The Federalist Society and Dark Money

I heard about this via the Weekly Sift, but it comes from Dahlia Lithwick, writing for Salon. Her article is an interview with Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, and it's called How the Roberts court abandoned bipartisan consensus. This is the part the Weekly Sift quoted and that made me go to the article and post here:

Take a look at the situation right now. United States Supreme Court justices are selected based on a Federalist Society operative, on his recommendations, while the Federalist Society is taking large amounts of dark money from big donor interests. So there’s dark money behind the selection of justices. Then when the selection is made, the confirmation battles for those nominees are fought with dark money. The Judicial Crisis Network took two $17 million–plus contributions, one to push Garland out and Gorsuch in, and one to push Kavanaugh through and onto the court.

There’s every likelihood that the donor in those two $17 million contributions was the same donor, which, if that were true, means that somebody paid $35 million–plus to influence the composition of the United States Supreme Court. And we have no idea who that person is and what their interests are before the court. That’s not a good place to be. 

And:

Most Americans have no idea that under Chief Justice Roberts, there are 73 of these 5–4 partisan decisions in which there was a big Republican donor interest implicated. And in 73 out of 73, the big Republican donor interest won.

I wonder how many Americans have heard of the Federalist Society? I imagine I'm in the >1 percent on that question, and also who knows that the group keeps its funding sources completely secret. But I had never heard of the Judicial Crisis Network, and I had no idea how many cases were decided by a 5–4 vote.

Does this seem like the way an independent judiciary should be run?