By Michael Shepherd - July 21, 2023
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Here's what we learned about the man at the center of the conservative judicial movement. There are few American political figures more important than Leonard Leo, who runs a conservative network that helped reshape the judiciary under former President Donald Trump. It has only grown more influential since a $1.6 billion gift to his empire last year.

He is also a Mainer. After buying a Northeast Harbor home in 2018, his family began living here during the COVID-19 pandemic and now stays there 10 months per year, he told the Maine Wire, the news arm of the conservative Maine Policy Institute, in an interview published this week. His growing role in politics led to protests outside his home, including after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned federal abortion rights last year.

A protester arrested there after cursing at Leo on a nearby street last July sued local police for false arrest in federal court on Thursday, saying they violated his rights by arresting him at Leo's behest and lacking necessary evidence. A disorderly conduct charge was dropped by the district attorney in May.

The lawsuit is bolstered by a 52-minute dashcam video that captures a conversation between Leo and the two policemen being sued. It adds up to a revealing look at Leo's life on Mount Desert Island.

While the tourist haven has long been a retreat for rich and famous people from Martha Stewart to the Rockefellers, they tend to keep to themselves or blend in there. The protests have distinguished Leo from others on the island.

On the tape, he tells police of his regrets about one of the early protests at his home, which came during a 2019 campaign fundraiser there for U.S. Sen. Susan Collins, a Republican who won her reelection race the following year with the judiciary at the center of a huge Democratic campaign against her.

As they chatted about protests there, Leo told police he was "being gracious" by having Collins there for a reception but that it was one of the biggest mistakes of his life, ostensibly due to the attention it raised. 

"I'm never having a politician in this house again," he said. "That was a big mistake."

While Leo is central to the allegations in the lawsuit, he is not being sued by the protester, Eli Durand-McDonnell. Leo and Durand-McDonnell disagree on what exactly was said, but the protester's lawyer, Matthew Morgan, said his client's cursing at Leo was protected speech. Leo called it "menacing," especially given that his wife and child were with him at the time.

The episode does not seem to have turned Leo off from Maine. He told the Maine Wire that while the state is liberal politically, his family was drawn to Northeast Harbor for the "sense of community" and hard-working locals. They worship at a small Catholic church there.

"Unlike a big metropolis, this is a place where you can truly help people in need in a very direct way," he said.

The lawsuit comes during a flurry of news on Leo. The Washington Post reported Thursday that he funded a media campaign lionizing conservative Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, while Democratic senators are asking for an accounting of Leo's gifts to justices while criticizing his spot at the head of a dark-money empire poised to fuel the conservative movement. 

He has effectively pitched this as an antidote to liberal dark-money groups, including those run by George Soros and Hansjorg Wyss, but he also defended dark money in general in his chat with the Maine Wire, saying people should pay more attention to the ideas themselves than who is funding them.

"We should judge what we want to do in this country by the intellectual and moral force of an idea, not by the quirky personality, or looks, or wealth, or whatever of the people supporting it," Leo said.