Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right (61 page)

“they start wetting their pants”
: Stephen Moore, former Club for Growth president. Matt Bai, “Fight Club,”
New York Times Magazine
, Aug. 10, 2003.

The president and Boehner
: In the grand bargain, Obama would agree to cut spending in exchange for the debt ceiling extension and for the Republicans “cleaning out the garbage” in the tax code, as Boehner put it. Boehner wouldn’t agree to raise tax rates, but he would agree to eliminate some tax loopholes.

He was among the House’s top
: See Alec MacGillis, “In Cantor, Hedge Funds and Private Equity Firms Have Voice at Debt Ceiling Negotiations,”
Washington Post
, July 25, 2011.

So although one study
: The 2006 study is cited in Hacker and Pierson,
Winner-Take-All Politics
, 51.

“Boehner begged David”
: Author interviews with family adviser, a congressional source, and Emily Schillinger.

“With no basis in fact”
: Mann and Ornstein,
It’s Even Worse Than It Looks
, 23.

Cantor later told
: Ryan Lizza, “The House of Pain,”
New Yorker
, March 4, 2013.

“I think he came in truly trying”
: Neera Tanden, interview with author.

Or so they thought
: Brad Friedman, “Inside the Koch Brothers’ 2011 Summer Seminar,”
The Brad Blog
, June 26, 2011.

The New York Times
’s resident
: Nate Silver, “Is Obama Toast? Handicapping the 2012 Election,”
New York Times Magazine
, Nov. 3, 2011.

“Wouldn’t it be easier”
: Halperin and Heilemann,
Double Down
, 345.

Four years later
: For more on Christie’s record, see Cezary Podkul and Allan Sloan, “Christie Closed Budget Gaps with One-Shot Maneuvers,”
Washington Post
, April 18, 2015, A1.

“Who knows?”
: Friedman, “Inside the Koch Brothers’ 2011 Summer Seminar.”

Christie had campaigned
: See Joby Warrick, “Foes: Christie Left Wind Power Twisting,”
Washington Post
, March 30, 2015.

From the start
: Freedom Partners made grants of $1 million or more in 2012 to the following groups:

Center to Protect Patient Rights: $115 million

Americans for Prosperity: $32.3 million

60 Plus Association: $15.7 million

American Future Fund: $13.6 million

Concerned Women for America Legislative Action Committee: $8.2 million

Themis Trust: $5.8 million

Public Notice: $5.5 million

Generation Opportunity: $5 million

Libre Initiative: $3.1 million

National Rifle Association: $3.5 million

U.S. Chamber of Commerce: $2 million

American Energy Alliance: $1.5 million

David Koch’s group
: Technically, the Kochs’ spokesmen insisted that David Koch was only chairman of the Americans for Prosperity Foundation, but in his introduction of David Koch during the June 2011 seminar Kevin Gentry seemed to describe him simply as “chairman of Americans for Prosperity.”

For the Koch network
: The Koch Industries PAC donated $43,000 to Walker’s gubernatorial campaign, and David Koch donated $1 million to the Republican Governors Association in 2010.

Some, like the liberal
: John Podesta, the founder of the Center for American Progress, in 2015 signed on as the chairman of Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign.

“the big government”
: See Jason Stein and Patrick Marley,
More Than They Bargained For: Scott Walker, Unions, and the Fight for Wisconsin
(University of Wisconsin Press, 2013), 37.

The Bradley Foundation
: See Patrick Healey and Monica Davey, “Behind Scott Walker, a Longstanding Conservative Alliance Against Unions,”
New York Times
, June 8, 2015. The paper reported that in 2009 the Bradley Foundation gave a grant of $1 million to the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute and provided one-third of the budget of the MacIver Institute, both of which drew up lists of proposals for the incoming governor, at the top of which was curbing the power of the state employee unions. The MacIver Institute had numerous ties to the Wisconsin chapter of the Koch advocacy group Americans for Prosperity. Three members of the MacIver Institute’s board also served as directors of Americans for Prosperity in Wisconsin. One of these, David Fettig, was a Koch seminar attendee as well.

“one of the most powerful”
: Daniel Bice, Bill Glauber, and Ben Poston, “From Local Roots, Bradley Foundation Builds a Conservative Empire,”
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
, Nov. 19, 2011.

As a college dropout
: In 2010, an offshoot of Americans for Prosperity calling itself Fight Back Wisconsin organized Tea Party rallies across the state featuring Scott Walker, who was then Milwaukee county executive. Later, the secretly funded group helped him get out the vote. Meanwhile, in a bit of philanthropic back-scratching, the Bradley Foundation in 2010 gave $520,000 to the Americans for Prosperity Foundation.

“We go back”
: Adele M. Stan, “Wall Street Journal Honcho Shills for Secret Worker ‘Education’ Program Linked to Koch Group,”
Alternet
, June 3, 2011.

Once in office
: See Michael Isikoff, “Secret $1.5 Million Donation from Wisconsin Billionaire Uncovered in Scott Walker Dark-Money Probe,”
Yahoo News
, March 23, 2015. Laurel Patrick, Walker’s press secretary, issued a strong denial to
Yahoo News
concerning any favoritism shown Menard. She denied “that the governor had provided any special favors for Menard and said Walker was ‘not involved’ in the decision to award his firm tax credits, which were approved by the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation for expansions of existing facilities in order to create jobs. (She also noted that Menard’s firm had been awarded $1.5 million in tax credits in 2006 under Democratic Gov. James Doyle. State records show these were reduced to $1 million when the company failed to meet its full job-creation requirements.)

According to a 2007 profile
: See Mary Van de Kamp Nohl, “Big Money,”
Milwaukee Magazine
, April 30, 2007.

One employee described
: Ibid.

That case was followed
: See Bruce Murphy, “The Strange Life of John Menard,”
UrbanMilwaukee.com
, June 20, 2013. Donald Trump’s wife, Melania, also filed a separate $50 million suit against John Menard, claiming damages from his cancellation of a promotional deal with her line of skin care products. Menard’s lawyers described the Trump deal as void.

Soon after the governor
: Diane Hendricks donated $10,000, the maximum allowable amount, to Walker’s campaign in 2011, while her company donated $25,000 to the Republican Governors Association. In 2012, she donated $500,000 to fight the effort to recall Walker. In 2014, she donated $1 million to Wisconsin’s Republican Party.

Thanks to complicated accounting
: According to an account by Cary Spivak, “Beloit Billionaire Pays Zero in 2010 State Income Tax Bill,”
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
, May 30, 2012, the tax director for Hendricks’s company, ABC Supply, described her zero personal state income tax payment as an anomaly, stemming from the reclassification of her company from an S corporation, in which she had paid the taxes, to one in which the company paid the $373,671 state tax bill for the second half of 2010.

Walker unwittingly lent
: The prank phone caller was Ian Murphy. For his account, see “I Punk’d Scott Walker, and Now He’s Lying About It,”
Politico
, Nov. 18, 2013.

After Walker triumphed
: See Adam Nagourney and Michael Barbaro, “Emails Show Bigger Fund-Raising Role for Wisconsin Leader,”
New York Times
, Aug. 22, 2014.

According to one tally
: See Brendan Fischer, “Bradley Foundation Bankrolled Groups Pushing Back on John Doe Criminal Probe,” Center for Media and Democracy’s PR Watch, June 19, 2014.

“We will not step back”
: Schulman,
Sons of Wichita
, 304.

“The secret of my influence”
: Novak, Maguire, and Choma, “Nonprofit Funneled Money to Kochs’ Voter Database Effort, Other Conservative Groups.”

“Koch has been targeted”
: Matea Gold, “Koch-Backed Political Network Built to Shield Donors,”
Washington Post
, Jan. 5, 2014.

This consolidation of power
: Total traceable election spending by all candidates, parties, and outside groups reached $7 billion, while the amount spent by independent groups and super PACs reached $2.5 billion, of which $1.25 billion came from traditional PACs and $950 million came from super PACs with unlimited contributions. In comparison, $1.576 billion was spent by the Democratic and Republican Parties, according to the Federal Election Commission’s report “FEC Summarizes Campaign Activity of the 2011–2012 Election Cycle,” April 19, 2013. Spending by “outside political committees” topped party spending for the first time, according to the FEC commissioner Ellen Weintraub’s statement, Jan. 31, 2013.

On its own
: I reached the sum of $407 million by adding up disclosures, but Matea Gold, in her excellent post-2012 feature on the Koch network’s spending, cites the figure $400 million. See Gold, “Koch-Backed Network, Built to Shield Donors, Raised $400 Million in 2012 Elections,”
Washington Post
, Jan. 5, 2014.

Politico
’s Kenneth Vogel
: See Vogel,
Big Money
, 19.

No previous year
: For statistics on the increasing concentration of donations, see Lee Drutman, “The Political 1% of the 1% in 2012,” Sunlight Foundation, June 24, 2013.

“the financial engine”
: Hayley Peterson, “Internal Memo: Romney Courting Kochs, Tea Party,”
Washington Examiner
, Nov. 2, 2011.

There he delivered a keynote
: For details of Romney’s budget speech, see Donovan Slack, “Romney Proposes Wide Cuts to Budget,”
Boston Globe
, Nov. 5, 2011.

“They’re the ones that suffer”
: “Quotes from Charles Koch,”
Wichita Eagle
, Oct. 13, 2012.

“These guys all talk”
: Dan Pfeiffer, interview with author.

“confident glow”
: Schulman,
Sons of Wichita
, 341.

“Why is it fair”
: For George W. Bush’s comment about Adelson, and Adelson’s comment on income taxes, see the groundbreaking piece by Connie Bruck, “The Brass Ring,”
New Yorker
, June 30, 2008.

The odd couple had been friends
: See Vogel,
Big Money
, 79.

“a bias in favor”
: Jewish Channel, Dec. 9, 2011.

Within weeks, Adelson donated
: Sheldon Adelson said of Gingrich’s statement, “Read the history of those who call themselves Palestinians, and you will hear why Gingrich said recently that the Palestinians are an invented people.” By the time Adelson’s money arrived, Gingrich had finished fourth in Iowa, and he was about to be buried in New Hampshire. Adelson later pressed Romney to switch his position on Pollard, but Romney resisted. Romney did, however, sit next to Adelson at a fund-raiser in Israel at which he suggested that Palestinians were culturally inferior to Israelis.

“delusional and fabricated”
: Chris McGreal, “Sheldon Adelson Lectures Court After Tales of Triads and Money Laundering,”
Guardian
, May 1, 2015.

“We were killing them”
: Jim Messina, interview with author.

“an ideologically driven”
: Steve Schmidt, interview with author.

“There are five or six people”
: Obama spoke in February 2012 at the home of the Costco co-founder Jeff Brotman according to Vogel,
Big Money
, vii.

“in a bind”
: Arnold Hiatt, interview with author.

In an early 2012 meeting
: Messina’s conversation with Obama as described in Halperin and Heilemann,
Double Down
, 314.

Experts ranging
: Summers and Fukuyama expressed their concerns in a fascinating essay by Thomas Edsall, “Is This the End of Market Democracy?,”
New York Times
, Feb. 19, 2012.

“Bill can’t do that”
: Hillary’s private disapproval is recounted in Halperin and Heilemann,
Double Down
, 381.

“under most circumstances”
: Gilens,
Affluence and Influence
, 1.

“new orthodoxy”
: Jonathan Weisman, “Huntsman Fires at Perry from the Middle,”
Wall Street Journal
, Aug. 21, 2011.

“Republicans have finally found”
: Dave Weigel, “Republicans Have Finally Found a Group They Want to Tax: Poor People,”
Slate
, Aug. 22, 2011.

“They did it wrong”
: Koch Industries adviser who asked not to have his name disclosed because he continues to work with the company. Interview with author.

“some donors who were part”
: Deposition of Tony Russo, State of California Fair Political Practices Commission Investigative Report, Aug. 16, 2013.

“There is not a Koch
network
”
: Vogel,
Big Money
, 201.

This was more than $1
: See Barker and Meyer, “Dark Money Man.”

“My first thought”
: Teresa Sharp, interview with author.

“I don’t want everybody to vote”
: Ari Berman,
Give Us the Ballot: The Modern Struggle for Voting Rights in America
(Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2015), 260.

Spakovsky’s most recent book
: Encounter Books was founded in 1998 with a $3.5 million grant from the Bradley Foundation to publish “serious non-fiction.” In an interview with the author, Hans von Spakovsky denied that he was motivated either by racial discrimination or by partisan gain. “I believe in having fair elections,” he said. “My interest is in making sure that the person who people vote for the most wins.” See Jane Mayer, “The Voter-Fraud Myth,”
New Yorker
, Oct. 29, 2012.

True the Vote, meanwhile
: True the Vote was forced to return the funds it received from the Bradley Foundation after the IRS had not yet granted the organization tax-exempt status.

“What the president’s campaign”
: Romney’s November 14, 2012, call to his contributors is described in Halperin and Heilemann,
Double Down
, 468.

Approximately $15 million
: Peter Stone first revealed the size of the Adelsons’ contributions to Americans for Prosperity in his piece “Watch Out, Dems: Sheldon Adelson and the Koch Brothers Are Closer Than Ever,”
Huffington Post
, June 14, 2015.

“Our goal of advancing”
: According to Robert Costa, “Kochs Postpone Postelection Meeting,”
National Review Online
, Dec. 11, 2012, Charles Koch’s e-mail to his donor network said, “We are working hard to understand the election results, and, based on that analysis, to re-examine our vision and the strategies and capabilities required for success.”

David Koch, in fact
: Charles Koch continued to maintain, “I’m neither Republican nor Democrat,” even though his political operation was fused with that of his brother.

“One ten-thousandth”
: Drutman, “Political 1% of the 1% in 2012.”