George Soros spent years trying to buy prosecutors.
Now the Left has a new target – and it isn't politicians or voters.
Florida just caught them going after the judges themselves.
The Climate Cartel's Courtroom Play
Attorney General James Uthmeier dropped a subpoena Thursday on the Environmental Law Institute and its Climate Judiciary Project – a Washington, D.C.-based outfit that has been recruiting judges to attend its trainings and conferences designed to push a net-zero carbon agenda from the bench.
The subpoena invokes Florida's Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act.
That's the same law used to go after shady telemarketers and used car dealers.
Uthmeier is using it on a group that disguised ideological conditioning as judicial education.
The subpoena demands internal records on three things: every communication the group made to persuade Florida judges to attend their events, every dollar of funding they've received and where it came from, and every piece of correspondence with major climate activists and litigation funders.
That last category is the one that should terrify them.
The New Venture Fund – a left-wing dark money operation – wired $1.3 million to the Environmental Law Institute in 2024.
At the same time, it sent $2.3 million to Sher Edling, the law firm that files climate lawsuits against oil companies on behalf of Democratic cities and states.
The same organization bankrolling the lawyers was bankrolling the people training the judges.
Uthmeier called it exactly what it is.
"The Climate Cartel is trying to hijack our judicial system to accomplish their net-zero carbon agenda," he said. "The courts are not the place to push policy, let alone policy that can't win at the ballot box."
https://twitter.com/AGJamesUthmeier/status/2044845085196464291?s=20
This Already Happened in Hawaii
It already played out in one courtroom, and the result should make every American furious.
Honolulu sued ExxonMobil, Shell, Chevron, Sunoco, and BP in 2020 – represented by Sher Edling, that same law firm.
The case landed before Hawaii Supreme Court Chief Justice Mark Recktenwald.
Here's what nobody mentioned at the time: Recktenwald had been training with the Environmental Law Institute.
He presented at an ELI event in December 2022 on "Hurricanes in a Changing Climate and Related Litigation" – while the Honolulu case was pending before his court.
He presented another course for ELI in April 2023 titled "Rising Seas and Litigation: What Judges Need to Know About Warming-Driven Sea Level Rise."
In late 2023, Recktenwald ruled the case could proceed.
The plaintiff's lawyers were training the judge handling their case.
Sen. Ted Cruz called it out directly during a Senate hearing, saying the Climate Judiciary Project had "established a de facto monopoly on climate-related instruction for the judiciary" and accusing it of "ex parte indoctrination, pressuring judges to set aside the rule of law."
https://twitter.com/JCNSeverino/status/1960451513098416314?s=20
Those are the events Florida just subpoenaed the records on.
What Comes Next
When those records come out, watch what happens.
If even one Florida judge who attended ELI training later ruled in a climate case, Uthmeier has grounds for something far larger than a consumer protection investigation.
This is the same model Trump has been dismantling since taking office – the Soros-backed prosecutor network, the DEI bureaucracies, the NGO ecosystem embedded in federal agencies.
All of it runs on the same logic: capture institutions that are supposed to be neutral, then use them to advance a political agenda that can't survive a democratic vote.
Florida just extended that fight into the one place the Left thought was untouchable.
The Climate Cartel spent years working in the dark.
James Uthmeier just turned on the lights.
Sources:
- Florida Office of Attorney General, "Attorney General Uthmeier Investigates Environmental Law Institute for Potential Consumer Protection Violations," MyFloridaLegal.com, April 16, 2026.
- Tyler O'Neil, "Playing Both Ends of the Court," The Daily Signal, December 6, 2025.
- Thomas Catenacci, "Left-Wing Dark Money Giant Funds Dem Lawsuits Against Oil Companies and Trainings for Judges on How to Handle Those Cases," Washington Free Beacon, December 1, 2025.
- Thomas Catenacci, "Left-Wing Climate Group Is Quietly Training Judges How to Handle Global Warming Cases," Fox News, January 2024.
- Staff, "Climate Litigation at SCOTUS: Will the Court Grant Cert in Sunoco v. Honolulu?" Federalist Society, January 8, 2026.
