If you’re like me you were startled when SCOTUS made the all too rare decision to tell Trump NO on his tariffs. What’s even more surprising is it was a conservative legal non-profit that led the fight. Yes, a handful of old-school conservatives still exist and are willing to fight for traditional conservative principles instead of MAGA crap. The group spent millions getting the tariffs overturned, and asked the beneficiaries, the corporations who got the most benefit for donations to replenish the millions they spent. They might as well have asked Trump to reimburse them!
None other than the Wall Street Journal lays out what, and what has not transpired. Sarah Albrecht’s conservative non-profit The Liberty Justice Group went where others feared to tread in challenging Trump. And beat Trump and his insane tariff policy. Businesses including large corporations cheered as the process went on, mostly from the sidelines. However so fearful were many prior regular donors of Trump they mostly watched from the sidelines and in many cases cut off financial support:
Large companies stood to receive a windfall if the tariffs were struck down as a result of Liberty Justice Center’s work. Albrecht reached out to some of the companies that had filed for refunds, including Costco, hoping they would pitch in on the legal fight by making a donation to her organization—to no avail.
The reply from Costco came quickly. “Our company’s nonprofit donations are focused on education and health efforts, which would not include litigation matters of the type you are pursuing,” the company’s general counsel wrote.
Costco didn’t respond to a request for comment.
A few months after that callous ‘you’re on your own’ brush off SCOTUS’ ruling striking down the tariffs was issued. It was the biggest win in the center’s history but at $3.5 million a costly one. Costco was far from the only potential beneficiary to sit outside a lightweights corner, shoving their fighter into the rings against the heavyweight champion saying ‘hit him, deck him, knock him out baby.’ Willing to collect their portion of their boxers share of the purse, but not at all willing to get in the ring, trade punches and get bloodied.
Still, you’d think that since Albrecht’s group prevailed those who’d be getting literally double their bonus money would chip in as a way of saying thanks. After all, they not only made out passing along the bulk of the costs of the tariffs to consumers, now THEY instead of all of us who actually in the end paid Trump’s ‘Tariff Tax’ THEY get the money back they paid to the government when they paid the tariffs to get their imported products/goods released. Rest assured none of them will feel any sense of shame for not passing along some savings to you and me!
As I noted the group’s donors ran from them well before the entire case and appellate process played out:
But when it came to challenging Trump’s tariffs, the group’s most conservative donors started fleeing before the Supreme Court even got involved.
“I couldn’t convince them that this was the right thing to do,” Albrecht said.
The group spent its typical annual budget on the tariff litigation and says it lost a little over 30% of its donors because of the case. In the short term, it was able to make up what it lost in donations thanks to a boost in funding from existing benefactors and contributions from new donors, but Albrecht said some of those new donors only gave because of the tariffs case and “probably won’t come back.”
The WSJ cited a moderate Democrat who did actually send a donation of $100k. A novelty socks wholesaler, Mike Barr kicked in after the Liberty Justice Center filed back in April 2025. In his statement he referred to the ‘the enemy of my enemy is my friend’ philosophy for supporting a conservative group that usually spends time challenging Democratic causes. He did raise a point that should have gotten a lot more attention from journalists but hasn’t:
“I’m more angry at the Chamber of Commerce” and other business organizations that chose not to sue, Barr said. “Why did they leave this to an organization like Liberty Justice Center?”
The chamber decided not to take legal action when Trump’s levies were first imposed because it thought the tariffs would just be reapplied under a separate statute, according to a person familiar with the group’s thinking. It did file an amicus brief at the Supreme Court supporting the center’s arguments that Trump lacked the power to impose the tariffs under a 1977 emergency powers law.
He’s got a point. The Chamber of Commerce isn’t a commercial entity and supposedly looks after business (both small and large) interests and it’s not like Trump could cripple their profits and/or ruin their business! Yet they sat on their hands. At least until it looked like for once SCOTUS would actually stand up to Trump. Pretty weak from where I sit. Well, it’s sometimes said no good deed goes unpunished and a conservative group has learned their fellow conservatives have the same attitude towards them that conservative elected types and businesses have towards regular American’s. In the words of President Obama as he slammed them repeatedly in his 2008 DNC speech (and since) “You’re on your own.”
In the meantime, as anyone reading this knows all too well despite the original tariffs being lifted (to be replaced by a standard 10% one, much less in most cases than before) prices are NOT going down. Nope, now that prices got jacked up corporate America has no intention of giving up it’s newfound added profits.
Friends, I know everyone begs you for money. I promise, among all those asking for spare change, we are the smallest and the hardest working. We’re a group of old, disabled people, except for one writer in his mid-50s. The rest of us are in our sixties and seventies, and this is a labor of love. All we’re asking for is the chance to keep telling the truth about Trump and help ensure democracy survives. If you can help, please do. Thank you. Ursula
