JD Vance’s Supreme Court Plot

Most Americans want to overturn Citizens United v. FEC, the landmark 2010 Supreme Court decision that unleashed unlimited corporate spending on U.S. elections. But two new cases before the high court — including one spearheaded by now-Vice President JD Vance — are instead set to expand that ruling and turn America into a kleptocracy.

For the next several episodes of Lever Time, we’re taking a deep dive into Citizens United and how it’s transformed our lives. In this first episode, David Sirota uncovers conservatives’ plan to deregulate the campaign finance system, their efforts to legalize bribery, and what options we have to stop them.

Click here to pre-order our new book, MASTER PLAN: The Hidden Plot to Legalize Corruption in America.

A full transcript of today’s episode is available below.

TRANSCRIPT

Following is an automated, unedited transcription of this episode. If you plan to quote any part of this transcript, please first confirm that it is correct by listening to the audio.

[00:00:00] David Sirota: From The Lever's reader supported newsroom, this is Lever Time. I'm David Sirota. We may be in an age of partisan polarization, but most Americans still agree on one thing. Money corrupts the political process. 15 years ago, the Supreme Court issued its decision in Citizens United, the landmark case that allows corporations and billionaires to overrun our political system with cold hard cash.

American democracy has been tilted in favor of the rich ever since that decision. Most Americans would like to overturn Citizens United according to polls, and there have been many attempts, but two new Supreme Court cases, including one originally spearheaded by Vice President JD Vance, could go. In exactly the opposite direction.

They could eliminate the

last restrictions on campaign donations, and they could obstruct law enforcement's efforts to halt outright bribery. Today on lever time, we're gonna take a deep dive into the current state of the Citizens United era. In this first episode of a special multi-part investigative podcast series, we're gonna take a look at how conservatives are trying to accelerate their plan to deregulate the campaign finance system.

And what options still exist to stop them. That's all coming up on today's episode of Lever Time.

[00:01:30] George Stephanopoulos: The White House borders are. Tom Holman was recorded on an FBI surveillance tape in September, 2024, accepting $50,000 in cash.

[00:01:37] David Sirota: That's a BC news anchor George Stephanopoulos a few days ago interviewing Vice President JD Vance.

[00:01:43] George Stephanopoulos: Did he keep that money or give it back?

[00:01:46] Archive Clips: George, you've covered the story ad nauseum.

Tom Holman did not take a bribe

[00:01:52] David Sirota: last September. Tom Holman. Donald Trump's current borders are was reportedly caught on tape accepting a paper bag filled with $50,000 in cash from undercover FBI agents. During a sting operation, the undercover agents were posing as business executives seeking government favors.

If Trump was reelect. Although Holman was not a government official at the time, he allegedly accepted the money in exchange for promises of immigration related government contracts. If and when he joined Trump's administration, I mean, call me crazy, but that sounds like a bribe, right? Well, apparently not.

If you're JD Vance,

[00:02:33] George Stephanopoulos: you said he didn't take a bribe, but I'm not sure you answered the question. Are you saying that he did not accept the $50,000?

[00:02:39] Archive Clips: He did not take a bribe. Did he accept $50,000? I'm sure that in the course of Tom Holman's life, he has been paid more than $50,000 for services. The question is, did he do something illegal?

[00:02:52] David Sirota: That really is the question. Despite the bribery scandal, Trump appointed Holman to his administration. And soon after the Justice Department closed its investigation. And as ABC's George Stephanopoulos implied with his questions, some sources believe Holman may have kept the money. So what on earth is going on here?

Is bribery now legal? This week, the Lever published its first book. It's called Master Plan, the Hidden Plot to Legalize Corruption in America, adapted from the lever's Award-Winning podcast series of the same name, master Plan. The book tells the story of how we reached this strange point in history where the Vice President of the United States is now defending someone who reportedly accepted cash in exchange for the promise of government favors.

The book reveals for the first time ever, the secret plot to legalize corruption in America. It's a story that maybe you think you know, but trust me, you do not know it because the details were all kept secret until now. The book takes you on a 50 year journey following secretive groups of business executives and conservative politicians as they execute a master plan to deregulate the campaign finance system.

Weaken anti-bribery laws and defend what they call the free enterprise system in America. We show how these master planners have spent decades infiltrating our media, our schools, our elections, and our judicial system. The book also tells the story of a few key Supreme Court rulings that were key to the entire master plan.

Starting in the 1970s, the high court enshrined a radical fringe theory that money is a form of constitutionally protected free speech. Later, the court granted free speech rights to corporations, and then in 2010. Came the most consequential case of them all.

[00:04:53] Barack Obama: Citizens United Citizens United Citizens United Citizens United

[00:04:57] Archive Clips: Citizens United.

Citizens United was the worst court decision in modern American history.

[00:05:13] David Sirota: The Citizens United Opinion overturned decades of campaign finance laws. The Supreme Court's decision built upon the precedents of those previous cases that were engineered by the master plan. The ruling non ironically insisted that quote, independent expenditures, including those made by corporations, do not give rise to corruption or the appearance of corruption.

That's a direct quote. And from that assertion, the ruling then declared that such corporate spending to buy elections can never be limited. That landmark decision opened the floodgates, allowing a tidal wave of corporate and billionaire money into American politics, often hidden from the public eye.

Here's former President Barack Obama at a press conference talking about the Citizens United ruling during his second term.

[00:06:05] Barack Obama: There aren't a lot of functioning democracies around the world that work this way. Where you can basically, uh, have. Millionaires and billionaires, bankrolling, uh, whoever they want, however they want, in some cases undisclosed.

And what it means is ordinary Americans are shut out of the process.

[00:06:22] David Sirota: In the years since the 2010 Citizens United decision, there's been a 28 fold increase in election spending.

[00:06:29] Archive Clips: This 2024 election cycle is predicted to be the most

expensive IT history. The Kamala Harris campaign said it raised almost $1 billion in the build up to the election.

The sums are staggering. $118 million in counting that Musk has contributed to a Trump Allied group. Where did it all come from and where did it go, and

[00:06:48] David Sirota: was it worth it? According to data from the Roosevelt Institute, nearly 20% of all spending during the 2024 federal election came from mega donors and their families.

A total of $2.6 billion. Still Citizens United left a few guardrails in place like campaign contribution limits, but now. Those last remaining regulations could be destroyed in the coming months. The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear arguments in a lawsuit originally filed by Future Vice President, JD Vance, and his fellow Republicans in Congress.

Their goal. To reverse the Supreme Court's 2001 ruling that protected limits on coordinated campaign spending. They want to eliminate all restrictions on political parties, coordinated spending with candidates if those restrictions are killed off. Party committees could become pass through conduits, allowing big donors to avoid current campaign finance limits and deliver much bigger cash contributions to lawmakers who can then reward them with government favors.

This new lawsuit is part of a larger strategy to try to chip away at the remaining regulations limiting big money in politics. To support this JD Vance case, the master planners have conjured illegal fiction in an amicus brief submitted to the Supreme Court House. Republicans insisted that allowing unlimited coordinated spending between political parties and candidates would be totally fine because the money would be lumped together with donations from other contributors.

House Republicans argue that pooled political money, quote significantly dilutes the potential for any particular donor to exercise a corrupting influence over any particular candidate. In other words, they're asking the Supreme Court to believe that if a bank's CEO donated millions of dollars to a political party and the party spent that money in coordination with the candidate's campaign.

That money couldn't possibly influence how that lawmaker drafts span legislation. Right? It's a ridiculous argument, but they're making it with a straight face to the US Supreme Court. But you might be wondering, wait, doesn't the public want limits on campaign donations? If getting money out of politics is a popular idea, shouldn't the government be supporting the existing laws?

Well, earlier this year, Donald Trump's solicitor general ended the Justice Department's support of the current law. The Solicitor General also submitted a brief to the Supreme Court asking them to strike down current law if the old campaign finance law is overturned. Even more money could flood into the Republican and Democratic national Committees, allowing for even more direct collaborations between mega donors, political parties, and candidates.

In other words, this JD Vance case is a very, very big deal. Think of it as Citizens United 2.0. So after the Trump administration bailed on defending current law, who did the US Supreme Court assign to defend the last remaining threads of campaign finance regulations, a conservative attorney named Roman Martinez.

He served as a clerk for Chief Justice John Roberts in 2010, exactly when Roberts engineered the original Citizens United ruling. This same conservative attorney now charged with defending the last remaining campaign finance statutes. He also recently helped the Chamber of Commerce pressed justices to limit the scope of federal anti-bribery laws.

Could somebody play that old Chevy Chase clip here? Isn't that a conflict of interest? Like Citizens United in 2010, this new Supreme Court case only questions a narrow aspect of campaign finance law, the part that governs how much money political parties can spend in coordination with their candidates.

But just like Citizens United, the court could go way beyond the narrow issues in this case. And use the case as an opportunity to create a whole new precedent outlawing all campaign contribution limits. The court is set to hear the case during its current term, depending on how justice's rule. By the 2026 midterm election, we could be living under a whole new Citizens United 2.0 paradigm.

Where campaign donations to candidates and the potential for billionaires to buy elections are truly unlimited. And even if this JD Vance case fails, there's one more case also on the horizon. It aims to make it almost impossible for prosecutors to enforce federal anti-bribery laws. We'll hear more about that case after the break.

Welcome back to Lever Time. While the Republican Party pushes the Supreme Court to overturn campaign finance laws and kill campaign contribution limits, the court is also being petitioned to hear a separate case taking aim at federal anti-bribery laws.

[00:12:04] Archive Clips: Former Cincinnati City Council member pg sit and field has just been sentenced to 16 months in prison.

[00:12:11] David Sirota: PG Sittenfeld was arrested after an FBI Sting Caught him accepting $20,000 of campaign contributions as he supported a local development project that donors wanted.

[00:12:21] Archive Clips: Sittenfeld, of course, was found guilty on federal charges of bribery and attempted extortion.

[00:12:27] David Sirota: Sittenfeld was a rising democratic political star before all this unfolded.

He went from being the favorite in Cincinnati's mayoral race to being a convicted felon. He was convicted for taking what prosecutors called a bribe, and he paid the price. The system worked right. Well, not exactly. Sittenfeld was then pardoned by President Donald Trump, and Sittenfeld is now appealing his conviction by his own admission.

He's the first person ever to appeal a case after he's been pardoned and he's teaming up with a Trump connected law firm. He's being represented by Trump's former solicitor General, and he has the support of an army of former elected officials. Clearly, this case is less about one shady municipal deal in Cincinnati and more about eliciting a whole new Supreme Court precedent, making it even harder to prosecute public corruption cases if Seinfeld's appeal is approved by the Supreme Court.

It would join a decade long string of decisions, overturning bribery convictions that includes cases involving former Virginia Governor Bob McDonald aids to then New Jersey, governor Chris Christie, associates of New York, governor Andrew Cuomo, and a former mayor of Portage, Indiana. In that former mayor's case, the court went so far as to declare that a public official reaping a payment from the recipient of government contracts is not necessarily engaging in illegal bribery.

But is really just accepting a legal quote gratuity. It kind of makes you wonder why is the Supreme Court so chill about bribery?

[00:14:05] Archive Clips: Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas is responding to growing criticism about his lavish trips funded by a major GOP donor.

[00:14:12] Ted Lieu: Justice Samuel Alito also accepted lavage gifts.

From another conservative billionaire and didn't disclose it.

[00:14:20] David Sirota: Oh, right. While Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito were secretly accepting gifts from billionaires, they were overseeing cases that helped tear down bribery laws in their view, the real problem in American politics is not egregious corruption.

But instead overly strict anti-corruption laws, Seinfeld's case aims to weaken whatever's still left of the federal bribery statute, and it offers a novel new theory. His lawyers suggest that pay-to-play culture is now so pervasive. That it should no longer even be considered a prosecutable crime.

Perhaps you remember this

[00:15:00] Chris Hayes: last month, Donald Trump summoned a who's who of top lobbyists and executives from the oil and gas industry to the upscale La Quinta slash bribery palace. He calls Mar-a-Lago. And proceeded to solicit a billion dollars from the fossil fuel companies to get 'em elected as multiple outlets have now reported

[00:15:17] David Sirota: that specific incident was cited in Sittenfeld Supreme Court petition as proof that pay-to-play corruption is not a problem.

It's just a regular part of doing political business. The petition complains that in the Trump oil donor situation, quote, a prosecutor could doubtless present this meeting alone as at least ambiguous evidence of a quid pro quo. Therefore, if Seinfeld's conviction is allowed to stand. The petition argues that politicians would be quote, open to prosecution if they say anything during these often informal, unscripted conversations that can be read to even hint at a possible quid pro quo.

I. In the past, the Supreme Court may have evaluated the merits of these two cases and issued narrow rulings honoring past precedents, but in the era of the Roberts Court. Judicial respect for past precedent has often been completely ignored on campaign finance matters. By now you're probably thinking, okay, soda.

So the Roberts Court is about to give Citizens United an upgrade and blow the doors off of whatever's left of bribery laws. Is there anything we can do to stop this political disaster, to find a path out of our current nightmare? Let's zoom out a bit and take a look at the backers of the original Citizens United case.

The case takes its name from a small media corporation called Citizens United. In 2008, citizens United produced a little notice documentary film called Hillary the movie. Over the course of 90 minutes, the film painted Hillary Clinton. As a monster, she is steeped in controversy. Steeped

[00:17:00] George Stephanopoulos: in sleazes.

Ruthless, vindictive,

[00:17:03] Archive Clips: venal. Sneaky,

[00:17:06] George Stephanopoulos: ideological. Intolerant.

[00:17:09] Archive Clips: Liar is a good

[00:17:10] George Stephanopoulos: one. Scares the hell outta

[00:17:12] David Sirota: me. Under the old campaign laws, the Federal Election Commission issued an opinion saying the film's distribution would've been electioneering. That could be limited in an alternate universe. The story could have ended there.

But instead, citizens United went to court challenging the Federal Election Commission's opinion, not because they necessarily cared about the movie, but because they saw a chance to elicit a corruption legalizing scheme hiding behind the First Amendment. As one of the cases legal architects told us in an interview for our new book, the case was carefully engineered.

To give the new conservative court an opportunity to ignore legal precedent and quote, go big. It's hard to ignore the parallels with today with these two new cases, conservative groups hope that their arguments over campaign finance and bribery laws will give the Supreme Court, which is now far more conservative than it was in 2010.

Another chance to go big. Further eroding the laws that govern our elections and limit corruption. It's hard to tell how much more the American public can take. Corruption isn't an academic issue or a low level concern. It's the crisis creating every other problem.

[00:18:33] Archive Clips: Corruption is why they just defunded nursing homes to cut taxes for the rich.

[00:18:38] David Sirota: That's Georgia Democratic Senator John Ossoff.

[00:18:40] Archive Clips: Corruption is why you pay a fortune for prescription. Corruption is why your insurance claim keeps getting denied. Corruption is why hedge funds get to buy up all the houses in your neighborhood, driving you out of the market, and then your corporate landlord ignores your calls during a gas leak.

Corruption is why that ambulance costs $3,000 after you just had to get your choking toddler to the hospital.

[00:19:04] David Sirota: But even if these two new Supreme Court cases further legalize corruption and weaken our democracy, not all is yet lost in the weeks ahead. Right here on Lever Time, we're gonna take a deeper look at some of the potential changes that could defeat Citizens United 2.0 and pull this country out of its nosedive.

We're gonna take you to the state that's taking matters into its own hands. Montana is undoing Citizens United

[00:19:29] Chris Hayes: and

[00:19:30] David Sirota: your state can too. And we're gonna look at a new vision for campaign finance that could put a cap on the influence of oligarchs once and for all.

[00:19:38] Archive Clips: More than 100 candidates from across the state and political spectrum have already signed up for New York State's new public campaign finance program.

[00:19:45] Adam Schiff: Thanks to you, we've raised the maximum amount of money we can spend to this race.

[00:19:48] David Sirota: But first, we're gonna tell you about a proposed amendment to the Constitution.

[00:19:52] Adam Schiff: Today I'm joining my colleagues to reintroduce my constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United. To affirm what should be obvious that our democracy is not for sale.

[00:20:02] David Sirota: That's all coming up on the next episode of Lever Time. Thanks for listening to another episode of Lever Time. Check out our brand new book, master Plan, the Hidden Plot to Legalize Corruption in America. You think you know the story of corruption, but trust me. You don't know the half of it. It's been secret until now.

Get the book by using the link in our show notes or going to lever news.com/book. Lever Time is a production of the Lever. This episode was produced by me, David Sirota and Natalie Bettendorf. It was edited and mixed by Ron Doyle. Our theme music is by Nick Campbell. You can subscribe to Lever Time on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeartRadio, the PRX mobile app, or wherever you get your podcast.

For ad free episodes, exclusive bonus content and access to the lever's, entire archive of investigative journalism, please consider becoming a premium subscriber. Head over to lever news.com to learn more about becoming a paid subscriber, or click the link in this episode. Show notes. I'm David Cerda.

We'll be back next week with a new episode of Leverone.