Tiffany Muller: The 14-Year Making of Supreme Court Corruption

By Tiffany Muller

Fourteen years ago, the Supreme Court made arguably one of the worst decisions in Constitutional history when they decided Citizens United v. FEC. Despite opening the floodgates of unlimited and undisclosed money into our politics, the justices naively opined that this case would not give rise to corruption stating: “independent expenditures, including those made by corporations, do not give rise to corruption or the appearance of corruption.” 14 years after that decision, all we have to do is read the headlines on any given day to see how truly mistaken they were. 

Just in the past year, we have seen a seemingly never-ending series of corruption-laden scandals in the Supreme Court, which can all be traced back to this disastrous decision that forever reshaped every branch of American government. 

And as a result, the American people have overwhelmingly lost faith and trust in the Supreme Court––and even American democracy.

Despite the nuances of every revelation, one theme remains constant: the Supreme Court is being effectively bought and paid for by Leonard Leo and his shadowy billionaire benefactors. Their goal is to control every branch of government in order to pad their bottom lines and impose their extremist agenda on the American people. And because of Citizens United, it’s easier than ever to do.

To be clear, Leo has used the Federalist Society to control and corrupt the courts with corporate ideologues for decades—but campaign finance laws were a hindrance. That’s why Leo helped orchestrate the Citizens United case, and in the weeks before the decision established new dark money groups with Ginni Thomas in anticipation of the Court’s decision to allow unlimited dark money and corporate influence into elections and campaigns.

And they quietly and methodically got to work, including raising and spending nearly $1.1 billion to capture the Supreme Court with extremist, anti-abortion justices. Then they went on the attack and waged a full-court dark money campaign to overturn Roe v. Wade and fifty years of precedent around a woman’s right to an abortion and reproductive health. 

But their extreme agenda isn’t limited to just making abortion illegal. Through his extensive dark money network, made even more powerful by a historic $1.6 billion donation in 2022, Leo orchestrated Republican lawmakers, judges on lower courts, and Supreme Court justices to change the very fabric of our nation into one that serves his extreme agenda and benefits his billionaire buddies—instead of the American people. 

In this term alone, Leo’s dark money network is entangled with cases regarding racially gerrymandered congressional maps, protections from predatory financial institutions, wealth taxes, restricting reproductive freedoms, and environmental regulations. Despite the glaring conflicts, neither Justice Thomas nor Justice Alito recused themselves. Following a puff-piece interview with a lawyer for one of these cases—who also happens to be Leo’s personal attorney—Alito absurdly claimed he had no reason to recuse himself and that Congress isn’t able to regulate the Court. 

Yet, over the course of the last year, we’ve read damning story after damning story of Supreme Court Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito accepting undisclosed cash and luxury vacations from Leo and his billionaire friends like Harlan Crow. They’ve refused to recuse themselves from multiple cases this term that would benefit either themselves, their wealthy friends, or the special interest groups that have lined their pockets. 

Our democracy depends on a government that reflects the will of the people and that the people have faith in—from state legislators all the way up to Supreme Court justices. In their Citizens United decision, the sitting justices decided that they would effectively take the power from Americans’ hands and put it into those who can write the biggest checks.

It’s been fourteen years since that fateful decision and we are still reeling from the ramifications; with every scandal and new campaign, it seems like we only expose yet another layer of how deep Leo and his friends’ corruption actually goes. But one thing we’ve undoubtedly learned since the Supreme Court’s fateful decision 14 years ago is that unlimited spending does in fact give rise to corruption.

Tiffany Muller is the president of End Citizens United and Let America Vote, the leading anti-corruption and voting rights organization. The group has more than four million members nationwide.