# Leonard Leo — "crush liberal dominance" > [!quote] "[I] just said to myself, 'Well, if this can work for law, why can't it work for lots of other areas of American culture and American life where things are really messed up right now?'" > — Leonard Leo, private Teneo Network donor video (recorded c. 2022; revealed by ProPublica / Documented, March 2023) ## Context From a slick private video Leo recorded for potential donors to the Teneo Network, obtained and published by ProPublica and Documented in March 2023. ProPublica reports that in the video Leo "declared… he planned to 'crush liberal dominance' across American life" — extending the model he used to build the [[Federalist Society]] and the Supreme Court's conservative supermajority to "lots of other areas" of culture: corporations, journalism, entertainment, academia. Leo controls the $1.6 billion [[Marble Freedom Trust]], making him one of the most powerful private actors in conservative politics. ## Why this matters The mission statement of the judicial-capture architect's next phase, in his own voice: a self-conscious plan to replicate the Federalist Society's institutional-takeover playbook across every domain of American life, funded by record [[Dark Money]]. It is the central receipt for understanding Leo not as a single-issue judicial operative but as the would-be builder of a comprehensive parallel conservative establishment. ## Verification - **Source:** [ProPublica / Documented — Teneo videos and documents](https://www.propublica.org/article/leonard-leo-teneo-videos-documents) (March 9, 2023); [NPR](https://www.npr.org/2024/11/24/nx-s1-5199049/federalist-society-conservative-supreme-court). - **Status:** Verbatim. The "crush liberal dominance" phrase is attributed to Leo's video by ProPublica; the couch-video sentence is a direct transcript quote. Private donor communication, disclosed via leaked internal recordings. ## Related quotes - [[Grover Norquist - drown it in the bathtub]] — an earlier movement architect's candid statement of an institutional-capture aim.