Hollywood Actor Leonardo DiCaprio Caught Funneling Dark Money for Left-Wing Scheme

By
David Rufful
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OPINION | This article contains the author's opinion.

Hollywood actor and left-wing climate activist Leonardo DiCaprio has been caught inside a scheme to spearhead climate nuisance lawsuits nationwide.

Documents analyzed by Fox News revealed that DiCaprio’s non-profit foundation awarded grants to a dark money group which, in turn, funneled money to a law firm hired to file climate nuisance lawsuits.

Emails obtained by government watchdog group Government Accountability & Oversight (GAO) showed that the scheme was initiated in 2017 through correspondence between UCLA climate professor Ann Carlson and major philanthropist Dan Emmett.

The pair hired law firm Sher Edling to raise money for its efforts to sue oil companies over alleged climate change deception on behalf of state and local governments.

Terry Tamminen, who serves as CEO of Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation, agreed to lend their financial support to Chuck Savitt, who worked as the law firm’s director of strategic client relationships.

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Carlson is now working as a senior Biden administration official.

In 2017, Emmett wrote, “Chuck Savitt who is heading this new organization behind the lawsuits has been seeking our support. Terry Tamminen in his new role with the DiCaprio Foundation has been a key supporter.”

More on this story via Fox News:

Emmett also forwarded a message Savitt sent him three days earlier on July 19, 2022 asking for his support, according to the records. Savitt mentioned in that email that Sher Edling’s first lawsuits were filed with the support of the Collective Action Fund for Accountability, Resilience and Adaptation, a fund managed at the time by dark money group Resources Legacy Fund (RLF).

“Wanted to let you know that we filed the first three lawsuits supported by the Collective Action Fund on Monday,” Savitt had told Emmett. “These precedent setting cases call on 37 of the world’s leading fossil fuel companies to take responsibility for the devastating damage sea level rise – caused by their greenhouse gas emissions – is having on coastal communities.”

Savitt also offered to set up a meeting between Emmett and Vic Sher, a partner at Sher Edling.

The email correspondence took place two months before the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation publicly announced it would contribute $20 million in grants to various climate and conservation causes. The group’s announcement, which has since been deleted but remains archived, included a grant to the RLF “to support precedent-setting legal actions to hold major corporations in the fossil fuel industry liable,” closely mirroring Savitt’s language.

“These grantees are active on the ground, protecting our oceans, forests and endangered species for future generations – and tackling the urgent, existential challenges of climate change,” DiCaprio said at the time.

Tamminen added that the organization believed it needed “to do as much as we can now, before it is too late.” The announcement didn’t mention Sher Edling.