed that The Marisla Foundation gave over $2 million to ProPublica and $1 million to CREW since 2016.

ProPublica quoted CREW’s Chief Ethics Counsel Virginia Canter and Vice Chair Richard Painter in its first article about Justice Thomas, despite receiving funding from the same sources.

The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and The Ford Foundation were also major sources of millions for ProPublica and were prominent donors for left-wing groups targeting the two justices, reported the Daily Caller.

The article found that the Hewlett Foundation gave $3 million to ProPublica, more than $5 million to CLC, $808,000 to ACS, and $703,000 to the Alliance For Justice (AFJ) since 2013.

Meanwhile, the Ford Foundation gave $20 million to ProPublica, $4.1 million to CLC and $500,000 to ACS between 2013 and 2021.

AFJ has been a major leader in the campaign to purge the Court and launched a recent ad campaign calling for Thomas’ resignation.

Another $8 million was sent by Ford to the AFJ, $42 million to the Center for Popular Democracy and $23 million to the National Women’s Law Center.

Mark Paoletta, a prominent Republican attorney, told the Daily Caller that “ProPublica seems to be taking marching orders from the same extreme left-wing donors who are also funding other left-wing activist groups making similar attacks on Justices.”

“It’s all coordinated. ProPublica is just another left-wing attack dog, and their motivations are clear,” Paoletta warned.