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WASHINGTON, DC – New reporting from NBC today revealed over $55 million flowing from Leonard Leo’s and Charles Koch’s dark money networks into Project 2025 advisory groups, shedding new light on the key conservatives bankrolling the dangerous initiative. Project 2025’s advisory board — led by The Heritage Foundation — has grown to over 100 groups and has garnered increased attention recently over its controversial positions, including its support for  extreme abortion restrictions and plans to invoke the Insurrection Act on “Day One.”

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Project 2025’s radical extremism is made possible by the right-wing funding networks bankrolling the dangerous initiative and its advisory groups to the tune of tens of millions of dollars. The “MAGA blueprint” isn’t a one-off project — it’s backed by the same far-right figures who have long dictated the conservative agenda. Leo, Koch, and others should be held to account for propping up a policy platform that puts special interests over everyday Americans and poses an existential threat to our democracy.”

Accountable.US executive director Tony Carrk

Since 2021, Leonard Leo’s network has funneled over $50.7 million to the groups advising Project 2025, including donations from key Leo-linked groups such as The 85 Fund, the Concord Fund, and DonorsTrust. Leo — right-wing judicial activist and Supreme Court “billionaire matchmaker” — was a key architect of the current conservative Supreme Court majority and has since worked to shift the entire American judiciary to the right.

Oil billionaire Charles Koch’s network also directed over $4.4 million in 2022 to Project 2025 advisory groups through its donor conduit, Stand Together Trust. As NBC notes, “Project 2025’s vision for the next conservative administration’s energy agenda would rapidly increase oil and gas leases and production through the Interior Department to focus on energy security, and proposals include reforming offices of the Energy Department to end focus on climate change and green subsidies” — all while receiving millions from industry.

Previous reporting revealed a surge in funding from The Heritage Foundation to its own Project 2025. A new Accountable.US review found that Heritage contributed over $1 million solely to Project 2025 advisory groups in 2022 — accounting for the majority of its total grantmaking that year — and marking a significant increase from merely $174,000 in total grantmaking the year prior.

Accountable.US recently launched its Expose Project 2025 campaign to uncover the sprawling dark money network, key funders, and conservative figures behind the extreme Project 2025 effort threatening our democracy. Learn more at ExposeProject2025.org.

 

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