The supreme court justice Samuel Alito and a German aristocrat and “networker of the far right” from whom Alito accepted expensive concert tickets, are both linked to an ultra-conservative Catholic US group whose board members include the dark money impresario Leonard Leo and the founder of a hardline anti-abortion Christian group, documentation reviewed by the Guardian shows.
In 2018, Gloria von Thurn und Taxis, told the New York Times about attending a dinner hosted in Rome by James Harvey, an American cardinal and hardliner, and sponsored by the Napa Institute, a group founded by Timothy R Busch, a conservative Catholic businessman and political activist.
Leo, 59, is an activist and fundraiser who worked on the confirmations of all six rightwing justices who now dominate the supreme court, Alito among them. Now controlling billions of dollars in funding for rightwing groups, Leo is a director of the Napa Institute Legal Foundation, also known as Napa Legal Institute, and the Napa Institute Support Foundation.
Also among Napa Legal Institute directors is Alan Sears, founder of the Alliance Defending Freedom. The ADF was the principal driver of Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the case in which the supreme court ended the federal right to abortion, with Alito writing the ruling handed down in June 2022.
In 2017, the Napa Institute hosted a two-day symposium at the Trump hotel in Washington, during which Alito attended a dinner.
Writing for the Washington Post, John Gehring, an author and reporter, said the symposium “mixed traditional Catholic religious practices with moments that felt uncomfortably nationalistic”, including a “reading in the rosary booklet from [the Confederate general] Robert E Lee that [seemed] … stunningly insensitive at best … at a time when the ‘alt-right’ and white nationalism are basking in the glow of renewed attention and proximity to power”.
Alito is not the only supreme court justice with links to the Napa Institute. In September 2021, as part of a series sponsored by the group, Justice Clarence Thomas spoke at the University of Notre Dame.
“The court was thought to be the least dangerous branch and we may have become the most dangerous,” Thomas said, attacking judges he deemed to be “venturing into areas we should not have entered into” – meaning politics.
Thomas and Alito, however, have been the subject of numerous reports about undeclared gifts from rightwing donors, fueling an ethics crisis now stoked by news of Alito’s acceptance of concert tickets valued at $900 from von Thurn und Taxis.
Von Thurn und Taxis, 64, is a former punk turned billionaire, also known as Princess TNT, with close links to the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) party. News of her gift to Alito was accompanied by reporting of further links between the two, including a picture of Alito and another rightwing justice, Brett Kavanaugh, posing at the supreme court in 2019 with the German socialite; Cardinal Gerhard Ludwig Müller, a German hardliner; and Brian Brown, a prominent US anti-LGBTQ+ campaigner.
Von Thurn und Taxis told German media that Alito and his wife, Martha-Ann, attended a concert at her castle in Bavaria last year as “private friends”. In emails to the Guardian, the aristocrat clarified: “We never speak about politics nor religion at the table, because we believe it limits the possibility to make friends.”
The socialite, who rejects the label “networker of the far right”, also said it would “never occur” to her to speak about “touchy subjects” like abortion with someone she knew socially, and claimed not to know that “the Dobbs decision” referred to the supreme court abortion rights ruling written by Alito.
In a speech at the National Conservatism Conference in Brussels last April, von Thurn und Taxis said European leaders were “financ[ing] the killing of our offspring” in an apparent reference to the availability of reproductive rights in Europe. She added: “Does this make any sense? Is there some kind of racism? Are we not supposed to reproduce?”
Alito and his wife have also been outspoken about abortion and other hot-button cultural issues. In June, the progressive activist Lauren Windsor released recordings in which Justice Alito agreed that the US should “return … to a place of godliness” and said, “I don’t know that we can negotiate with the left”. Regarding her supposed persecution from those on the left, his wife said: “Look at me, look at me. I’m German. I’m from Germany. My heritage is German. You come after me, I’m gonna give it back to you.”
Caroline Ciccone, president of Accountable.US, which campaigns for court reform and which highlighted links between the German socialite, the Napa Institute and Alito, said: “When a supreme court justice like Samuel Alito pals around with influential rightwing figures like Princess Gloria von Thurn und Taxis and Leonard Leo, it raises concerns about fairness and impartiality.
“These relationships aren’t just about gifts. They reflect a deeper effort to manipulate our legal system in ways that could impact the rights of everyday people.”
Ciccone added, “What’s disturbing is that this happens behind closed doors – at parties at the Bavarian castle – away from public scrutiny. We’re talking about relationships that can affect everything, from reproductive rights to environmental protections” – both the subject of recent supreme court rulings widely seen as victories for the political right.
“The American people deserve a judiciary that serves justice impartially,” Ciccone said, “not one that can be bought.”
