'Extreme agenda': GOP megadonor who stacked SCOTUS is bankrolling payday lenders in high-profile case

A top government watchdog group has found that Republican billionaire and ex-President Donald Trump donor Leonard Leo funded a network of dark money groups pushing "an extreme agenda" to prevent the United States government's "ability to hold corporations" accountable, The Guardian reports.

Per the report, the mega donor plays an important role in the critical United States Supreme Court case, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau v Community Financial Services Association of America, or CFPB v CFSAA , which "could severely damage the federal administrative state, a long-term target of conservative politicians, activists and donors including Leo."

The Guardian notes, "The CFPB was set up under the Obama administration after the global recession of 2008 to 2009, to better protect ordinary Americans from predatory business interests. The CFSAA is an umbrella for a group of payday lenders."

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In August, Politico exclusively reported a "former United States Department of Justice trial attorney under ex-President Bill Clinton is probing" Leo along with "his network of nonprofit groups."

Additionally, the news outlet noted, "best known as Donald Trump's White House 'court whisperer,' Leo played a behind-the-scenes role in the nominations of all three of the former president's Supreme Court justices and promoted them through his multi-billion-dollar network of nonprofits."

Echoing Politico, Accountable.US President Caroline Ciccone told the news outlet, "Leonard Leo spent years stacking the court with ideological kindred spirits. Now he's funding a dark web of special interest groups to push an extreme agenda. If Leo has his way, the supreme court will toss American consumers overboard to loan sharks and predatory lenders hungry to line their pockets by any means necessary."

According to the report, law professor and and attorney Amy Howe, who argues Supreme Court cases, recently wrote for Scotusblog, "The stakes in the case are high. The Biden administration … warns that a ruling for the challengers could call into question not only the payday-lending rule at the center of this case but also a wide swath of other regulations that protect consumers. And more broadly, the case is the first of several on the court's docket this term in which the justices will weigh in on the division of authority between the three branches of government, as well as the power of administrative agencies."

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The Guardian's full report is available at this link.