Thread by @docrussjackson

#THREAD on yet another Koch rebrand, based on this article by @EXPOSEDbyCMD.

Charles Koch is the best known of the libertarian billionaires who have worked to end welfare, reduce tax, & ultimately replace democracy with something more akin to oligarchy.

exposedbycmd.org/2022/08/30/cha…

In the UK, Koch is just one of the better known 'libertarian' billionaires who help fund a global network of 'think tanks' (in reality opaquely funded & often extremist lobbying organisations), in Britain based mainly on Tufton St, which wield enormous influence over the UK Govt.

Charles Koch is unique among corporate CEOs. He controls a multibillion-dollar fleet of nonprofits that he & other wealthy business people have built into a massive influence machine over the past 20 years. The network has a significant impact on US courts, politics, & media.

This year, Charles Koch’s political influence apparatus is undergoing yet another round of restructuring, following its recent financial growth, expansion of organizations, and new dark money grantmaking arrangements.

The @EXPOSEDbyCMD team recently reported on the network’s ballooning revenues of $2.2 billion in 2020, the emergence of Chase Koch’s CCKC4 as a potentially major player on the US political scene, and its use of the National Philanthropic Trust to hide its financial transactions.

Frequent shifts in structure often correspond with election cycles.

The changes help keep Koch’s dark money organizational structure opaque, especially since US Internal Revenue Service disclosure requirements are so antiquated that they lag behind real time by a year or more.

Most of Charles Koch’s advocacy and political organizations have operated under the Stand Together Chamber of Commerce, as of 2020, while the Charles Koch Institute controlled most of the Koch funding vehicles.

sourcewatch.org/index.php/Stan…

Constant changes make it hard to keep track. This visual depicts the structure of Koch's nonprofit organizations since the most recently known changes, along with the companies & family trusts controlled by the Koch family (excluding most of the subsidiaries of Koch Industries):

The links between UK & US 'think tanks' (partisan usually anti-abortion, anti-Net Zero, anti-union & anti worker, consumer & environmental protections lobbying groups) are quite well documented. The better known ones include the IEA, TPA, Heritage & CATO:

https://twitter.com/docrussjackson/status/1562410418253041664?s=20&t=b-VBAk8UdjKi7GfqEFTWlg

Last year, @EXPOSEDbyCMD revealed that the US Supreme Court was hearing oral arguments in Americans for Prosperity Foundation v. Rodriquez, an important case which which concerned transparency around donor disclosure.

exposedbycmd.org/2021/04/26/maj…

Although California purports to keep donor information confidential, California has inadvertently published more than 1,700 Schedule B forms on a public website, over a period ranging from 2012 until the eve of trial in this case.

Donors to nonprofit groups across the political spectrum reasonably fear that their private information will become public if it’s handed over to the State, & will limit their associations accordingly, causing significant financial harm to nonprofit organizations they support.

The Americans for Prosperity Foundation v. Rodriquez case challenged the constitutionality of a California law that requires nonprofits operating in the state to provide regulators with a copy of their Internal Revenue Service (IRS) form listing their largest donors.

The Americans for Prosperity Foundation, a $19 million nonprofit in the Koch political network & its allies argued the rule infringes on their First Amendment rights, opening donors up to harassment & deter their giving, despite the info being kept confidential from the public.

The case was consolidated with a challenge by the Thomas More Law Center, a Christian Right litigation group. The Court of Appeals upheld California’s disclosure law as justified by the state’s need to ensure that tax-exempt funds are not used for improper purposes.

AFPF & the hundreds of organizations that have signed amicus briefs in support of the Koch network’s position hope the newly expanded right-wing majority on the Supreme Court will reverse that decision & lay the groundwork for future rulings against dark money disclosure laws.

Fifty, or over one-third of the organizations that signed onto amicus briefs in support of AFPF, are affiliate or associate members of the State Policy Network, a web of right-wing “think tanks” and tax-exempt organizations in 50 states, Washington, DC, Canada, & the UK.

State Policy Network groups play an integral role in moving a corporate & libertarian agenda in the states by providing academic legitimacy & testimony for legislation, often backed by the American Legislative Exchange Council, who Truss met with in 2018.

https://twitter.com/docrussjackson/status/1562410437278310400?s=20&t=b-VBAk8UdjKi7GfqEFTWlg

The State Policy Network works across states to “defund and defang“ unions, oppose climate change regulations, lower wages, cut taxes and business regulations, tighten voter restrictions, privatize education, and hide the identities of political donors.

The State Policy Network launched People United for Privacy (PUFP) in 2016 to work specifically on policies to protect nonprofit donors from public scrutiny and to support efforts at the state and federal efforts to combat disclosure requirements.

Like other front groups, their website does not disclose its sponsors or the organization behind it. In 2019, PUFC distributed a messaging kit calling nonprofit donor disclosure a “problem” & provided tips on how to spin donor disclosure as an issue of “privacy” & “free speech.”

People United for Privacy is funded entirely by dark money vehicles in the network of Trump’s “judge whisperer” Leonard Leo, with $500,000 from the now defunct Wellspring Committee in 2018 and $500,000 from the Rule of Law Trust in 2019, IRS filings show.

The People United for Privacy Foundation received all of its 2018 funding from #DonorsTrust, an associate member of the State Policy Network, and it got $616,718 from SPN and $100,000 from Searle Freedom Trust in 2019.

https://twitter.com/docrussjackson/status/1536701953312444419?s=20&t=b-VBAk8UdjKi7GfqEFTWlg

People United for Privacy is also leading a coalition to oppose the For the People Act (H.R. 1), a bill that would enhances nonprofit transparency among other democracy improving measures, and organized a letter to congressional leaders to “reject” the bill.

The letter mischaracterized the bill, as have others on the Right, and makes sweeping false claims that it “would dramatically alter the First Amendment protections that Americans have enjoyed since the founding of our country.”

In July 2021, The Supreme Court struck down California’s law that required charities to privately disclose their top donors to the state attorney general, a ruling that could carry implications for political donation disclosures & “dark money” spending.

washingtonpost.com/politics/court…