Bill Berkowitz for BuzzFlash: The Kochtopus Is Firing on All Cylinders to Build an Army of GOP Doorknockers
Charles Koch (DonkeyHotey)
August 26, 2022
By Bill Berkowitz
It’s big. It’s broad. It’s powerful. It’s focused. And it’s firing on all cylinders. Just about everywhere you look on the political landscape, whether it’s lobbying against President Joe Biden’s agenda, flooding the airwaves with ads in West Virginia and Arizona targeting Sen. Joe Manchin and Sen. Kristin Sinema, targeting public health measures during the coronavirus pandemic, helping fund Wisconsin’s Ron Johnson in his race to stay in the Senate, and building an army of GOP doorknockers for the midterm election, Koch money is in play. The Koch network is committed to pouring tens of millions into the midterm elections. According to the Washington Examiner, Koch’s Americans for Prosperity has “employed 400 full-time field staff across 35 states and plans to spend most of its cash earmarked for 2022 on direct voter contacts in 300 races across the country.”
According to the Center For Media And Democracy’s Exposed project, “28 organizations controlled by Charles Koch, his family, and Koch Industries executives spent a combined $1.1 billion, primarily to influence public policy and politics in the U.S., and had net revenues of $2.7 billion.” CMD’s Connor Gibson reported that Koch money “has financed groups involved in extremist activity, including the 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol. In 2022, Koch Industries is still financing many politicians who worked to invalidate the results of the 2020 presidential election, despite signaling to Politico that it would discontinue such support.”
“In 2020 alone,” Gibson pointed out, “Koch-controlled organizations raised over $2.2 billion dollars—more than four times what they collectively raised the previous year. Before 2020, the combined revenue of Koch-controlled nonprofit organizations never reached the $1-billion threshold, with $501.1 million in net revenue in 2019, and approximately $650 million in 2018.”
According to Gibson, Charles Koch’s “donor network remains unique in terms of its size and its top-down control by executives of a single company. … [with] the bulk of Koch's ‘Stand Together’ cluster of groups ha[ving] coordinated around election and policy priorities.”
Although an occasional Trump skeptic and critic, Charles Koch and his network have never abandoned Trumpist policies, especially considering that, according to a Public Citizen report, more than 40 Trump administration officials had close ties to the Koch Brothers.
In November 2017, Public Citizen reported “political operatives and policy experts who have worked at numerous Koch-funded organizations have fanned out through the Trump administration. They are taking jobs influencing policies about taxes, the environment, energy, education and health care – in service of the hard-right anti-government agenda espoused by right-wing organizations created by the Kochs.”
While these days, Koch money has financed the killing of Biden administration initiatives, during the Trump administration its Americans for Prosperity (AFP) “spent ‘seven figures’ on efforts to support the confirmations of Trump nominees Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney-Barrett—for a total price tag of between $3 and $10 million.”
Forbes recently reported that in Wisconsin, Koch Industries has given $6.5 million to Americans for Prosperity Action, another super PAC supporting Ron Johnson’s bid for re-election. “That group spent over $2.8 million … and gave him a 100% on its scorecard that grades votes on key legislation. ‘Sen. Johnson’s strong track record on fiscal responsibility and his opposition to regulatory overreach earned this endorsement,’ Americans for Prosperity Action wrote in a May press release.
In early August, Time magazine reported Koch forces were in Nevada to call attention to high gas prices by funding gas fill ups at $2.38 per gallon, instead of nearly twice that amount. “For years,” Time’s Philip Elliott reported, “the super-rich who share Koch’s vision of a limited government standing on pure capitalism and whittled-down regulations pumped millions onto airwaves looking to shape the public debate, whether it was on advocacy for policy or, to a lesser degree, explicit political outcomes.
“In 2020, Americans For Prosperity [a major player in the Koch network] and its affiliates spent almost $48 million in outside money to boost its pet projects and deny Joe Biden the presidency by dinging the Democratic brand. Their final tally? More than 59 million voter contacts—the combined populations of California and New York—across 272 distinct races, according to an internal report obtained by TIME. Their rate of victory? An eye-popping 78%, even with Biden prevailing.”
Koch money does not only go to funding domestic policy initiatives. According to Politico, The Atlantic Council received a $4.5 million grant in 2020 for use in setting up the New American Engagement Initiative, “a national security effort that planned to use the funds to support scholars and their efforts, which was housed under the Council’s Scowcroft Center for Security and Strategy,” according to Politico.
Politico reported that The Atlantic Council recently cut ties with Koch over differences related to U.S.-Russia policy.
And then there’s Chase Koch, the son of Charles Koch, who runs a 501(c)(4) “social welfare” political nonprofit called CCKC4, that eceived a giant cash injection of $1,2 billion in 2020, making it a potentially formidable political player,” CMD’s Connor Gibson and Arn Pearson reported in early August. ().
According to CMD, “Chase Koch is the president of Koch Disruptive Technologies (KDT), the venture capital subsidiary of Koch Industries.
The cash transfer increased CCKC4’s assets from $37 million in 2019 to $1.3 billion at the close of 2020.”
“CCKC4 presumably stands for ‘Charles Chase Koch 501(c)(4).’ It has no website nor public presence. CCKC4 filed IRS 990s in 2018 and 2019, and received its determination letter confirming its tax-exempt status in May of 2020,” CMD reported.
“The $1.2 billion funding of CCKC4 makes it one of the largest section 501(c)(4) social welfare organizations and a potential major player in political and policy circles,” said Lloyd Hitoshi Mayer in an email to the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD). Mayer, a law professor at the University of Notre Dame Law School, added: “The decision by the Koch family and these other billionaires to fund 501(c)(4)s at this level demonstrates the important role that 501(c)(4)s serve as philanthropic and policy vehicles that are not subject to the limits on political activity faced by 501(c)(3) charities.”
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