Pipeline to Power: The 40-Year Plan to Capture the Supreme Court
by Vicky Ward
View on GoodreadsInvestigative reporter Vicky Ward's history of the four-decade conservative legal movement — Federalist Society founding, Leonard Leo's institutional architecture, the billion-dollar Seid donation — and the deliberate capture of the federal judiciary culminating in the post-Dobbs Court.
Core ideas
- The project was explicit, patient, and well-documented — Federalist Society chapters, judicial-nominee pipelines, donor networks, and message discipline operating coherently over 40 years.
- Leonard Leo is treated as the project's connective figure: not the public face, but the institutional spine that linked donors, judges, and political actors.
- The Barre Seid $1.6B donation to a Leo-controlled entity in 2022 is treated as the project's capital event — the resources to operate the network indefinitely.
Published2023
ReadNov 2023
