From the Washington Free Beacon: A dark money group of left-wing environmental activists has been quietly “training” judges overseeing climate-related lawsuits, hosting them at multi-day, all-expenses-paid seminars in locales like Napa Valley and Palm Beach. Judges who attend these luxury retreats—where they are subject to indoctrination—are not required to report them in ethics disclosures.
At the “Judicial Leaders in Climate Science” seminars, representatives of the activist group, the Climate Judiciary Project, present to the judges contested claims on climate and other environmental issues as settled, scientific fact. Judges who attend the seminars are also expected to make a year-long commitment to participate in CJP events, take online classes, and, perhaps most importantly, help identify and recruit other judges who have influence over environmental law. The secretive program is designed to function like a judicial Tupperware party, with an ever widening circle of judges recruited to normalize controversial and often unsubstantiated climate theories.
A trove of previously unseen documents obtained by the Washington Free Beacon, including dozens of internal emails, provides a new window into the otherwise opaque operations of the CJP, a subsidiary of the nonprofit Environmental Law Institute, which claims to be “nonpartisan” but has deep ties to the climate movement’s far left.
While neither the Environmental Law Institute (ELI) nor the Climate Judiciary Project (CJP) are required to disclose their donors, the IRS filings of other nonprofit organizations show they include left-wing charities like the Picower Foundation—recently renamed the Freedom Together Foundation—which has recently focused on “democracy, gender, and racial justice.” The late Jeffry Picower, whose massive fortune now funds the Freedom Together Foundation, was the single largest beneficiary of Bernard Madoff’s Ponzi scheme.
The report notes that Paul Hanle, a former Obama adviser, is the group’s founder.
Judges who participated in CJP programs were invited on all-expenses-paid trips to vacation destinations, the report states, noting that attendance does come with strings attached.
The Free Beacon also noted there is a connection to China. See excerpt below:
The president of CJP’s parent group, ELI, Scott Fulton, also urged a colleague to downplay the involvement of the China office of ClientEarth at a Hawaii conference that was sponsored by ELI in 2020. ClientEarth is an activist group that is controversial for working closely with the Chinese government on environmental regulations, eschewing pro-democracy efforts.
The initiative, run by the Climate Judiciary Project (CJP), presents contested claims about the climate as settled science while encouraging participating judges to recruit their colleagues to the program—like a judicial Tupperware party. pic.twitter.com/NOO1JadYaN
— Washington Free Beacon (@FreeBeacon) March 12, 2026
Internal emails and presentations obtained through open records requests reveal a structured recruitment strategy targeting judges involved in environmental lawsuits.
In one message, CJP founder and former Obama adviser Paul Hanle celebrated the fact that judges in nearly all… pic.twitter.com/SNpiglv1oQ
— Washington Free Beacon (@FreeBeacon) March 12, 2026
Participation in the CJP initiative comes with its perks, particularly for modestly paid judges who often hold their positions until retirement.
— Washington Free Beacon (@FreeBeacon) March 12, 2026
READ MORE:https://t.co/A4DfgtdT3l
— Washington Free Beacon (@FreeBeacon) March 12, 2026
READ MORE of the bombshell report from the Washington Free Beacon.
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