Little is known about the anonymous donors who are funding JCN, but the group has ties to Leonard Leo, a Catholic fundamentalist and longtime executive at the Federalist Society who is one of Trump’s
top outside judicial advisers. According to a
2018 Daily Beast investigation, Leo is at the center of the secretive JCN, which has been successful in boosting two other conservative judges to the Supreme Court—Samuel Alito and John Roberts—in addition to Gorsuch and Kavanaugh.
JCN also has ties to a number of other conservative groups with a vested interest in the Senate quickly confirming a Trump pick, including the National Rifle Association. JCN contributed $250,000 to the NRA in 2018, on top of $1 million it gave the group in 2016 and 2017,
according to OpenSecrets. Another nonprofit group with ties to Leo, the public policy think tank America Engaged, gave $950,000 to the NRA in 2017, and the NRA ran ads in support of both Gorsuch and Kavanaugh.