The Koch Network: Dark Money and the Reshaping of American Politics

Fred Koch built his early fortune with a refinery process that was used by the Third Reich. In a 1938 letter, he wrote that the only sound countries in the world were Germany, Italy, and Japan. He also helped the Soviet Union build oil refineries, but after watching his Soviet acquaintances purged by Stalin, developed a deep hatred of communism. His sons Charles and David inherited both the fortune and the worldview. Fred sometimes beat his boys with a branch, and Charles emerged as the dominant son at a young age. The family hired a research historian, Clayton Coppin, to compile a family history, then fired him.

Fred Koch was one of the 11 original members of the John Birch Society, a far-right organization founded in 1958. The Birchers wanted to impeach Chief Justice Earl Warren after the Supreme Court voted to desegregate public schools in Brown v. Board of Education. Fred wrote that "The colored man looms large in the communist plan to take over America." The Society called out President Kennedy, who denounced their "crusades of suspicion and extremism."

Charles Koch attended the Freedom School, led by radical thinker Robert LeFevre, which had close ties to the John Birch Society. LeFevre taught that government is "a disease masquerading as its own cure." The school taught a revisionist version of American history where robber barons were heroes and the Gilded Age was America's golden era. Taxes were denigrated as theft. The school taught that the Civil War shouldn't have been fought — the South should have been allowed to secede, and slavery was "a lesser evil than military conscription." A group of Illinois teachers who attended notified the FBI, describing the school as advocating "no government, no police department, no fire department, no public schools."

John Olin worried government regulation and socialism were becoming too powerful after WWII. The Olin Foundation funded Heritage Foundation, American Enterprise Institute, and Hoover Institution. Under president William Simon (author of A Time for Truth), the foundation funded a "counter-intelligentsia" to challenge liberal intellectuals. Simon argued: "Ideas are weapons indeed the only weapon with which other ideas can be fought" and "Capitalism has no duty to subsidize its enemies." The foundation placed conservative scholars inside elite universities through the "beachhead strategy."

Rather than funding small conservative colleges, the Olin Foundation and allied donors focused on penetrating elite universities like Harvard, Yale, and Princeton. They established research centers, faculty programs, fellowships, and sponsored chairs. The strategy relied on "subtlety, indirection, and perhaps even some misdirection" — appearing academically legitimate while advancing conservative ideas. By funding over 100 faculty fellows, they cultivated a generation of conservative scholars who would influence law, policy, and public debate.

Conservative foundations began directing contributions through DonorsTrust, described by MotherJones as the "dark-money ATM of the conservative movement." Between 1999 and 2015, DonorsTrust redistributed $750 million from pooled contributions under its own name, masking the original donors. As criticism of climate change denial funding increased around 2007, tens of millions from fossil fuel interests seemed to disappear from public disclosure — while anonymous money from DonorsTrust simultaneously increased to fund the counter-movement.

From 2005 to 2008, a single source — the Kochs — poured nearly $25 million into dozens of organizations fighting climate reform. Marc Morano, funded by Scaife, Bradley, and Olin foundations, attacked climate scientists, describing James Hansen as a "wannabe Unabomber" and Michael Mann as a "charlatan." The hacked "Climategate" emails were taken out of context, triggering investigations and death threats against scientists. Seven independent inquiries exonerated the scientists. Public concern about climate change among all but hard-core liberals collapsed.

The Kochs built their own political operation rivaling the Republican National Committee. In 2014 alone, AFP had 550 staff in Florida. AFP organized Tea Party rallies, forged letterheads from the NAACP to create fake grassroots opposition to climate legislation, and sent operatives to heckle politicians at town halls. Glenn Beck claimed cap-and-trade was about "redistributing wealth and water rationing." The AFP ran ads portraying environmentalists as wealthy hypocrites — an irony given the Kochs' own inherited fortunes.

The 2010 Supreme Court decision allowed unlimited corporate political spending as long as it was directed to independent outside groups. The ruling paved the way for unlimited donor contributions. Many of the lawyers who pushed for Citizens United were trained in Koch-funded centers at law schools. Polls showed large majorities of Americans — both Republicans and Democrats — favored strict campaign spending limits.

The Kochs directed millions into universities, funding centers that required influence over professors hired. BB&T bank chairman John Allison oversaw grants to 63 colleges — all required to teach Ayn Rand. At West Virginia University, the Koch-funded Center for Free Enterprise required the school to give donors say over professors. One funded professor wrote a book claiming mine safety regulations hurt workers. The Kochs also funded high school programs teaching that FDR didn't alleviate the Depression, minimum wage laws hurt the poor, and lower pay for women was not discriminatory.