Marble Freedom Trust

The mission that the Marble trust lists in its tax filings is vague. Marble Freedom Trust is registered under a section of the tax code — 501(c)4 — for organizations that focus primarily on what the Internal Revenue Service calls “social welfare” and as a result are exempt from paying taxes. Such groups are allowed to engage in political advocacy, but their supporters are not entitled to deduct donations from their income taxes. Supporters can, however, donate assets that a nonprofit can sell and avoid capital gains taxes on the sale. Mr. Seid donated 100 percent of the shares of Tripp Lite to Mr. Leo’s nonprofit group before the company was sold to an Irish conglomerate for $1.65 billion. Marble Freedom Trust, then received all of the proceeds from the sale, Marble trust paid $940,000 for legal fees related to the sale to Sullivan & Cromwell, a leading New York law firm that specializes in business transactions. Other law firms paid by Marble include Kirton McConkie, a Utah corporate firm that was paid $140,000, and Holtzman Vogel, a Virginia firm specializing in political law that was paid more than $100,000. Two other funds that steer money into conservative politics, Donors Trust and Schwab Charitable Fund, received a total of $59.1 million from the Marble trust, according to the filing. Despite more than $1 billion in assets, Leo’s Marble Freedom Trust has no publicly known website, and its street address is actually a UPS drop box in Utah. Meanwhile, however, Marble disclosed spending nearly $250,000 on “office expenses.” Its disclosed phone number, with an area code for southeastern coast of Florida, has been held for years — well before Marble was created — by Leo’s longtime collaborator Neil Corkery, an anti-gay rights and anti-abortion operative central to Leo’s court capture network.