A group at the center of conservative legal activists Leonard LionThe company’s network has funneled $750,000 into an influential new lobbying operation pushing anti-LGBTQ+ legislation across the country, new tax records show.
Do No Harm presents itself as a grassroots association of physicians that opposes gender-affirming care and diversity efforts in the medical profession. The group, which was founded in 2022, does not disclose its donors. But newly disclosed tax returns provided to HuffPost by Accountable.US, a progressive watchdog, show that the Concord Fund, the financing arm of Leo’s network, donated $750,000 in 2022 to Do No Harm Action, the group’s official lobbying organization .
Do No Harm also received more than $1.4 million from a nonprofit group, the Project on Fair Representation, led by conservative activist Edward Blum, new records show. Blum, a conservative activist who helped the engineer two Supreme Court cases that struck down affirmative action and key portions of the Voting Rights Act, is now a member of Do No Harm’s board of directors.
HuffPost previously revealed that Do No Harm received $1 million in seed funding from Joseph Edelman, CEO of a billionaire hedge fund, and his wife, Suzy Edelman, who has said she is thinking about it ‘transgenderism’ ‘a fiction designed to destroy.’
Leo is best known as the linchpin of a decades-long effort to fill the federal judiciary with conservative judges. As leader of the Federalist Society, Leo assembled a vast and secretive network of wealthy donors and nonprofits to expand the power of the conservative legal movement, culminating in Leo himself delisting former President Donald Trump’s list of potential Supreme Court nominees chose himself. While some of his efforts are very public, others, such as the financing of Do No Harm, occur with little fanfare.
The mix of conservative groups funneling money into Do No Harm underlines the growing belief on the right that attacking trans rights “a political winner.”
The size of the contributions also makes clear how Do No Harm became a successful influence operation so soon after its launch. Last year, the group lobbyists deployed to more than six states to advocate for restrictions on gender-affirming care, and at least two states have passed laws using the legislation’s model language. In Montana, Do No Harm provided the blueprint for one prohibit over gender-affirming care for minors, sparking angry local protests.
“It’s just made the worst of the worst people here even more brazen in their bigotry, and that’s trickling down to our children,” Darcy Saffer, the parent of two transgender nonbinary children in Bozeman, Montana, told HuffPost last year. The law is on hold while the Montana Supreme Court reviews whether it is unconstitutional.
Do No Harm has also filed numerous lawsuits to block programs aimed at diversifying the medical profession.
In addition to receiving $750,000 from Leo’s network, Do No Harm paid Leo’s consulting firm $231,185 for “public affairs” services. So have the consulting firm CRC Advisors and other for-profit companies in which Leo has a financial interest has paid millions of dollars over the years by several nonprofits in Leo’s orbit, resulting in a liberal watchdog appeal to the tax authorities to investigate whether the payments violated the rules on charitable giving.
Last year, Brian Schwalb, the attorney general of the District of Columbia, said opened an investigation in Leo and his non-profit network. The scope has not been made public.
Neither does no harm, Blum, Carrie Severino, president of the Concord Fund, and Greg Mueller, president of CRC Advisors, responded to requests for comment.
After Trump left office, Leo greatly expanded his efforts Unpleasant focus on a broad spectrum of conservative policy goals and pet peeves. Made possible in part by the largest known political donation in US history – a A gift of $1.6 billion from a reclusive electronics magnate named Barre Seid – Leo’s network now fuels political attacks on, among others access to abortion,voting rights and critical race theory.
The Concord Fund has received since 2022 at least $55 million from the nonprofit organization that houses Seid’s gift, the Marble Trust.
The objectives of Do No Harm fit seamlessly with Leo’s extensive mission. The group has helped pay for activists and expert witnesses to travel around the country and testify in favor of a ban on gender-affirming care for minors.
In addition to the fight to limit transgender healthcare, so is Do No Harm sue Louisiana And Montana on modest efforts to diversify their state medical boards and trying to dismantle a Pfizer fellowship designed to place more Black, Latino and Native American medical professionals in leadership positions.
The lawsuits continue Blum’s efforts to unravel racial equality efforts through the courts. In 2023, a group Blum led brought two cases to the Supreme Court that effectively banned race-based affirmative action in college admissions. A Blum group also filed Shelby County v. Holder, the Supreme Court case that eliminated federal oversight of racially discriminatory voting laws.
“It is no surprise that Leonard Leo is using his vast dark money network to fund far-right groups committed to rolling back the rights of LGBTQ Americans,” Caroline Ciccone, president of Accountable.US, told HuffPost. “This is how Leonard Leo works. He is using his web of nonprofits – backed by a massive $1.6 billion windfall – to implement his radical, unpopular agenda because he knows it will never win at the ballot box.”
